Written by Linh Tran and Ellina Sorokovikova
Cover designed by Linh Tran
When people who are supposed to love you, hurt you instead. About domestic abuse, feeling worthless and ways to heal.
FROM LOSING SELF-CONFIDENCE TO NEGOTIATING YOURSELF
“I’d really love to wake up with someone by my side, hugging and feeling his smile. It’s this closeness, which I really miss, being weird with someone. It’s a different feeling when you can say that you belong. Not like someone owns you, but that you belong to someone”, said Alexandra, a woman that was abused all her life. First, her father had beaten her when she was a child, later, she has gone through it again with her partner.
Domestic violence is a type of behavior in any relationship that is used to control and gain power over an intimate partner. It includes physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats. According to WHO, one in three women globally have experienced violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime. And Alexandra is one of them.
She has experienced not only physical, but also psychological abuse. Alexandra’s husband would tell her that she is not good enough no matter what she does. After some time she started believing it. “Even if you are doing great things. You don’t know about it. You don’t notice because it’s normal for you.”, she shared with us. People who experience this kind of verbal abuse lose confidence in themselves, they are being degraded to lower than human beings and eventually they lose spark in their life, said psychotherapist Knud Ramskov.
Listen to the Alexandra’s story here:
Therapist Knud Ramskov explained to us how domestic abuse starts and why it is important to stop negotiating with yourself about leaving relationships.
A QUARTER OF WOMEN IN DENMARK SUFFERING FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
According to 2018 World Bank statistics, Denmark is among European countries with the highest proportion of women who have faced domestic violence at least once in their lifetimes – 23%. Worse than in Denmark the situation is in the United Kingdom (24%), Latvia (25%), Moldova (27%) and Türkiye (32%).
The World Bank data is derived from surveys conducted from 2000 to 2018 and researchers pointed out that there is the culture of silence surrounding domestic violence that prevents women from speaking out.
The scale of the problem seems worse with more recent Eurostat data. In 2021, 45% of women in Denmark reported being a victim of psychological, physical or sexual abuse. The higher percentage is in Slovakia and Finland, with more than a half respondents having experienced domestic violence.
Considering the scale of the problem, it’s surprising that Denmark doesn't have any official statistics on the matter. That’s what Iben Birgitte Pedersen from Statistics Denmark confirmed to us over the phone.
Behind all these numbers there are real women that have to survive violence from the people that were supposed to love them. Alexandra still enjoys watching romantic movies but she doesn’t think she could trust someone again.