Effects on Victim

  • Loss of appetite, eating disorders

  • Weight loss

  • Gastrointestinal disorders

  • Headaches

  • Nervous, Anxious

  • Bruises, broken bones

  • Self-blame

  • Confusion

  • Guilt

  • Shame

  • Mistrust of self & others

  • Feelings of worthlessness, low self-esteem

  • Central nervous system disorders

  • Sadness, Depression

  • Suicidal

  • Terror

  • Fear

  • Death

Battered Women’s Syndrome

  1. Believe violence is their fault.

  2. Inability to place responsibility for violence elsewhere.

  3. Fears for her life and/or children’s lives.

  4. Irrational belief that abuser is omnipresent and omniscient.

Adapted from: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, National Center for PTSD

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

  • Flashbacks

  • Nightmares

  • Anxiety

  • Emotional numbing

  • Insomnia

  • Hypervigilance

  • Avoidance of traumatic triggers and talking about the problem

  • Feeling detached and estranged

  • Explosive or inhibited anger

  • Helplessness

  • Sense of being different from others

  • Attribute total power to perpetrator or become preoccupied with relationship to them, including preoccupation with revenge

  • Isolation, distrust, or repeated search for a rescuer

  • Sense of hopelessness and despair

  • Substance abuse

  • Self-mutilation, self-harm