It’s not your fault
The violence committed against you is not your fault, and you are never responsible for the choices or actions of another person, whether they are a partner, a family member, or even your child. You did not give them permission to violate your peace or your body, and no one, under any circumstances, has the right to harm you. Abusers often plant seeds of guilt and blame in your mind to keep you under their control, but this is a tactic to hide the truth: they are the ones choosing to cause harm, and they often need you far more than you need them.
Believe them
How someone treats you provides the only facts you need; their behavior is the true reflection of who they are in this moment, regardless of the excuses they provide. You are not responsible for their feelings, their bad days, or the hardships of their upbringing, as thousands of people face similar struggles without ever choosing to inflict harm or violence on others. If they use threats against you, believe them the first time, and know that you are not obligated to carry the weight of their choices or stay to fix a darkness that you did not create.
Emotions cloud focus
In a violent environment, emotions can often cloud your survival instincts; it is your logic and observation that serve as your greatest protection. By stepping back and observing their behavior objectively, you can see the person for who they truly are: someone who lacks the essential skills to manage their own life and the courage to seek professional help. Choosing to abuse others is a sign of deep internal failure, and recognizing their inability to grow or seek support allows you to see their actions as a reflection of their own brokenness rather than a reflection of your worth.
Your truth
When an incident occurs, create a mental distance between your core self and the chaos by practicing a “third-person view,” observing the event as if it were happening to someone else to protect your inner peace. To ensure your memory remains clear and untampered with, keep a private journal of the facts—recording the date, time, and specific actions—in a secure place the abuser cannot reach, such as a hidden folder on your phone or a draft email that is never sent. This act of recording is not just about documentation; it is a way to preserve your reality and keep your truth safe from the fog of gaslighting.
Anchor yourself
Trauma forces the mind to disconnect from the body as a survival mechanism, but this detachment can cloud your judgment and quiet the internal voice of your intuition. To regain clear thinking, your body needs to feel a sense of physical safety in the moment; when your mind begins to spin, you can anchor yourself by touching something physical—pressing your bare feet into the grass or holding an ice cube in your hand to shock your senses back to the present. By intentionally starting deep, slow breaths, you signal your nervous system to lower cortisol levels, allowing your logical brain to stay “online” so you can make decisions from a place of clarity rather than fear.
Mental vault
To make empowered choices, you must intentionally separate your emotional energy from your logical energy, creating a “mental vault” that holds your plans and your strength. Designate a specific, safe time of day to open this vault and focus on your action plan, but the moment the abuser is present, seal it tightly to prevent your true feelings or intentions from leaking into the environment. By keeping your path to freedom hidden and protected within your mind, you safeguard your vision from being sabotaged and ensure that your next steps remain entirely your own.
Zero-contact protocol
Once you have separated from the abuser, the most powerful step you can take is to cease all engagement and communication, reclaiming your power by focusing entirely on your own safety and sanity. While you cannot control their actions, you have full authority over your own boundaries; every abusive message or threat of harm should be reported to the Police immediately to ensure their behavior is documented. By filing these reports, you are building a formal pattern of behavior within the Police database, ensuring that if you ever need to call 111, the responding officers will have instant access to the history of the situation, providing you with a stronger layer of protection and professional support.
Child focused communications
When you share children with an abuser, your priority is keeping the communication strictly focused on the children’s needs while protecting your own peace of mind. You have the right to choose how this information is handled, and you are not obligated to be the direct recipient of their messages or outbursts. By identifying a trusted middle party—such as a safe family member, a professional service, or a dedicated co-parenting app—you create a vital buffer that keeps you safe and sane. This separation ensures that the children’s logistics are managed without allowing the abuser to have a direct line of sight or influence over your emotional well-being.
Scrambled thoughts
When an abuser is shouting or demeaning you, the chaos and noise are designed to scramble your thoughts and break your focus. To protect yourself, repeat a silent phrase in your mind—such as, “this is their storm, not my truth”—to act as a mental shield that keeps their words from penetrating your inner self. By consciously choosing this internal mantra, you build a barrier that leaves the abuse on the outside, ensuring that while the storm may be happening around you, it does not define your worth or compromise your mental health.
Actions not Talk
Those who choose to abuse often use the promise of getting help, seeing a counselor, or fixing themselves as a tactic to keep you tethered to the relationship or to shift the burden of their needs back onto you. While there are many support services available, true change only begins when the person choosing abuse accesses help independently and attends consistently; however, this rarely happens unless it is mandated by the Court. Even when Court-mandated, a program does not guarantee a change in behavior, as many will continue to argue, disagree with the support, and resist the accountability required to truly stop their pattern of harm.
Your rights
It is a fundamental truth that nobody has the right to inflict harm or violence upon you, and you have the absolute right to use every legal tool available to protect your life and your peace. If you are in immediate danger, you have the right to call the Police on 111 to intervene; you can also request that they remove the person from your home and issue a Police Safety Order (PSO) for up to 10 days, providing you with a critical window of time to access support services. Beyond the immediate crisis, you have the right to hold them accountable by laying charges through a formal statement, to permanently bar them from your property with a trespass order, and to safeguard your children by applying for parenting and protection orders through the court. Even for incidents that happened in the past, you have the right to call 105 to ensure those events are officially recorded, building a documented history that reinforces your safety and your right to live free from fear.
Physiological reset
If you feel a mental freeze or dissociation coming on, you need a quick, physical way to return to your body and break the cycle of panic. Splashing ice-cold water on your face or holding an ice cube in your hand creates a sudden sensory shock that forces your nervous system to snap out of its frozen state, instantly clearing the fog from your mind. This physiological reset lowers your heart rate and restores your ability to think logically, moving you from a place of helpless disconnection back into the present moment where you can regain control of your choices.
Staying Safe and Sane 