Our Issues
Types of Abuse
Violence & Abuse can come in many different forms. Domestic Violence includes abuse that is physical, sexual, emotional, economic, psychological, dating-related, focused on children and the elderly, and stalking. Learn more about the different forms below:
Domestic violence is a pattern of behavior used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner. Domestic violence can happen to anyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, education, religion, class, disability status, sexual orientation, or other characteristics. It can happen among couples who are married, living together, or dating.
Abuse can take many forms and often begins with the abuser exerting control over certain parts of their partner’s life. The abuse then progresses in frequency and intensity.
Forms of Abuse:
- Physical: Any forceful or violent behavior
- Emotional: Any abuse that attacks someone’s self-esteem and definitions of who they are
- Economic: The use of finances to control or limit a partner
- Psychological: Any abuse with the threat of violence, including fear, pain, and degradation
Many survivors and families realize after physical abuse begins that emotional, economic, or psychological abuse were present during the early stages of the relationship.
People tend to recognize domestic violence as the physical act of a male spouse or partner physically harming a wife or girlfriend. However, power and control issues are prevalent in all types of relationships and can include female abuse of a partner. Teen dating violence; violence within gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ+) relationships; violence against people with disabilities; and violence against Deaf people of all identities are often overlooked.
The term “domestic violence” is often referred to as “intimate partner violence.” All forms of intimate partner violence (IPV) can be traumatic.
1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men will experience physical violence from an intimate partner.
Women between the ages of 18 and 34 experience the highest rates of partner abuse.
Approximately 59% of New Mexico’s domestic violence incidents are never reported to law enforcement.
Children living in homes where there is domestic violence are at greater risk of repeating the cycle as adults. Boys are 10 times more likely to abuse a partner and girls are 6 times more likely to be abused.
Domestic violence is the leading cause of homelessness for women and families.
Doña Ana County has the highest rates for domestic violence in New Mexico and comprises 24% of all statewide domestic violence incidents.
The reality of domestic violence
- REALITY: No one deserves to be abused. The only person responsible for the abuse is the abuser. Physical violence, even among family members, is wrong and against the law.
- REALITY: There are many reasons why a person may not leave their abusive partner, including fear for themselves, their children, and even their pets. Not leaving does not mean that the situation is okay or that the victim wants to be abused. The most dangerous time for a person who is being abused is when they try to leave or after they have done so.
- REALITY: Although many abusive partners abuse alcohol and/or drugs, this is not the underlying cause of the abuse. Many abusive partners use alcohol and/or drugs as tools to assist in violent acts and then use the substance as an excuse to explain their violence.
- REALITY: Abusive partners are in control of their actions: they choose to be violent to their partner and hurt them in ways they might never hurt someone else. Their violence is about control over that person. They may otherwise present as peaceful and "charming" people in other relationships (friends, family, workplace, place of worship, etc.).
- REALITY: Domestic violence is not a personal problem; in fact, it affects everyone, from the children and family of those directly affected to friends and community members.
Warning signs of domestic violence
Do you…
- Feel afraid of your partner much of the time?
- Hear your partner saying you can't do anything right?
- Get embarrassed by your partner's behavior toward you?
- Believe that you deserve to be hurt or mistreated?
- Avoid topics or situations out of fear of angering your partner?
Abusive behaviors - when a loved one or caretaker…
- Humiliates, criticizes, or yells at you
- Blames you for their behavior
- Threatens to hurt you, your kids, or pets
- Makes you engage in sexual acts against your will
- Doesn't respect your choice to use birth control
- Acts jealous and possessive
- Keeps you from seeing friends and family
- Threatens to "out" you to family or co-workers
- Limits your access to money, necessities, and personal documents
- Withholds medication and limits your access to healthcare
- Constantly checks up on you (in person, phone/text, through social media)
- Posts inappropriate or sexually explicit messages on your website/blog
- Damages, breaks, or steals technology that you need to assist with daily living or to do your schoolwork or job
- Installs spyware or other computer software to monitor your online activity
- Threatens to kill or hurt him/herself if you leave
Concerned about a friend or loved one? Do they…
- Have frequent injuries resulting from "accidents?"
- Frequently and suddenly miss work or school or cancel plans?
- Receive a lot of calls/texts from their partner?
- Fear their partner, or refer to a partner's rages or behavior?
- Tend to have trouble saying no to anything that their partner asks for?
- Isolate from friends and family?
If you are unsure if you or someone you know is in a violent or controlling relationship, or if you have questions about getting help, call our 24-hour HOTLINE: 1-800-376-2272 (Doña Ana County) or 575-546-6539 (Luna & Hidalgo Counties).
Even if you don’t see any of your concerns listed here, you can call our HOTLINE to talk about your unique situation. Or you can click HERE to learn more about healthy relationships.
Sexual violence is any sexual behavior a person has not consented to that causes that person to feel uncomfortable, frightened, or intimidated is included in the sexual assault category. Physical sexual assault occurs when someone touches any part of another person’s body in a sexual way, even though clothes, without that person’s consent, including but not limited to forced sexual intercourse (rape), sodomy (oral or anal sexual acts), child molestation, incest, fondling and attempted rape.
The law generally assumes that a person does not consent to sexual conduct if he or she is forced, threatened or is unconscious, drugged, a minor, developmentally disabled, chronically mentally ill, or believe they are undergoing a medical procedure. Some examples of sexual assault include:
- Someone putting their finger, tongue, mouth, penis, or an object in or on your vagina, penis or anus when you don’t want them to.
- Someone touching, fondling, kissing, or making any unwanted contact with your body.
- Someone forcing you to perform oral sex or forcing you to receive oral sex.
- Someone forcing you to masturbate, forcing you to masturbate them, or fondling and touching you.
- Someone forcing you to look at sexually explicit material or forcing you to pose for sexually explicit pictures.
- A doctor, nurse, or other health care professional giving you an unnecessary internal examination or touching your sexual organs in an unprofessional, unwarranted, and inappropriate manner.
(See more at http://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault)
Child Abuse is purposeful and serious injury inflicted upon a child by a caregiver.
- Child neglect – most frequently reported form of child abuse and the most lethal; defined as the failure to provide shelter, safety, supervision or nutrition; can be physical, educational, or emotional.
- Physical neglect: refusal of or delay in seeking health care, abandonment, expulsion from the home or refusal to allow a runaway to return home, and inadequate supervision.
- Educational neglect: includes the allowance of chronic truancy, failure to enroll a child of mandatory school age in school, and failure to attend to a special educational need.
- Emotional neglect: includes such actions as marked inattention to the child’s needs for affection, refusal of or failure to provide needed psychological care, spouse abuse in the child’s presence, and permission of drug or alcohol use by the child.
- Physical abuse – physical injury inflicted upon the child with cruel and/ or malicious intent; includes but is not limited to: punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning, shaking, or otherwise bodily harming a child.
- Emotional abuse (also called psychological child abuse, verbal child abuse, or mental injury of a child) includes acts or omissions by parents or other caregivers that could cause serious behavioral, emotional, or mental disorders (e.g., bizarre forms of punishment, such as confining a child in a dark closet; extreme name-calling, etc.).
- Sexual abuse: includes fondling a child’s genitals, intercourse, incest, rape, sodomy, exhibitionism, or commercial exploitation through prostitution or the production of pornographic materials.
To report the crime of child abuse in New Mexico:
- From a cell phone dial #SAFE — #7233.
- From a landline, the number is 1-855-333-SAFE.
Youth & Dating Violence is a pattern of abusive behaviors used to exert power and control over a dating partner. Teens and young adults experience the same types of abuse in relationships as adults. This can include:
- Physical abuse: any intentional use of physical force with the intent to cause fear or injury, like hitting, shoving, biting, strangling, kicking, or using a weapon.
- Emotional abuse: non-physical behaviors such as threats, insults, constant monitoring, humiliation, intimidation, isolation, or stalking.
- Sexual abuse: any action that impacts a person’s ability to control their sexual activity or the circumstances in which sexual activity occurs, including rape, coercion, or restricting access to birth control.
While teens experience the same types of abuse as adults, often the methods are unique to teen culture. For example, teens often report “digital abuse” — receiving threats by text messages or being stalked on Facebook or Instagram.
(See more at http://www.breakthecycle.org)
Stalking is a pattern of repeated, unwanted attention, harassment, and contact. It is a course of conduct that can include:
- Following or laying in wait for the victim.
- Repeated unwanted, intrusive, and frightening communications from the perpetrator by phone, mail, and/or e-mail.
- Damaging the victim’s property.
- Making direct or indirect threats to harm the victim, the victim’s children, relatives, friends, or pets.
- Repeatedly sending the victim unwanted gifts.
- Harassment through the internet, known as cyberstalking, online stalking, or internet stalking.
- Securing personal information about the victim by: accessing public records, land records, phone listings, driver or voter registration), using internet search services, hiring private investigators, contacting friends, family, work, or neighbors, going through the victim’s garbage, following the victim, etc.
Learn more:
http://www.justice.gov/ovw/stalking
https://www.loveisrespect.org/resources/types-of-abuse/
Elder Abuse is physical, sexual, emotional or financial abuse of an elderly person, usually one who is disabled or frail by a caregiver (either in the person’s home or in an institution).
- Physical abuse – willful infliction of physical pain or injury, such as slapping, bruising, sexually molesting, or restraining.
- Sexual abuse – infliction of non-consensual sexual contact of any kind.
- Emotional (psychological) abuse – the infliction of mental or emotional anguish, pain or distress through verbal or non-verbal acts; including but not limited to: treating the adult as an infant, isolating from family or friends; prohibiting social contact.
- Financial or material exploitation – the improper/illegal use of an elder’s funds, property or assets including but not limited to: cashing checks without authorization, forging signatures, coercing or forcing the elder to sign legal documents, improper use of conservatorship, guardianship or power of attorney.
- Neglect – the intentional refusal or failure to provide goods or services necessary to avoid physical harm, mental anguish or mental illness, including but not limited to: abandonment, denial of food, basic hygiene or health related services.
- Self-neglect – characterized by the behavior of an elderly person that threatens their own health or safety.
(To report Elder Abuse call 9-1-1 or 1-800-797-3260)
Learn more here http://www.aoa.gov/AoA_programs/elder_rights
Financial abuse often operates in more subtle ways than other forms of abuse, but it can be just as harmful to those who experience it.
Modern conditions of stark economic inequality mean that financial security is directly tied to our health and wellbeing. No one has the right to use money or how you choose to spend it to control your actions or decisions, and no one should control your ability to work.
Examples of financial abuse include:
- Giving you an allowance or monitoring what you buy.
- Depositing your paycheck into an account you can’t access.
- Preventing you from seeing shared bank accounts or records.
- Forbidding you from working or limiting the hours you do.
- Preventing you from going to work by taking your car, keys, or other mode of transportation.
- Getting you fired by harassing you, your employer, or your co-workers.
- Hiding or stealing your student financial aid check or other financial support.
- Using your social security number to obtain loans without your permission.
- Using your child’s social security number to claim an income tax refund without your permission.
- Maxing out your credit cards without permission.
- Refusing to provide you with money, food, rent, medicine, or clothing.
- Using funds from your children’s tuition or a joint savings account without your knowledge.
- Spending money on themselves while preventing you from doing the same.
- Giving you presents or paying for things with the expectation of something in return.
- Using financial circumstances to control you.
Digital abuse is the use of technologies like texting and social media to bully, harass, stalk, or intimidate and control a partner. This behavior is often a form of verbal or emotional abuse, conducted online.
All communication in a healthy relationship is respectful, whether in person, online, or over the phone. It's never okay for your partner to use words or actions to harm you, lower your self-esteem, or manipulate you.
Examples of digital abuse include:
- Telling you who you can or can't follow or be friends with on social media.
- Sending you negative, insulting, or threatening messages or emails.
- Using social media to track your activities.
- Insulting or humiliating you in their posts online, including posting unflattering photos or videos.
- Sending, requesting, or pressuring you to send unwanted explicit photos or videos, sexts, or otherwise compromising messages.
- Stealing or pressuring you to share your account passwords.
- Constantly texting you or making you feel like you can’t be separated from your phone for fear that you’ll anger them.
- Looking through your phone or checking up on your pictures, texts, and phone records.
- Using any kind of technology (such as spyware or GPS in a car or phone) to monitor your activities.
- Using smart home technology, smart speakers, or security cameras to track your movements, communications, and activities.
- Creating fake social media profiles in your name and image, or using your phone or email to send messages to others pretending to be you, as a way to embarrass or isolate you.
Things to consider when dealing with Digital Abuse:
- You never have to share your passwords.
- You don’t have to send any explicit pictures, videos, or messages that you’re uncomfortable sending (“sexting”).
- Sexting can have legal consequences: nude photos or videos of someone under the age of 18 could be considered child pornography, which is illegal to own or distribute.
- It’s okay to turn off your phone or not respond to messages right away. You have the right to your privacy. (Be sure that the people who might need to reach you in an emergency still can.)
- Save or document threatening messages, photos, videos, or voicemails as evidence of abuse.
- Don’t answer calls from unknown or blocked numbers—your abuser may use a different line if they suspect you’re avoiding them. Check with your phone company to see if you can block numbers and how many you're allowed to block.
- Once you share a post or message, it’s no longer under your control. Abusive partners may save or forward anything you share, so be careful sending content you wouldn’t want others to see.
- Know and understand your privacy settings. Social media platforms allow users to control how their information is shared and who sees it. These settings are often customizable and may be found in the privacy section of the website. Know that some apps may require you to change your privacy settings in order to use them.
- Be mindful when checking in online, whether by sharing your location in a post or posting a photo with recognizable backgrounds.
- Ask your friends to always seek permission from you before posting content that could compromise your privacy. Do the same for them.
- Avoid contact with your abuser in any capacity, through technology, online, or in person. Consider changing your phone number if the abuse and harassment don’t stop.
Violence in Communities
Studies show that people with disabilities are more likely to experience abuse than people without them. Abuse is premised on power and control, and people with disabilities often face specific barriers to accessing help that make them more vulnerable to abuse.
The Equal Rights Center offers four keys ways that disability intersects with domestic violence:
- Abuse can cause temporary or permanent disability.
- People with disabilities experience higher rates of domestic violence, sexual assault, and abuse.
- Violence, assault, and abuse against people with disabilities often takes on non-traditional forms.
- People with disabilities face additional barriers when seeking help.
Non-traditional forms of abuse impacting people with disabilities can make it difficult to identify the abuse when it occurs. Examples of non-traditional expressions of abuse include:
- Telling you that you “aren’t allowed” to have a pain flare up.
- Stealing or withholding Social Security Disability checks.
- Telling you that you’re a bad parent or can’t be a parent because of your disability. Invalidating or minimizing a disability with claims that you’re “faking it.”
- Using a disability in an effort to shame or humiliate you.
- Refusing to help you complete necessary life tasks, including using the bathroom or dispensing medication.
- Withholding or threatening to withhold medication, or intentionally giving you incorrect doses by over-medicating or mixing medications in a dangerous or non-prescribed way.
- Sexual activity if your disability makes you incapable of giving consent.
- Withholding, damaging, or destroying assistive devices.
- Preventing you from seeing a doctor.
- Threatening to “out” your disability to others if it’s non-visible or carries social stigma.
- Harming or threatening to harm your service animal.
- An abusive partner justifying their behavior by blaming your disability.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), first adopted in 1990, provides for certain legal requirements intended to benefit people with disabilities and defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities.”
While this definition doesn’t capture all the complexities of living with a disability, the ADA provides a foundational framework for addressing disability in the context of relationship abuse. Under Title II, social services—including domestic violence shelters—must be accessible to people with disabilities. Title III mandates accessibility in public accommodations, which includes counseling offices, legal services, doctor’s offices, translation services, and shelters.
The ADA’s requirements mean that public spaces are required by law to:
- Admit people with disabilities. People with disabilities must have an equal opportunity to benefit from programs, services, and activities. They must be treated equally and may not be excluded from places like shelters on the basis of disability, including mental health disabilities or HIV.
- Provide reasonable accommodations. Reasonable accommodations entail adjustments to existing policies, practices, or procedures to provide equal services to people with disabilities. Reasonable accommodations must be made unless they entail significant difficulty or expense. For example, a shelter could adjust a pet policy to admit an individual with a service dog.
- Eliminate structural barriers to access. The ADA requires that buildings be made free of structural barriers for people with disabilities. Newer buildings will generally take this into consideration during construction, but because certain exceptions may be made on the basis of significant difficulty or expense, older buildings sometimes still possess significant barriers to access (like a lack of elevators in a building).
Our advocates are available 24/7 by phone to discuss your situation and help you explore your options. Please note that advocates at the hotline are mandatory reporters of abuse for people with disabilities. If confidentiality is a concern, we recommend not sharing any identifying information when you contact us.
Disability covers a wide range of identities and communities, and the ways in which they intersect with domestic violence appear in different forms.
We’ve included further resources for survivors with disabilities below to answer additional questions you may have about government services and other available resources.
- College Resources for Students with Disabilities: Best Colleges, Gov’t Programs, Scholarships & Helpful Apps
- Adult Protective Services
- Abused Deaf Women’s Advocacy Services (ADWAS)
- US Department of Labor Office of Disability Employment Policy
- Safety Planning for Domestic Violence Victims with Disabilities
- Advocate Guide to Safety Planning for Persons with Disabilities
- The Arc’s National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability
While abuse among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and other LGBTQ+ people occurs at the same rates and in similar ways as their heterosexual peers, LGBTQ+ individuals may face forms of abuse or barriers to accessing support specifically based on prejudices against their gender expression or sexuality.
Obstacles to reaching safety that LGBTQ+ people might confront include:
- Fear of isolation or ostracization from your family or community stemming from their prejudice. Abusive partners may use isolation to increase your dependence on them or limit your ability to access support. If you haven’t come out publicly yet or belong to a religious community, traditional family, or oppressive home environment, fear of what will happen when you reveal your identity might prevent you from seeking help. Depending on your social circumstances, having access to limited LGBTQ+ community and affirming support could make you feel isolated if you fear no one will support you or if your abuser is well-liked within the community.
- Shame or embarrassment around your identity as a result of internalized homophobia. Abusive partners may try to exert power and control over your life by insulting you based on your insecurities, refusing your respect your pronouns or chosen name, attempting to shame you over how you choose to have sex, or threatening to out you to others.
- Fear of not receiving services because of discrimination or stereotypes about LGBTQ+ people or relationships used to minimize the abuse you’re experiencing. Abusive partners may try to convince you that you won’t be supported if you seek help; remember that there are service providers across the country that offer support specifically to LGBTQ+ survivors. Contact us to speak with an advocate about LGBTQ+ service referrals.
- Legal protections that vary state by state affecting your ability or willingness to seek legal recourse against your abusive partner. Learn about domestic violence in your area by looking through our impact and state reports.
Remember: no one deserves to experience abuse, and everyone deserves to be in a healthy and loving relationship.
Contact La Casa, Inc. hotline 24/7 to discuss your situation with an advocate, access LGBTQ+ referrals to additional services, and identify available options to help you create a safety plan.
Native Americans and Alaska Natives face particularly high rates of domestic violence, and while specific cultural contexts vary by your location, community, tribal enrollment status, and more, forms of abuse often appear similarly in different Native communities.
Culturally specific examples of abuse experienced by Native survivors include:
- Pronounced gender stereotypes that emphasize one partner’s needs over another’s. Abusive partners may try to justify unequal power dynamics using cultural customs or traditional beliefs.
- Efforts to isolate you by limiting what you can do (including decisions about work or school) and who you can spend time with, particularly among others from your community. Jealousy may be used as a justification for attempts at isolation.
- Manipulation in situations with children including making you feel guilty about your parenting, involving your children in the situation, or threatening to harm or take your children away. Particularly given historical legacies of forced adoption in Native communities, threats, or steps to remove children from a parent’s custody may carry additional emotional trauma.
- Financial abuse, such as taking money from the victim or making them dependent on an abusive partner for necessities. This can also involve preventing the victim from working to further isolate them financially and socially.
- Threatening to harm you or themselves, leave the relationship, report you to law enforcement, or force you to perform illegal acts.
- Cultural abuse by using culture to justify abusive behaviors. This may include competitions over “Indian-ness” or “blood quantum,” or the overemphasis of traditional gender roles.
- Ritual abuse by invoking spirituality or religion to justify abuse. This is a particularly varied form of abuse but may include threats through prayer, preventing you from practicing your chosen religion, or interpreting religious texts or beliefs as justifications for abusive behavior.
StrongHearts Native Helpline is a 24/7 culturally appropriate, anonymous, confidential and free service dedicated to serving Native survivors, concerned family members and friends affected by domestic, dating and sexual violence available by calling or texting 1-844-762-8483 or clicking on the chat icon on strongheartshelpline.org.
StrongHearts advocates have a strong knowledge of Native cultures and communities, including issues of tribal sovereignty and the law, and may be able to help you identify resources specific to your community.
The Cycle of Violence
Historically, victim services have been segregated by the type of violence perpetrated or the age of the victim, creating artificial silos of service that are less effective. Silos like domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, trafficking, etc., fail to take in to account what research and our own experiences have shown — that the multiple forms of violence and victimization are interconnected. Addressing an issue as integrated as violence through a narrow framework only results in diminished resources, capacity, expertise and funding streams. To improve the effectiveness of violence prevention and intervention services, a more comprehensive and collaborative approach is required.
The survivors we work with often experience multiple forms of violence and abuse in their lifetimes. Research has shown that victims of one form of violence can face double or triple the risk of experiencing other forms of violence.1 We also know that one of the best predictors of future victimization is past victimization. In fact, two of the most consistent factors that are associated with future violent outcomes (as a victim and/or perpetrator) are child abuse and exposure to domestic violence.2
According to the Centers for Disease Control:
- Children who experience abuse or neglect are two to three times more likely to experience violence and abuse as adults.
- Children who witness intimate partner violence are six times more likely to experience violence as adults.
- Youth who are violent toward peers are more likely to be violent toward their dating partners.
According to the nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety, of the 156 mass shootings that occurred in the United States between 2009 and 2016, 54% were related to domestic or family violence.
Different forms of violence share many risk factors and protective factors. Many of the same factors that make someone more likely to experience bullying are the same factors that make someone more likely to experience sexual assault. Likewise, many of the same factors that lower the risk of child abuse are the same factors that lower the risk of intimate partner violence. They are all connected and require a coordinated and integrated victim-services model that recognizes these connections and considers the effects of trauma throughout an individual’s lifespan and within their homes and communities.
We created La Casa, Inc. to maximize the impact of our violence prevention and intervention programs and services and to increase access to services for survivors. La Casa is committed to removing every roadblock an individual might face on their journey toward an abuse-free life with a full range of residential and community-based services. Viewing a survivor as a whole person within the context of their life strengthens collaborations, increases access to services, and builds stronger communities.
1Preventing Multiple Forms of Violence: A Strategic Vision for Connecting the Dots. Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016.
2Preventing Violence: A Review of Research, Evaluation, Gaps, and Opportunities. Child Trends and Futures without Violence, 2015.
*Information on this page about Financial and Digital Abuse and Violence in Communities is sourced from the National Domestic Violence Hotline and highly relevant to the survivors La Casa, Inc. serves.
Click for more information on Identifying Abuse and resources from The National Domestic Violence Hotline.