Do you know anyone suffering domestic abuse?

Phil McGraw's wife, Robin, has formed a foundation to help people identify whether or not they are in abusive relationships. It asks questions, provides resources, has a free app that is specifically and completely disguised on one's Smartphone that gives exit strategies and real help numbers as well as emergency contacts, etc.

I'm not sure that it's just geared to women. Probably is. ?? But it has three programs -- one for 'tweens, teens and young adults, and adults.

https://www.whengeorgiasmiled.org/#home

(It's called When Georgia Smiled. Georgia was Robin's mother, her inspiration for this program.

Everything's free. Perhaps you know someone who could benefit from it? A story you'd like to share?

Poll up in a minute.

The poll will be up in a moment. It will be anonymous.

Interesting but there is a problem with it. The site tells you what the app looks like and is called ergo abusers could go to the site, see what it looks like, and know their victim has it.

I don't currently know of anyone who is getting physically abused, but a good friend of mine at work has put up with emotional abuse and manipulation for almost 30 years. She is aware of it, and we have talked about it at length, and I know that she will not do anything about it. It's a love-hate relationship that she (for whatever reason) needs.

Fisher said:

Interesting but there is a problem with it. The site tells you what the app looks like and is called ergo abusers could go to the site, see what it looks like, and know their victim has it.

Click to expand...

How did you find it so fast. I still can't.

I am likely facetious here. I was hoping the thread title was going to be "Do you know anyone suffering from schizophrenia?" At which point my reply would've been "Me, myself, and shlunka"

MaggieD said:

How did you find it so fast. I still can't.

Click to expand...

I clicked on your link. It must have a lot of activity as it loaded sloooooooow but it is right there on the front page. IIRC it is called Aspire and they showed you what it looked like,

It was me. I posted about it here along time ago and don't want to get into it too much now but I always remembered the support I got.

I am painfully familiar with domestic abuse, and have been all of my adult life. Some abuse is blatant, violent, immediate... but other abuse is insidious, patient, a softly-creeping plague. Such abuse creeps up on many relationships, starting slowly with a push, a shove, a shouted insult, a vague threat, with many months in between. The abused spouse dismisses it as an anomaly. Over years and decades, the instances grow closer together, more physical, more verbally violent, and all of a sudden the abused spouse realizes that he/she has become a victim, trapped in a relationship from which there seems no safe or reasonable way out.

Over my lifetime I have lost four friends, colleagues, neighbors and acquaintances to domestic violence. In two of those four instances, the abusive husband also killed the children along with his wife, and in one instance he also killed himself. Needless to say, minimizing or dismissing domestic violence, blaming the victim for his/her own abuse, is one of my hot-button issues. I have no tolerance or respect for those who disregard domestic abuse as unimportant or trivial.

A bit off topic, but thanks for letting me vent.

I was, in my first marriage, and it was physical. I was very young, very naïve, and didn't leave him for a year. I thought he'd change. :shrug: He didn't.

I think of the person that I am now, and how I would have reacted the first time he hit me, as the person that I am now. Things would have been very, very different. Age and experience changes a lot.

I found out the other day that he'd died, several years back. I didn't really feel anything when I read it. Just like if I'd read some random person's obituary.