How Domestic Violence Can Impact a Victim-Survivor’s Mental Health Wellness 

Over the past few decades, there has been an increased public awareness and consciousness of mental health wellness. When many people think about their health, they often think about their physical health and are drawn to pay more attention to it when they are experiencing various symptoms. Somatic (bodily) symptoms for which no clear physical basis can be found are ubiquitous in traumatized children and adults: chronic back and neck pain, fibromyalgia, migraines, digestive problems, spastic colon/irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, and some forms of asthma. 

These physical symptoms can be manifestations of imbalances in the other dimensions of wellness that include physical, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual, environmental, and occupational. Holistic health takes into account all of these aspects of one’s life and views them as interconnected. So when someone experiences something traumatic, such as domestic violence, their entire bodily systems and all dimensions of wellness are impacted in some way- particularly one’s emotional wellness.

Everyone has mental health. Whether that’s mental health concerns, mental health wellness or somewhere in between. “Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.” One’s ability to maintain their mental health can be changed by experiencing chronic stress, anxiety, fear, shame, and sadness that comes with domestic violence. 

Link Between Mental Health and Domestic Violence: The Statistics 

On average, more than half of the women seen in mental health settings are being or have been abused by an intimate partner. There are specific diagnoses that are commonly experienced by these women: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. In addition, traumatic events produce profound and lasting changes in physiological, arousal, emotion, cognition, and memory- changes that wouldn’t necessarily result in psychological diagnosis. 

It’s important to understand that someone’s mental health can be impacted without having PTSD, depression, or anxiety. Whether or not someone develops PTSD as a result of domestic violence depends on numerous factors, not everyone is impacted in the same way. The ways in which a victim-survivor’s mental health can be impacted can include: difficulties with being productive at work, school, with caregiving, establishing and engaging in healthy relationships, and adapting to change and coping with adversity. 

A victim-survivor’s mental health can also be weaponized and used as another form of violence and harm. Mental health coercion is a commonly used tactic that is targeted toward the victim-survivor’s mental health as part of a broader pattern of abuse and control and includes: deliberately attempting to undermine a survivor’s sanity, preventing a survivor from accessing treatment, controlling a survivor’s medication, using a survivor’s mental to discredit them with sources of protection, support, to manipulate the police or influence child custody decisions, or engaging mental health stigma to make a survivor think no one will believe them. Other common tactics that target mental health include other forms of emotional abuse, especially gaslighting. 

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