Read:

Intimate Partner Violence: What Is It and What Does it Look Like?

1. With Kids at Home, ER Doctors See More Severe Cases of Child Abuse

Watch:

• TED Talk: Crazy Love – Why Domestic Violence Victims Don’t Leave

Confronting Domestic Violence Abusers Face-To-Face

How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across A Lifetime

• Rethinking Infidelity: A Talk For Anyone Who Has Ever Loved

Think about a person you know or have heard of who has suffered one of the challenges described in the chapter. How did this difficulty change the person’s life? What did you learn from these events?

After posting, return to the board and read over the posts of your fellow classmates. Choose at least two (2) classmates and create a post responding to his/her initial post on the Discussion Board. Each response post should be between 100-150 words and must further the discussion by following the RISE Model for meaningful feedback. Review the RISE Model for Peer Feedback and the RISE Model Rubric.

While I was at a spiritual retreat, I heard a woman talking about her life. She shared with the people at the retreat that she was in a violent relationship. According to what she said, the violence she experience relates to the intimate partner violence described in the text. Based on the lecture, “Intimate partner violence is physical and/or emotional abuse by one partner to another” (Lecture 10, Slide 43). This violence is divided into two kinds: patriarchal terrorism and common couple violence. The kind of violence this woman had suffered was patriarchal terrorism which is “violence by men who feel that they must control their women generally, and by any means necessary” (Lecture 10, Slide 44). Based on what this woman said, the situation she was living in changed her life completely. She no longer felt secure at home. She was afraid of her husband, and that was one of the reasons it took her such a long time to end the relationship. She was afraid her husband would do something to her if she left him. One thing I learned about her experience is that when physical or emotional violence is involved in a relationship, the victim should not wait to take action to end the relationship or ask for professional help. I also learned that violence between a husband and wife not only affects the couple but also their children. Children might be present when parents are having disagreements and using physical violence to “solve” their problems. This can negatively affect children in many areas including emotional and social development.

In this chapter, we learned a lot about stress and its causes and effects. The book defines stress as, “the reaction of our mind and bodies to an unusual or substantial demand made on it” (Sawyer Wahlstrom Williams 402). When I was younger I saw a lot of stress on both of my parents when they were getting divorced. There was a lot of stress on both of them and I got to see that firsthand every day. In the book, I learned that this type of stress was based on internal stressors. Internal stressors are defined as, “those events that begin inside the family” (Sawyer Wahlstrom Williams 402). Being able to see these events unfold every day I saw the mood of both my mom and dad change drastically. There was also another stressful time for my family when my mom lost her job. I was very young at the time so I don’t remember a lot, but I know there was a lot of stress put on my mom and dad. My dad would work a lot more hours and a lot of overtime during this time. Although I didn’t make much of it at the time because I was so young, I can look back now and see how much stress my parents were under. While the times were extremely stressful, they never once showed how much stress they were under. They made it seem like everything was fine so my sister and I wouldn’t get scared or nervous.