Break the silence: Cyberbullying can be domestic abuse
HALIFAX — Words hurt.
Emotional abuse is hard to prosecute, but it can have detrimental effects on someone's mental health. Nancy Ross, a professor in the department of social work at Dalhousie University, said cyberbullying is becoming an increasingly common tool of emotional abuse.
"We have a virtual tsunami and access to the internet, so people can use it in this harmful way. So, definitely (cyberbullying in domestic violence situations) has increased, just as our access to any form of online internet has increased," says Ross, who recently published a report she co-authored with Cary Ryan about responses to domestic violence and changing them.
What makes this area of gender-based violence difficult is that so little of it is reported to the police, she says.
Even worse? It's often difficult to prove.
"And, unfortunately, people are often in a position where they have to prove it," she says. "So I think we don't know with any precision how much of it is happening, but we can, I think, hypothesize that there is a lot more of it happening. Especially during this pandemic."
Victims of emotional abuse experience it differently, but Ross says shaming is something that is a universal characteristic in many cases.
Along with causing anxiety, creating self-doubt and diminishing someone's self-esteem, Ross says when emotional abuse comes in the form of cyberbullying with public social media posts and videos, there's also an element of public humiliation, which can further diminish someone's self-esteem.
The first steps to overcoming emotional abuse and other forms of domestic violence are realizing it's not a personal problem but a societal one and breaking the silence about it.
"The whole field of genderbased violence has been characterised by silence and regarding it by a private and personal issue. So, the first thing people can do is start to talk about it, take the veil of silence away from it and begin to share some of their experiences with people they trust," says Ross.
"Finding safe places to share these experiences and talk about it is, I think, the first step towards decreasing its influence, and also a first step in terms of healing from it."
Ross also recommended women experiencing emotional violence access help from women's centres and transition houses in their area such as P.E.I. Family Violence Prevention Services at www. fvps.ca or 902-894-3354.