“Relationship abuse is a pattern of abusive and coercive behaviors used to maintain power and control over a former or current intimate partner. Abuse can be emotional, financial, sexual, or physical and can include threats, isolation, and intimidation. Abuse tends to escalate over time.”
Many of you may not know of this but Buffalo State has partnered with the One Love Campaign. Through this campaign, Buffalo State hopes to help bring about awareness of relationship abuse and the signs that lead up to it. The campaign itself also hopes to bring awareness to unhealthy relationships and how they can come across in today’s society. But before we can all begin to talk about it,, we need to first break down the term “abuse”.
Now when people think of abuse, they usually think of violence. However, that’s not always the case. Abuse can be verbal, mental or emotional. Presently, due to technology being so huge and endless, it is easier for relationship difficulties to arise overtime – whether we choose to realize it or not.
After watching the film, “Escalation”, which is promoted through the campaign, I learned that usually when a couple begins dating, many of their friends tell them how great of a couple they are together. Some will say things like “you guys look so good together” or “you guys are relationship goals” and things along those lines. That alone can be a trigger for some relationships. When we start to put one’s relationship on a pedestal, we really set high expectations for them. In the eyes of the relationship, both significant others feel the need to lie about things, hide the truth, or make things look pretty on the outside just to make the relationship seem as perfect as people believe it is.. For example, if a person says “oh you guys have a perfect relationship”, both people are going to want to make sure that their relationship is actually perfect when in fact it could be the complete opposite.
At the end of “Escalation’, there were pictures, along with the names of the females, who were killed at the hands of their significant others. It became so surreal because now we were looking at the faces of those who were/are victimized and who died from being in an abusive relationship. Since I am a Media Production major, I was focus on the elements while watching – like the acting, the lighting, the camera shots, and the overall story. However, when the movie ended and the photos of the victims were shown, it was a wake up call for me.
It made me realize that people are actually dying from this. Some people my age are victims of relationship abuse and it’s because they are so invested in the relationship that they begin to view one’s weakness to use it against them. It is clearly a form of control. Through this, one begins to control where their significant other goes, who they are with, what time they are going out, what they will wear, what they should and shouldn’t post on social media, when they should be together, and more. It is an incredibly scary thing.
As individual, we should start noticing the signs that lead up to an abusive relationship. If we see these signs and don’t stop it, there will be serious consequences. Those consequences can range from control, to a trip to the hospital, or even worse, death. No one deserves to be treated that way. One cannot say they are in love with their partner if they use control to abuse them. It is simply not love. So many people are dying at a young age because of it. This is our generation we are talking about here. This campaign is important because it’s essentially promoting love and unity. Why hurt the one’s we love?
For my intermediate video production class, we will be creating PSAs for the campaign to help spread awareness. By the end of the semester, we will have completed PSAs that will be shown all across campus like Orientation, at Weigel Health Center, on the Buffalo State website, along with opportunities for it to be shown to other schools. This is a serious thing for my class and we are devoting so much time into making others conscious of it. We also hope that people will learn more about the signs of an abusive relationship and how they can safely intervene.
Check out One Love Foundation and sign the petition today to help stop relationship violence. We are the future and we can’t continue to let things like this happen to people in our and future generations.
Let’s join together and show the world what one love actually looks like.