Over the past couple of days one of the top trending hashtags on twitter has been #MaybeHeDoesntHitYou.
Using the hashtag, women online have been able to share their experiences of past emotionally and mentally abusive relationships, helping to break the stigma that a relationship has to be physically violent to be considered abusive.
In only 140 characters women from around the world have told the horrifying and true reality that some must face every day.
For such a long time many people believed that in order to be considered an abusive relationship, there has to be a physical element to it.
Women who were in mentally and emotionally abusive relationships genuinely believed that if they did not have bruises or marks to show for it, that they weren’t being abused.
This idea is what for years kept women with the men who would insult, degrade, and humiliate them on a regular basis.
But using the hashtag women are banding together and taking a stand. These tweets are bringing to light elements of abuse that thousands of women always considered to just be typical parts of being in a relationship.
They want to redefine what it means to be abused. Be called degrading names, being manipulated and controlled, and broken down by someone that “loves you” isn’t normal. It isn’t something any one should have to take.
Being made to feel lesser or not good enough by a significant other is not being loved. It is abuse.
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