Symptoms of anxiety include sleeping and concentration difficulties, agitation, and hyper vigilance. PTSD symptoms include intrusive memories, nightmares, and avoidance of situations and reminders of the abuse. Recent research has also found that abuse is associated with multiple chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes (McNutt 4). Victims not only have to deal with the abuse in the relationship, but also have to deal with conditions and injuries that result from the abuse post-break up. .
Evidently, approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States ("Domestic Violence Statistics"). Too many cases of these abuse incidents repeat the same pattern of controlling behavior. This pattern is called the "cycle of violence" and it has three distinctive and repetitive steps. The first step is the "tension building stage" in which the victim experiences minor battering incidents and verbal and psychological abuse. In this stage, the victim will try to anticipate the abusers next move and try to avoid any attempts of confrontation. The second phase is the "acute battering state" in which any incident can provoke the abuser to act very violently towards the victim. The third stage is called the "honeymoon stage" in which the abuser acts affectionate and asks for forgiveness in exchange for promises to end the violence (Pertnoy 551). During this stage, the victim is brainwashed and made to believe that everything is okay and that the abuser will change, when in reality, these types of people never change. .
It is not only male abusers who seek a feeling of power over their victim, but females do too. In 1975, the overall violence per 1,000 couples of a husband against a wife was 121 and for a wife against a husband was 116. In 1985, the overall violence of a husband against a wife was 113 and a wife against a husband was 121.
