Understanding Relationship Dynamics: Insights from a Safe Haven Workshop

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I attended the Safe Haven workshop on October 13th after fighting with my boyfriend the night before.I expected her to talk about mostly females with their significant others. So, I thought it would be interesting to see where my relationship fell on a scale from very healthy to very unhealthy. I had gone through a health class as a freshman and the first week of the course they talked to us about healthy and unhealthy relationships, so I knew I had a pretty good idea already; however, I wanted a refresher just so I could possibly learn how to work things a little easier.
The workshop started off as any other the speaker introduced herself as “Louisa” and explained that what she will talk about might hit some people 's nerves. Then, she shot my idea down that she was going to talk about partners. She said that she would talk about male to female partner abuse, but since that is commonly talked about she wanted to focus more on all relationships you have in life. From that point on she went through a slide show while telling her stories. Louisa showed us a bunch of slides about unhealthy and healthy relationships. I had also expected that she was only going to talk about verbal and physical abuse; however, I was wrong about that too. She talked to us about six different types of abuse: “verbal/emotional abuse, stalking, physical abuse, digital abuse, sexual abuse and even financial abuse.” She explained that abusers use “possession, isolation, demands, and stalking” to instill “self-doubt and shame/guilt” in their victims. She brought up a slide where it described actions that are both healthy and unhealthy. The list consisted of “boundaries, love, jealousy, anger and silence.” Then Louisa explained that these can be both because...

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...pretty healthy.
The workshop made me realize that my boyfriend and I are not that crazy. Also, I feel like I have all of the signs of a healthy relationship in my relationship with him. It made me feel very good. However, the lecture also made me realize how lucky I am because it was very sad. Louisa handed out some statistics like “one in four women will be victims of abuse” and “more than four women daily are murdered by their boyfriend or husband.” The thought of being terrified in that type of way makes me feel so bad for the woman who have been put in these situations. That is why I paid very specific attention when Louisa was explaining ways to help or report abusive relationships. The workshop made me want to help other woman who have not been as lucky as I have been. Even though the speaker made me very uncomfortable I Am very happy I went to the workshop.

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