Digital Safety: If someone may be monitoring this device, access this page from a safe device when possible.
Quick ExitDomestic Violence Resources
Information Can Be a First Step Toward Safety.
Domestic violence can affect a person's safety, housing, finances, employment, children, health, relationships, and ability to make everyday decisions.
"You don't have to have everything figured out before you start looking for information."
Need Immediate Help?
If You Are in Immediate Danger, Call 911.
Blessing Our Women, Inc. is not a 24-hour crisis hotline, emergency shelter, law-enforcement agency, or emergency-response provider.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
The National Domestic Violence Hotline provides 24/7 support, crisis intervention, domestic-violence education, safety-planning assistance, and connections to local resources.
National Domestic Violence HotlineLouisiana Statewide Domestic Violence Hotline
1-888-411-1333
The Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence states that the statewide hotline is free, confidential, and available 24/7 and can connect callers with domestic violence service providers in their area.
Louisiana Domestic Violence ResourcesWhat Is Domestic Violence?
It's About More Than Physical Violence.
Domestic violence, sometimes called intimate partner violence, can involve a pattern of behaviors used to gain or maintain power and control over another person.
Physical Abuse
Hitting, pushing, choking/strangulation, restraining, throwing objects, threatening physical harm, or other physical violence.
Emotional & Psychological Abuse
Humiliation, intimidation, constant criticism, manipulation, threats, isolation, or behavior intended to make someone afraid or doubt themselves.
Sexual Abuse & Coercion
Pressuring, forcing, manipulating, or engaging in sexual activity without consent.
Financial Abuse
Controlling money, preventing employment, taking someone's earnings, creating debt in another person's name, withholding necessities, or interfering with financial independence.
Digital & Technology-Facilitated Abuse
Monitoring devices, demanding passwords, tracking someone's location, accessing accounts, repeatedly contacting or harassing someone electronically, or using technology to intimidate or control.
Stalking
Repeated unwanted monitoring, following, appearing at locations, contacting, threatening, or other behavior that causes fear or concern for safety.
Healthy, Unhealthy, or Unsafe?
Sometimes the Difference Isn't Obvious at First.
Healthy Relationships Include
Healthy relationships should allow room for respect, communication, independence, boundaries, consent, disagreement, friendships, privacy, personal goals, and individual decision-making.
Warning Signs May Include
A relationship may be moving into unhealthy or unsafe territory when one person regularly uses fear, pressure, humiliation, surveillance, threats, isolation, coercion, punishment, financial control, or violence to control the other.
"You don't have to wait for physical violence before taking controlling behavior seriously."
"But They Never Hit Me."
Physical violence is not the only form of abuse.
Someone can experience serious coercion and control without ever being hit.
Questions worth considering may include:
Does your partner control who you speak to?
Demand passwords?
Constantly check your location?
Prevent you from working?
Control your money?
Threaten to expose private information or photographs?
Pressure you sexually?
Threaten your children, family members, pets, or themselves to control your decisions?
Make you afraid of what will happen if you say no?
Punish you for spending time with other people?
Repeatedly accuse you of cheating?
Monitor your phone or social media?
Make you feel as though you need permission to make ordinary decisions?
"Fear and control matter—even when bruises aren't visible."
You Don't Have to Leave Before Asking for Help
Support Doesn't Have to Begin With an Exit Plan.
There can be complicated reasons someone remains in a relationship, including children, finances, housing, love, fear, disability, immigration concerns, cultural or religious considerations, transportation, employment, isolation, threats, and concerns about what may happen after leaving.
Support should not depend on someone making the decision another person thinks they should make.
"You are allowed to gather information before deciding what comes next."
Safety Planning
Your Safety Plan Should Fit Your Life.
A safety plan is a personalized strategy for increasing safety while experiencing abuse, preparing to leave, leaving, or living after separation.
It might consider areas such as emergency contacts, children, medications, important documents, transportation, finances, housing, work or school, technology, pets, legal options, trusted people, and what to do during an escalating situation.
Because every person's circumstances are different, BOW does not present one generic checklist as though it guarantees safety. The National Domestic Violence Hotline offers safety-planning tools covering personal safety, children, technology, and pets, and advocates can help people consider an individualized plan.
Create a Safety PlanTechnology & Digital Safety
Your Device May Reveal More Than You Realize.
Technology can be helpful for seeking support, but it can also be used to monitor or control someone.
Potential concerns may involve location sharing, shared Apple or Google accounts, cloud storage, browser history, passwords, smart-home devices, social media, email, phone plans, Bluetooth trackers, vehicle technology, photographs, messaging apps, and account-recovery information.
If you believe your device is being monitored, consider using a safer device or account to research sensitive information when possible rather than making sudden changes that could create additional risk.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline warns that internet use can be monitored and cannot always be completely erased.
Internet & Technology Safety ResourcesReady to Take a Next Step?
Whether you need immediate help, want to connect with BOW, or are looking for more resources, support is available.