Talk to an advocate
The National Domestic Violence Hotline connects you with trained advocates who can help you think through your options.
No scoring or predictions
Recognizing warning signs
This guide describes patterns that advocates, researchers, and survivors have identified as common in abusive relationships. It is a starting point for reflection — not a test, a risk score, or a prediction of your safety. Only you can assess your own situation.
If you are in immediate danger
Call 911 if you can do so safely, or contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233) — available 24 hours a day by phone, chat, or text.
You do not need to finish reading this page before reaching out for help.
About this guide. The warning signs below are drawn from materials published by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and peer-reviewed research on intimate-partner violence. This guide has not been professionally reviewed for clinical use and should not be used as a lethality assessment instrument.
The absence of warning signs does not mean a relationship is safe. Warning signs often develop gradually and are not always visible from the outside.
Control and isolation
Abuse is primarily about power and control, not anger. These patterns often appear early and intensify over time.
Monitoring and surveillance
Checking your phone, location, email, or social media without permission. Demanding account passwords. Installing tracking apps or using shared accounts to monitor your movements.
Isolating from support
Creating conflict with your friends and family. Criticizing people close to you. Limiting access to transportation, money, or communication to make it harder to leave or get help.
Financial control
Controlling all money and bank accounts. Preventing you from working or pursuing education. Sabotaging your job. Requiring you to account for every purchase.
Dictating daily life
Controlling what you wear, who you see, where you go, or what you eat. Making decisions about shared children without your input. Using children to monitor or deliver messages.
Emotional and psychological abuse
These patterns can be harder to name but are recognized forms of abuse that cause lasting harm.
Humiliation and criticism
Putting you down, calling you names, or mocking you — especially in public or in front of your children. Making you feel worthless or responsible for the abuse.
Gaslighting
Denying that abuse happened. Questioning your memory of events. Telling you that you are too sensitive, imagining things, or that no one would believe you.
Threats
Threatening to harm you, your children, pets, or other people important to you. Threatening to take the children, report you to authorities, expose personal information, or harm themselves if you leave.
Extreme jealousy
Accusing you of cheating without basis. Interpreting any contact with others as unfaithfulness. Using jealousy to justify controlling behavior.
Physical harm and serious danger signs
Strangulation is a medical emergency
Strangulation — even briefly and even without visible injury — can cause internal damage that may not show symptoms immediately. It is also associated with significantly elevated risk of future serious harm. If you have been strangled, please seek medical attention and tell a healthcare provider about the incident. You do not need to explain the cause to receive care.
Medical records can document what happened and may be important later. You can ask to have details kept out of shared insurance records.
Hitting, kicking, or physical harm
Any use of physical force — hitting, kicking, biting, burning, or otherwise causing pain or injury. Physical harm may begin as isolated incidents and increase in frequency or severity over time.
Strangulation or choking
Grabbing the throat, applying pressure to the neck, or covering the nose and mouth. This is a serious warning sign regardless of whether it caused visible injury or loss of consciousness.
Weapons
Using or threatening to use a weapon. Displaying weapons to intimidate. Mentioning firearms in the context of threats. Under many circumstances, abusers subject to a domestic violence protective order are prohibited from possessing firearms.
Escalation
Incidents becoming more frequent, more severe, or expanding to new forms of harm. An escalating pattern is taken seriously by advocates and courts alike.
Trust your own experience
You do not need to check every box on a list for a situation to be serious or for you to deserve help. Common reasons people find it hard to leave include:
- Fear of retaliation or escalation
- Financial dependence or lack of housing options
- Shared children, pets, or immigration status
- Love for the person and hope that things will change
- Shame, self-doubt, or belief that the abuse is somehow deserved
- Distrust of police, courts, or systems based on past experience
None of these make a situation less serious. An advocate can help you think through options without pressure to make any particular choice.
Next steps
Find local resources
Search for local shelters, legal aid, and counseling services across all 100 North Carolina counties.
Find local helpMake a safety plan
A private checklist to help you prepare, whether or not you are ready to leave right now.
Open safety planSources: National Domestic Violence Hotline — Types of Abuse · NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence. This page has not been professionally reviewed and does not constitute clinical or legal advice.