Abusive relationships are often viewed as private issues, leaving individuals feeling isolated and unsupported. However, in reality:

1. The most frequent perpetrator of physical violence, sexual violence, and even fatal violence towards women are their partners or boyfriends.
2. Gender-based violence, including relationship abuse, is one of the most significant causes of trauma or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
3. Relationship abuse is a societal problem, and male and queer survivor-victims have very limited mechanisms of recourse.

How Can The Centre for Restoration Help?

If you or someone you know is facing issues related to relationship abuse (including being in an abusive relationship, trying to leave or escape, or struggling to recover), The Centre for Restoration is here to offer support, resources, and assistance. We will work with you to find the best options for your situation, prioritising your comfort and safety. Please reach out to us by writing to founder@tcrindia.org or use the website contact form to book a free consultation. 

CASE 1: SUPPORTING YOU IF YOU ARE IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP OR HAVE RECENTLY ESCAPED AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP

1. Building a Safety Plan

A safety plan is a plan of action we will collaboratively develop with you to help prioritise your physical, emotional, and financial safety during or after your relationship.

In case you are currently in a relationship and are unsure if your relationship is healthy, a safety plan can include access to psycho-educational resources to understand healthy relationships, ways for you to build community with safe people close to you, and guidance for reaching out to a designated therapist in the future, if required.

A safety plan is most important if you are leaving an abusive relationship. The end of an abusive relationship can often be the most dangerous. We will work with you to assess the level of danger you may be in, of facing further physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, financial, or other forms of harm. Based on this, we will collaboratively build a safety plan for you that addresses what you can do in an emergency situation. We could consider preemptively reaching out to other professionals to include them in your safety plan, including lawyers, law enforcement, therapists, and other social workers in your area.

If you have escaped an abusive relationship and are retrospectively experiencing trauma, confusion, or mental health concerns, a safety plan can include accessing education resources to understand your past relationship, therapeutic resources that are financially feasible and effective for you, and ways for you to build community with safe people close to you.

2. Providing Legal Resources

The Centre for Restoration works with lawyers who navigate gender-based violence from a trauma-informed lens. Through them, we can connect you with legal resources to help you access justice, seek protection, or preemptively reduce the risk of violence upon leaving the relationship. This is especially important for people who intuitively feel that their partner can turn physically or sexually violent.

3. Providing Therapeutic Resources

The Centre for Restoration has India’s largest vetted repository of therapists who are trauma-informed, queer-affirmative, and have experience working with survivor-victims of gender-based violence. Each therapist has been thoroughly vetted by our team to ensure that they are survivor-centric. We heavily encourage people who have been in abusive relationships to access this resource, even if they have already left that relationship. Survivor-victims of relationship abuse are at the risk of entering a second (or third) abusive relationship unless they are given the space for trauma recovery and relationship psycho-education.

4. Providing Wellness Resources

Apart from therapy, wellness resources can also include educational material about abusive relationships, abusive behaviour, and post-abuse trauma and recovery. These can also include other forms of tangible assistance such as financial resources or safe houses that we could connect with other gender justice organisations to access. Our goal is to help you understand your situation better and answer pressing questions like, “Why did this happen to me?”, “How can I heal from this?”, and “What steps can I take to rebuild my life after leaving an abusive relationship?”

CASE 2: SUPPORTING YOU IF SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP 

1. Prioritising Your Safety

If your loved one is in an abusive relationship, you may experience your safety being compromised due to your inadvertent proximity to the abuser. We can work with you to establish how you could draw boundaries in your situation safely and discreetly, and deescalate a situation of active abuse without compromising your safety.

2. Prioritising Your Health

You may also experience burnout, mental health challenges, or negative emotions of anger and frustration if your loved one is staying in an abusive relationship. We can work with you to provide support and resources for therapeutic intervention and abuse psycho-education so you can gain clarity about the situation.

3. Resources to Learn More

If you would like to learn more about supporting people in abusive relationships, we can provide support and resources about prioritising your loved one’s safety, putting forward your concerns, and assisting them in leaving.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1. How does The Centre for Restoration define relationships?

The Centre for Restoration defines relationships broadly, acknowledging that they can involve individuals of any gender or sexual orientation. They focus on all forms of relationships, including heterosexual, LGBTQI+, polyamorous, and non-traditional dynamics, with a priority on safety, consent, and respect.

2. Who will know about my situation if I reach out to The Centre for Restoration?

All cases are handled directly and solely by Priyanka and Yukti, the co-founders of The Centre for Restoration. With the collective experience of supporting over 200 college-aged survivor-victims of gender-based violence, our approach is survivor-centric, queer-affirmative, gender-sensitive, and trauma-informed. Your confidentiality will be maintained throughout and no one, including other professionals, will be made aware of your conversation with us without your consent.

3. I am not sure that my relationship is abusive. Can I still reach out?

Yes. Our goal is not to enforce a singular outcome to your situation. Although we encourage people in abusive relationships to work towards establishing their independence in the long-run, our immediate priority is your safety. We understand that leaving an abusive relationship is a complicated and often dangerous matter. Leaving sustainably is more important than leaving immediately. To that end, if you reach out to us and you don’t want to discuss leaving as an option, there are other ways in which we can work towards prioritising your safety.

4. I am a man in an abusive relationship. Will The Centre for Restoration support me?

Yes. We recognise that people of all genders can experience, witness, or perpetrate gender-based violence, including relationship abuse. We adopt a gender sensitive approach, cognisant of the fact that the forms of violence that men experience more frequently differ from those experienced by women.

5. My perpetrator was a woman. Will The Centre for Restoration support me?

Yes. We recognise that people of all genders can experience, witness, or perpetrate gender-based violence, including relationship abuse.

6. I am gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, or in a polyamorous abusive relationship. Will The Centre for Restoration support me?

Queer-affirmative practices are a core tenet of the work we do at The Centre for Restoration. We recognise that gender-based violence against LGBTQI+ individuals and communities is a manifestation of heteropatriarchy. We support survivor-victims of any and all genders and sexual orientations.