DV Field Guide
by Rebel Thriver
Practical, survivor-centered information for recognizing abuse, planning for safety, navigating separation, and rebuilding afterward.
A note about technology safety
If you are concerned that someone may be monitoring your phone, computer, or internet activity, consider using a safer device to access this information. The Quick Exit button can move you away from this page quickly, but it will not erase your browser history or prevent someone who is monitoring your device from seeing your activity. You can also press the Escape key twice to leave this page quickly.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911 if it is safe to do so. For confidential support in the U.S., contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233), text START to 88788, or use live chat at TheHotline.org.
What is the DV Field Guide?
The DV Field Guide is a growing collection of practical, trauma-informed resources for women who are questioning what they are experiencing, living with abuse, preparing to leave, navigating post-separation abuse, or rebuilding afterward.
You do not have to know exactly what to call your situation to use what is here. You do not have to make a decision before you are ready. The purpose of this guide is to give you clear information, safety-minded tools, and language that may help you understand what is happening and make informed choices for yourself.
Start Where You Are
You do not have to move through this guide in order. Begin with the part that feels most relevant to what you are living through right now.
Recognizing Abuse
Patterns, warning signs, coercive control, and understanding what you may be experiencing.
Preparing Safely
Safety planning, documentation, technology safety, finances, children, pets, and practical preparation.
After Separation
Post-separation abuse, stalking, harassment, legal and financial abuse, and ongoing safety concerns.
Recovery & Rebuilding
Trauma recovery, nervous system support, boundaries, identity, grief, and rebuilding life on your own terms.
Breaking the Silence
Domestic violence is rarely one event. It is often a pattern of power, control, erosion, and betrayal that can leave you questioning your own perception of what happened.
Breaking the Silence is a deeper Rebel Thriver resource created to help women understand the dynamics of domestic violence, hear the experiences of other survivors, and begin making sense of their own story without having someone else define it for them.
Download Breaking the Silence →
Recognizing Abuse
Understanding the patterns
Domestic violence does not always begin with physical violence. Sometimes it begins with small restrictions, repeated criticism, jealousy presented as concern, or the gradual loss of freedom to make your own decisions.
You may find yourself carefully choosing your words, anticipating someone’s reactions, or changing your behavior to avoid conflict. Over time, what once felt unacceptable can become part of your daily life.
Abuse can take many forms, and several may occur together. Understanding these patterns can help you recognize what you are experiencing, even when there are no visible injuries.
What Abuse Can Look Like
Coercive control & isolation
Monitoring where you go, controlling whom you see, restricting your independence, or making you afraid of the consequences of saying no.
Financial abuse
Restricting access to money, preventing you from working, taking your earnings, creating debt in your name, or using financial dependence to limit your choices.
Physical & sexual abuse
Hitting, pushing, restraining, strangulation, threats of violence, or pressuring or forcing sexual activity. Consent and bodily autonomy matter within every relationship, including marriage.
Technology-facilitated abuse
Monitoring your communications, tracking your location, accessing your accounts without permission, or using technology to intimidate, harass, or control you.
Questions Worth Considering
Sometimes it is easier to recognize a pattern by looking at how a relationship affects your everyday life.
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Do you feel free to disagree or say no without fearing the consequences?
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Have you changed how you dress, speak, spend money, or interact with others to avoid someone’s reaction?
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Do you find yourself questioning your own memory after disagreements?
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Has your world become smaller because of restrictions, threats, or fear?
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Are you able to make decisions about your body, finances, relationships, and future?
You do not need to answer these questions for anyone else. They are simply a place to begin.
You deserve to understand what is happening in your own life. Recognizing a pattern does not require you to make an immediate decision about your relationship. Information can help you consider your options, seek support, and make choices with your own safety and circumstances in mind.
Learn more about recognizing abuse →
Recovery & Rebuilding
Finding your footing after abuse
The effects of domestic violence can reach into nearly every part of your life. Long after a relationship ends, you may still be navigating grief, fear, financial uncertainty, exhaustion, or a loss of confidence in your own judgment.
You might find yourself reacting to situations that other people seem to move through easily. You may struggle with boundaries, trusting others, or knowing what you want after spending so much time anticipating someone else’s needs and reactions.
These experiences can be part of the aftermath of trauma. Recovery takes time, and there is no single way it is supposed to look.
Rebuilding is also deeply practical. Sometimes it begins with finding stable housing, reconnecting with a friend, getting a decent night’s sleep, or making a decision without having to justify it to anyone.
Supporting Your Recovery
1. Understanding your nervous system
Living with ongoing fear or unpredictability can affect how your body responds to everyday life. You might notice heightened alertness, difficulty resting, emotional numbness, or feeling overwhelmed by seemingly small things.
Learning about trauma responses can help you make sense of these experiences. Gentle, personally tolerable practices such as movement, rest, grounding, and predictable routines may be helpful. You can explore what works for you without forcing yourself into practices that feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
2. Rebuilding trust in yourself
When your perceptions, decisions, or memories have been repeatedly questioned, trusting your judgment again can take time.
Begin with ordinary choices. Notice your preferences. Give yourself permission to change your mind. Pay attention to what feels comfortable, what feels uncomfortable, and what you need more time to consider.
You do not have to regain confidence all at once.
3. Establishing boundaries
Boundaries can be particularly difficult when you have learned that saying no may lead to anger, punishment, or retaliation.
Start by considering where you have room to exercise choice in your life. That may involve how you spend your time, what you share with others, or which relationships you want to nurture.
If someone continues to pose a threat, your physical and practical safety should remain part of any decisions about boundaries. Direct confrontation is never a requirement for healing.
4. Making room for grief
You may grieve the relationship you hoped to have, the years you spent surviving, the opportunities you lost, or the person you were before the abuse.
You may also feel relief, anger, love, confusion, or several of these emotions at once.
There is room for complexity here. You do not have to turn your experiences into a lesson, find forgiveness, or make meaning of everything that happened in order to move forward.
5. Rebuilding your life on your own terms
Recovery may involve reconnecting with people, pursuing education or work, addressing financial concerns, finding professional support, or rediscovering interests you set aside.
You may benefit from working with a trauma-informed therapist, a domestic violence advocate, a support group, or other people you trust.
You get to decide which forms of support are helpful and what you want your life to look like.
There is No Deadline for Becoming Yourself Again
Some days, progress may feel unmistakable. On others, you may find yourself struggling with something you thought you had already worked through.
You can acknowledge how far you have come while also recognizing what still needs your attention.
There is no particular version of yourself you have to become to prove that you have healed. What matters is having the freedom, support, and resources to build a life that feels increasingly like your own.
Preparing Safely
A safety plan begins with your circumstances
Safety planning is personal. What helps one woman may create additional risks for another, particularly when an abusive partner monitors her movements, finances, communications, or relationships.
You may be living with an abusive partner, considering separation, preparing to leave, or looking for ways to protect yourself while remaining in the relationship. Wherever you are, having a plan can help you think through your options before a difficult situation arises.
You do not have to make every decision today. Begin with what is possible and safe for you.
Things to Consider
1. Identify people and places you trust
Consider who you could contact if you needed help, somewhere you might go in an emergency, and how you could reach that person safely. A code word agreed upon in advance may help you communicate discreetly.
2. Think about your immediate surroundings
If you are living with someone who becomes violent, consider which areas of your home offer access to an exit. If possible, avoid becoming trapped in rooms without an exit or near weapons during escalating conflict.
3. Consider essential documents and belongings
If you are preparing to leave, think about identification, financial information, medication, keys, and important records for yourself and your children. Only gather or store these items if doing so will not increase your risk. Your immediate safety takes priority over belongings.
4. Protect your digital privacy
Phones, shared accounts, location services, and online activity can reveal information about your plans. If you suspect monitoring, consider using a safer device to research resources or communicate with an advocate. Avoid making sudden changes to a potentially monitored device without considering whether those changes could be noticed.
5. Include children and pets in your planning
Consider how children could reach a trusted adult or get help without intervening in violence. If you have pets, explore whether a trusted person, local shelter, or pet-safety program could help care for them if needed.
Your Safety, Your Choices
You know your circumstances in ways that no checklist can fully capture. Planning does not require you to leave immediately, confront an abusive partner, or disclose your situation before you feel it is safe.
A domestic violence advocate can help you think through your individual circumstances, identify local resources, and develop a personalized safety plan.
Download the Free Personal Safety Guide →
After Separation
When leaving doesn’t end the abuse
Leaving an abusive relationship can be a significant step, but separation does not always mean that the abuse stops. For some survivors, controlling behavior continues through unwanted contact, threats, stalking, financial interference, or the misuse of legal and parenting arrangements.
You may have left months or even years ago and still find yourself managing the effects of that relationship.
Understanding post-separation abuse can help you recognize these patterns and consider ways to protect your safety, privacy, and independence.
Recognizing Post-Separation Abuse
Post-separation abuse can take different forms. Some of the more common patterns include:
Stalking & harassment
Repeated unwanted contact, showing up at your home or workplace, following you, making threats, or using other people to monitor or contact you.
Technology-facilitated abuse
Using shared accounts, location tracking, social media, connected devices, or access to your personal information to monitor, intimidate, or harass you.
Legal & financial abuse
Using money, shared debts, financial obligations, or repeated legal proceedings to create pressure, maintain contact, or interfere with your ability to establish independence.
Abuse involving children
Using parenting arrangements, communication about children, or threats involving custody to exert control. Children may also experience pressure to share information or become involved in adult conflicts.
Threats & intimidation
Threatening your safety, reputation, livelihood, loved ones, or pets in an effort to maintain influence over your decisions.
Protecting Yourself After Separation
Your safety plan may need to change as your circumstances change. Depending on your situation, you might consider the following:
1. Review your personal and digital safety.
Think about who has access to your home, accounts, devices, and location information. If you suspect monitoring, seek technology-safety guidance before making changes that someone else could notice.
2. Consider documenting ongoing incidents.
If it is safe to do so, keeping a record of unwanted contact, threats, or other concerning behavior may help you identify patterns and understand your options. Documentation is a choice, and preserving your immediate safety is more important than collecting evidence.
3. Understand your legal options.
Protective orders, custody arrangements, and legal remedies vary by jurisdiction. A domestic violence legal advocate or qualified attorney can help you understand which options may be available and what they could mean for your circumstances.
4. Revisit your support network.
Consider whether trusted people, an advocate, or professionals involved in your children’s care need updated information about your safety concerns. You can decide what to disclose and to whom.
Protect Your Peace
There is no deadline for feeling safe after an abusive relationship.
You may still be managing legal proceedings, financial obligations, parenting arrangements, or unwanted contact. You may be rebuilding your life while also navigating circumstances you did not choose.
You deserve access to information and support that take your ongoing safety seriously.
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