Understanding Fear, Part 2: How Abusers Use Fear to Control and Trap Partners

Fear can keep someone alive and it can also keep them trapped. To explore this topic, we sit down with Ruth Guerreiro, Chief Clinical Officer at Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support, to unpack how abusers weaponize fear to establish power and control, ensure compliance, and cut off escape routes long before anyone sees a bruise.

In this episode, we break down the real-world mechanics of coercive control: threats, monitoring, intimidation, isolation, social engineering, and the quiet ways an abusive partner interferes with a survivor’s ability to function day to day. Ruth explains why fear can be present without physical violence, what hypervigilance can look like (constant check-ins, “proof” photos, changing hobbies, always scanning for mood shifts), and why the question “why didn’t she leave?” ignores the fact that danger often escalates during and after leaving.

We also revisit survival responses to danger: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, plus how abusers and even outsiders can misinterpret those responses in courtrooms, families, and communities. You will hear practical, compassionate next steps, including safety planning ideas for friends and family, and how to reach confidential support even if you are not ready to make a big decision.

Transcript

Fear As Control In Abuse

SPEAKER_01 0:00

In part two of our conversation about fear, we meet with Ruth Gueredo, Chief Clinical Officer of Genesis Women's Shelter and Support, to discuss its weaponization, specifically within abusive relationships, for the purposes of establishing control, trapping victims, and ensuring compliance. I'm Maria McMullen, and this is Genesis the podcast. Ruth, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Maria. It's good to be with you. And I think it's really important for you to weigh in on the topic of fear as our Chief Clinical Officer at Genesis Women's Shelter and Support. In part one of this series about fear, I met with Jordan Lawson, our chief residential officer, to establish what fear is and how it shows up in the brain and the body. Today we want to take this a step further to understand the role fear plays within the dynamic of an abusive relationship. Who better to do that but you, with decades of experience working with domestic violence survivors? So help us understand when we talk about fear in an abusive relationship. What do we mean? Fear of what specifically? And how does fear function as a strategy for control?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Really, what we're seeing is fear is because of the threats. So the abusive partner has made lots of different threats, whether that's to hurt himself, to hurt her, to take away the children, to spread rumors or lies, right? There's this idea that there could be some type of retaliation if she discloses the abuse. And that's going to cause the fear. If we think about the whole point of why he's being abusive, is to control her. He needs her to be scared of him so that he can have that control, right? And then once she is scared of him, he can use that fear to get her to do really anything that he wants her to do. He might not even have to verbalize the threat anymore because now he just needs to, he could just intimidate her through facial expressions or gestures. He knows if she feels fearful of him, then she's going to be submissive. She's going to try to please him. She's trying to like keep the peace so that then it doesn't escalate, it doesn't get worse. So that that's her way of safety planning.

Threats That Create Compliance

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, for sure. And so there's a little bit of a difference then between relationships that have conflict and relationships where fear is the driving dynamic. Help us understand that.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

So it's really normal for couples to argue or to disagree. No, no one's going to have this perfect relationship where there's no conflict. In healthy relationships, that conflict means that both people have a say, both people are able to voice their opinion without fear of being hurt because of their opinion. There's not fear. But when one person in a relationship feels fearful, they feel like they have to change their behavior or their opinion in order to not be punished, then that's where it's crossing that line into being an unhealthy relationship. Another way to explain it is looking at the power differential. So if one person in the relationship has the power and control over the other person, it's an abusive relationship. But healthy relationships with conflict include two equal partners coming in for a compromise. So that's another thing that we hear a lot of most of our clients say he's never willing to compromise. It's never that it can be what I want to do. It always has to be what he wants to do. So when someone is getting their way all of the time and the other person isn't, that's going to be an unhealthy relationship or an abusive relationship.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, that's definitely a power imbalance, if you will. And that power and attempt at control is typically fear, is one of the ways to get that, right? And fear can be present even when there isn't any physical violence. And I want to make the distinction here because I know we have this conversation a lot. We say it all the time when we're together on this show, that a lot of people still equate domestic violence with physical. So there must be bruises, there must be some signs, but very often there is not. And fear doesn't really leave any type of visible signs that it is happening, except it could be an imprint on the brain, which we covered in our last part about how fear, experiencing fear affects the brain. So let's talk about the presence of fear when there is no physical violence.

Conflict Versus Fear Driven Relationships

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, you're exactly right, Maria. It is that common myth that intimate partner violence is just when there's physical or sexual abuse. But the truth is that verbal abuse, emotional abuse are very powerful tactics to control someone. We have a lot of our clients say that the kind of damage or the effects of the verbal and emotional abuse are more hurtful and harder to heal from than that physical abuse. We can see him using threats would be a verbal and emotional abuse tactic, and that is causing that fear, right? An abusive partner might not ever even escalate to physical violence, but cutting down with insults, threatening to spread lies, even just threatening to hurt other people, saying that no one is going to believe you if she doesn't behave. And that's where fear can be, even though he didn't hurt her. Okay, so some things that you might see when a victim is experiencing fear, right? Things that you might, as a friend or a family member or even a professional working with her, you might see maybe she feels like she's on constant alert. So she's checking her phone when you're out with friends just to see is he texting me, is he calling? Because as soon as he calls, as soon as he texts, I have to respond right away. It's the always taking pictures wherever she's at and sending them to him. It might look to us like, oh, she's just trying to be sweet and let him know that she knows, no, if I don't show him proof or evidence of where I am, then he's going to retaliate. He's going to accuse me of doing something or being somewhere with someone else. Um, something else that we see is maybe her starting to change her interests, her hobbies, maybe her like daily functioning to be more revolved around him rather than her. It's now she's gonna learn how to play tennis because that's what he wants to do, even though she really doesn't like tennis, right? It's really trying to placate him and do whatever he wants so that again, it's that safety measure to kind of keep tabs on him. Something when we talk about fear and how uh she might have to try to watch him to see what he's doing so that she can then be prepared. We talk a little bit about the shark fin effect and this idea that if she can see the shark fin in the water, she knows where it is so that she knows where to swim away from. When she has that fear of the shark, she's gonna maybe it looks like she's trying to hang out with him more, she's trying to stay with him. But the reality is that she's actually just keeping tabs to see what he's doing, how he's feeling, is he escalating right now so that she can know what safety plans to take. When the victim is asked why didn't she leave? It's basically telling her that it's her fault that the abuse happened and that it would have stopped if she would have left the abusive partner. But the reality is that the abuse doesn't stop even after she leaves. And unfortunately, oftentimes the abuse escalates when she does try to leave or when she is leaving. And so we have to remember he's abusing her to have power and control. He feels entitled, he believes that he has the right to what he wants when he wants it, that he has the right to treat her however he wants. When she's leaving or trying to leave, he feels like, uh-oh, I'm losing this control over her. So now he's gonna escalate in his abuse so that he can regain that control. Again, when we're going, when we're talking about fear, first of all, she can't leave because it's dangerous. Now she's scared and she has fear of leaving. Then maybe she starts feeling like, oh, I'm doing something wrong. So now maybe she's starting to feel a little bit of shame that she didn't leave. Then you have him always telling her, it's your fault, you know, I only act like this with you, something's wrong with you. So now she's feeling even more shame about herself because she's got him in her ear all of the time. And then if family or friends are saying, why didn't you leave? Now it's like a third thing to feel bad about. It's increasing that shame, that embarrassment, and it's really cutting into her self-esteem. And the fear just continues to escalate.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

But I think I heard you say that in this type of instance, fear is doing its job. It's actually keeping her safe. That sense of fear is an instinct that tells her, no, this the right thing to do would not be to leave right now because it becomes more dangerous for me.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yes, absolutely. Right? Fear is a good thing. So if you think about, let's just say a little bunny rabbit in the forest and there is a fox. We want that bunny rabbit to feel fearful, to feel scared so that it will run away, so that it can stay safe. And so that's the point. Counseling is not in domestic violence, counseling is not about getting rid of her fear. A lot of women come in saying, I'm tired of feeling scared. I just want to be able to relax. And we'd say, we are not gonna take away that fear because the fear's job is to help you notice when you're in danger so that you can turn on that survival mode and that you can stay safe. If she's that bunny rabbit and he's a scary guy, yes, stay fearful. We can talk about how much fear and when is it appropriate to be more scared than less scared, but we're not gonna take it away.

Fear Without Bruises

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yeah, I appreciate that. And if folks haven't listened to the part one of the series with Jordan Lawson, take a minute or a few minutes and go back and listen to that and understand a little bit more about how the amygdala works and how it's like a smoke alarm, right? And so it's turning on when fear is present and it's giving you survival signals, which yes, they can be overwhelming, yes, they can be traumatic, but they do safeguard you in many ways. And it's a very healthy thing when your body senses fear and your responses to it, they can also be very positive, not only for survival, but also to help you build resilience over time. So, not that we want anyone to experience ongoing periods of fear, especially those in a domestic violence relationship. We're just trying to make sense of it. And I believe that Jordan Lawson told me this morning that the correct term for that is reframing it.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

That's right. Yeah, if you can reframe and instead of being frustrated that you're scared, be grateful and notice, okay, why am I feeling scared? And maybe what's the body sensation that I'm experiencing right now, so that then I can learn to pay attention to that body sensation and recognize when there's danger.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about coercive control, okay? Because a lot of what you have alluded to just in the past couple of minutes, that's non-physical violence, can be maybe under that umbrella of coercive control. How would you define it and why is it so effective at creating chronic fear?

Hypervigilance And The Shark Fin

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Yeah, so coercive control is a strategic pattern of non-physical behaviors, and it creates fear through isolation, through monitoring, manipulation, and intimidation. It takes away her sense of independence. For example, financial abuse might be happening, where it's really easy to take away her financial freedom, her economic stability. It's all encompassing. Coercive control is those little things that is happening all of the time, which you mentioned, the chronic fear. It's like she's constantly having to be on guard. She's constantly having to look out for danger because you never know when it's going to happen. If he's monitoring her at home or at work or when she's with friends, he's essentially finding ways to interfere with her ability to function well. We see that in like having sleeping problems, having changes in appetite because we're she's just so scared that she's on alert. We call that hypervigilance, looking at what's he doing. Part of coercive control, Maria is using isolation. We talk about physical isolation as well as emotional isolation. He might be moving her away to a different part of town or to a small little area away from friends and family and being really remote. It might be that he doesn't allow her to work and so she's stuck inside the house, or he takes away her transportation or her phone. We've had clients who are not allowed to use the phone unless he's present, and that would be a form of isolation. I mentioned emotional isolation. It could be that he starts to interfere with her support system. So maybe he is directly saying, I don't want you to see your sister anymore. I don't like going over to your family's house. But it might be really indirect. It might just be every time they go over to her family's house, he's in a bad mood and he's complaining how she acts differently, or he's not nice to anybody at her family's house. And then they come home and then there's complaints and there's yelling and arguing. Maybe he accuses her of turning her family away from him or against him. So he might be slightly quietly causing these issues so that then she decides, you know what, it's not even worth it. I'm not gonna go hang out at my family's house then because I don't want to deal with him getting all upset and yelling and screaming at me. And then if down the road she decides, oh, I do want to disclose, I do want to tell my support system, I want to tell my mom so that she can help me and so that she understands. Now it's possible that her friends or her family members might feel like, no, you chose him over us and you abandon us and we don't have a good relationship anymore. Or maybe he's telling her, look, like we haven't gone to your family's house for two years. You think that they're gonna help you now, getting in that little isolation. I'm gonna say that he's doing this intentionally because he wants her to only depend on him, right? He doesn't want her to be able to have a support system to be able to know where else she could go for help. The other tactic that we see a lot, and I think that we've talked about this before, is social engineering, where he's in front of everyone, the nice guy. He's really great, he treats her well, he's the one at all of the school meetings and the doctor's appointments. So he's got all of these people in the community that could vouch for him, so that if they were to go to court, he's got all these people to say he's this great character and he's just wonderful, he's involved, he always treats her nicely. So now nobody else is believing her, whether that's they're not believing her in court or they're just not believing her, just in general, right? Her friends and family, and now again, she's isolated and she's all alone. One thing I do want to add, Maria, just as an example, but we sadly see it a lot, is him playing the victim and with that coercive control threatening to call the police. A lot of times they will call the police, and instead of saying that she is the abuser, although that does happen, but sometimes he'll say she was trying, she was going crazy and she was saying she was gonna kill herself. She was saying she was gonna hurt herself, so that's why I put my hands on her to keep hers from hurting herself. And so then the police take her to the hospital. She's admitted. Now all these friends and family know what's happening, and now he can say, Oh, she has been depressed lately, and there's some things going on with her. So then when she gets out, now everyone's weary of her, and it looks like he's just trying to be so sweet and take care of her. When in reality, like she never said that she was gonna hurt herself. And maybe at the hospital, she was finding some relief of just being away from him for a few days. But now that's on the record. And then that makes it even harder when you go to custody court and trying to get her kids and trying to prove like she really wasn't trying to hurt herself.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

When we listen to all of these examples and experiences, it seems so justified to feel afraid. To live with someone who's using coercive control to manipulate you. Of course, you would be almost in a constant state of maybe not panic, but grave concern for your safety and the safety of your children. And unfortunately, that's not everything that we have to cover related to methods of control that inflict fear because there's more. Tell us a little bit about financial abuse and gaslighting.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Maria, it's happening in all of the relationships. Some examples might be that he's denying access to money. He's taking away her credit cards or her debit cards, or maybe he's maybe he didn't take it away, but he's threatening to take it away if she doesn't do that, or he threatens to beat her up if she refuses to give him money, threatening to report her for misusing government benefits. Maybe he's making her work and then making her give her whole paycheck to him, or he's lying or hiding how much he makes and making her pay all the bills because he's saying that he doesn't have enough money when the reality is that she has no idea if he has any money. And now he can argue, why are you spending that much money on this thing? Because I don't have that money, even if she actually does. We hear clients say that abusive partners punish her when she spends money on a certain thing, or he gives her a limited, unrealistic allowance that she needs to spend for that she can spend on groceries for the kids that week. All of these different types of financial abuse or economic abuse is where he's making the financial decisions, she's not able to have a voice in that or have access to that. So all of these situations of financial abuse are creating that fear, that financial instability. And now she's even more trapped in the hardship or she's trapped in this relationship because she's worried, she has fear that he might use some of these methods to ruin her life. One quote that I like to use when talking about financial abuse is from a document called Ending Domestic Violence Captivity: A Guide to Economic Freedom. And it says, Why does she stay? Despite appearances to the contrary, the decision to stay is not a decision at all. She stays because she lacks the power to leave. And I think that that really sums up how she feels so trapped. And it's not that she feels trapped, she is trapped in that relationship.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Yes, for sure. I know survivors can feel powerless often when they come to see you at Genesis. They've just really lost their identity and don't feel empowered to make any decisions or take the next step toward their freedom from an abusive relationship. We've covered a large swath of information related to the types of fear, the tactics that abusers use to inflict fear upon their intended victims. And we could go on and on about this, right? Truly, there are so many different methods and ways and examples that we've seen at Genesis and around the world, really, of what men do to women when they try to control them. In a sense, they weaponize fear in very effective ways that sometimes have really devastating consequences. But I want to move on to understanding responses to fear by victims of domestic violence. There are some classic examples and also a few that may be less understood. In our last episode, part one with Jordan Lawson, we did talk about fight, flight, freeze, fawn. But I want to just, for the context of this conversation, let's explain them simply one more time for listeners.

Coercive Control Through Isolation

SPEAKER_00 21:19

The fight, flight, freeze response or the survival mode, right? That's the brain's and the body's response when we perceive threat, whether the danger is real or not. And so we kind of talk about four different ones. So first one is fight, it's when our body is getting ready to fight off the threat, the danger. Adrenaline is rushing through our body, our muscles are getting tense. Think about like a cat who is cornered and starts to hiss at you. Then you have the second one, which is flight. So that's when our body is getting ready to run away. Again, the adrenaline is running through our body, our muscles are getting ready so that we can run away and escape from that threat. So think of a squirrel running up a tree, running up a tree away to get away from my dog. Then the third one is freeze, and that is when our body just stops and becomes really still. Our muscles go numb, we and rigid, we try to stay small or quiet so that we don't call attention to the threat so that kind of will ignore us if you think of a deer that freezes in your headlights or an opossum that plays dead. And the fourth one that a lot of people are talking about is fawn. I do want to say that fawn is not really a chemical reaction of the brain or a body, it's another way of using a safety tactic. It's becoming submissive. An example is when a dog rolls on its back to submit to another dog. It's just this idea that I'm not gonna fight. I can't get away from you. If I do nothing, that doesn't seem to be working. Instead, what I'm gonna do is appease you and make sure that you see like I'm gonna submit to you so that then the threat will lessen.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

So these are examples of responses to fear. But then might an abuser exploit these responses against the victim. So, in other words, interpreting freeze as agreement.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

She's freezing, she's not fighting back, she's not defending herself, she's not trying to get away. He might say, You also agreed with me when I did the scene. You didn't tell me to stop, you didn't say that you didn't want to have sex that night. And so she's freezing because I'm just going to appease, I'm going to get through this experience. And now when she wants to say later on, well, that's not what I wanted, or I didn't like that. Well, you never told me to stop that, or you didn't tell me that you didn't want me to talk like that to you. Those are just little examples of ways that he might intentionally misinterpret what she's doing. And unfortunately, it's not just gonna be him that's misinterpreting it, right? That's gonna be the judge. Why didn't you leave? Or if you were that scared, then why didn't it, why did you let him stay alone with the kids? It's gonna be her family and her friends, it's gonna be church leaders who still keep showing up to church every Sunday and she's smiling. And we went out to dinner last night and they seem to be having a good time. So I don't buy it that he's abusing her. When in reality, that's just her safety plan to minimize the abuse. Again, try to have some type of influence over his behaviors. I'm not gonna say that she can control his behaviors, but if she can maintain the peace and not argue back, then maybe he'll stay calm in those situations.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Yeah, I understand that kind of thinking. So we've talked about a lot of different fears and responses to abusive behaviors. Let's talk for a minute about how coercion and fear then keeps victims from asking for help. So I'm not talking about leaving, right? I'm not even asking why didn't she leave or why did she stay. Just even asking for help can seem daunting and maybe scary.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Honestly, I think it goes back to the threats. He has most likely threatened something that he said, I'm going to XYZ if you XYZ, if you tell anybody about the abuse, if you leave me, if you try to get a divorce, if you go and get help, if you call the counselor, if you go to a domestic violence agency, there's a lot of threats that are gonna cause her to have fear. And I want to say it's not, she's not exaggerating, she's not being too sensitive. If he has threatened to do these things, then she is scared that he might do those things.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

So in those cases, where for someone who feels trapped by fear, what's a compassionate first reframe that you'd offer?

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Yeah, I know this is a really heavy conversation and it can feel really scary. What I want to say is your brain is so smart. It's trying to keep you safe. The fear is there to serve a purpose. It might not feel good, it doesn't feel good, but trust your instincts, pay attention to your body and your brain telling you you're in danger so that then you know how to take the next steps to use some safety measures and some coping skills.

Financial Abuse That Traps Survivors

SPEAKER_01 26:49

I think that's really good advice. You always have the best advice. And I know at Genesis we have a lot of responses that we can offer. It's a range of clinical counseling. And within clinical counseling, there are so many different options, right? Depending on your specific situation, your trauma experiences are, how long you've been in a relationship. And so I just want people to feel like if they can't ask for help, if they can't reach out right now, it is on our website at genesishelter.org. We have a 24-7 helpline, 214-946-H E L P. That's help, 4357. If you want to text, you can text us or call us. And even if you have questions about fear, I think even those types of questions are okay to talk or text with our helpline response team right there at the number I just gave you. We're here for you and we get it. And we are definitely going to move on now to talking about how to help you and creating a safety plan. So let's talk about how friends and family can support people who are experiencing fear to do domestic due to domestic violence.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

I love that you said that, Maria, because there is hope. There's hope for healing. I mentioned before that we might not get rid of the fear that she's experiencing, but we can find ways to reduce the fear to an appropriate level depending on the time for friends and family members. Let's ask her about a safety plan. Let's ask her what is she already doing that seems to be increasing her safety, or what are things that they can do to help with that? Is that offering to create a code word so she can just text a code word and they know, oh, I gotta call her and make up an excuse of why I need to see her or get her out of the house? Is it maybe she has a neighbor and if she flashes the front porch light three times, then the neighbor knows, oh, we gotta call 911. Um, you know, can a family member offer for her to stay at their house one night? And it doesn't mean, oh, because you're gonna leave the abusive partner, just that things seem to be escalating or it's a hard night. Do you need a safe place to stay? Or do you need a safe place to keep copies of documents in case something happens and you want to be able to access those documents? Really anything that a friend or family member could do to offer support as far as safety. And then, of course, have to say always, understanding that this is a complex issue. If friends and family cannot get frustrated with her if she decides to stay with the abusive partner or she goes back, or it feels like, oh gosh, it's just taking so long. She tells me one day he's terrible, and the next day she wants to give him another chance. The most helpful and supportive thing for her is not taking away your support and still being there, even if she is going back and forth, letting her know there are places like Genesis to offer free and confidential support. There are ways that we can help her in whatever she's looking for. Maybe she's not looking to leave, but she wants coping skills or she wants to apply for different programs in the community. We have those resources for her.

Fight Flight Freeze Fawn Misused

SPEAKER_01 30:15

I'm so glad you brought up all of that. And I want to point listeners back to an episode that we did, maybe it was a couple months ago on Genesis, the podcast. It was you, Jordan, and I talked about the cycle of violence and the power and control wheel. And you mentioned it just a couple seconds ago in your response. And so if you have some time to listen to that episode, it's available everywhere in our podcast library about the cycle of violence and the power and control wheel to really understand what's happening there and maybe help to identify what's going on in your own relationship. That can be extremely useful. It's just we don't have time to dive into all those details today in this one episode. So let's talk briefly about the things you want survivors to know about their responses to fear.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Trust your gut instincts. Remember that on some subconscious level, your brain is identifying that danger faster than you can. Your brain and your body were built to protect you and to keep you safe. So there's no blame in your automatic response to danger or to perceived threat. We have a lot of clients say, Oh, I don't know why I did that, or I don't know why I didn't do XYZ. There's no blame there. There's no responsibility. It's an automatic thing that your brain and your body are doing. And there are ways to heal through therapy that can help your brain figure out and distinguish, okay, what's a real threat and what's a trauma trigger, so that then you know how to better manage that fear.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

That's really good advice. We can't fear the fear, right? Because we know we will experience fear, whether it's in a domestic violence relationship or not. We are going to encounter it. Fortunately, it's not all fear, right? It's not every single day. Hopefully, for many of us, I talked about this with Jordan. There are experiences where people are stuck in the trigger of fear. So their amygdala is stronger and bigger than others, and it's always turned on. She calls it smelling smoke, the comparison of the amygdala to a smoke detector. But I don't want people to fear the fear. I couldn't go as far as to say, embrace fear because it's good for you. But in a way it is. And we said this earlier, and I just want to restate it one more time. If you come to Genesis because you're experiencing domestic violence or any domestic violence agency, we can help you work on that fear and help it lead to some resilience. There is some hope on the other side of that. Give us just a couple practical next steps for someone who recognizes themselves within this conversation that we just had.

Getting Help And Building Safety Plans

SPEAKER_00 33:06

So now that you've heard some of the red flags of abusive relationships, now you can start to notice. Are there red flags in my relationship? And if you find that maybe that's a yes, or maybe you're not sure, free and confidential help is available here at Genesis. Just like Maria said, calling or texting our 24-hour helpline. Even if you haven't decided what you want to do, we're here to support you. We're here to support you in your decisions and wanting to hear what are your goals for your relationship and how can we help.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

That's excellent advice, of course. And I think I would just want to underscore what you said, even if you haven't decided what you want to do. You don't have to have a plan. You can have resources without having to take a next step. 214-946-4357 is that number to call or text. You can also call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233. Ruth, thank you so much for sharing all of this information with us and for the work that you do and for talking with me today. Thanks for having me, Maria. Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to give women in abusive situations a way out. We are committed to our mission of providing safety, shelter, and support for women and children who have experienced domestic violence and to raise awareness regarding its cause, prevalence, and impact. Join us in creating a societal shift on how people think about domestic violence. You can learn more at GenesisShelter.org and when you follow us on social media, on Facebook and Instagram at Genesis Women's Shelter, and on X at Genesis Shelter. The Genesis Helpline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by call or text at 214 946 HELP. 214 946 4357.