Learn at your pace
Understand one pattern at a time
A behavior can mean different things in different relationships. Look at context, repetition, consequences, and freedom of choice.
Choose a topic. Each lesson also considers other explanations.
Not sure where to start? Start with DARVO — deny, attack, reverse victim and offender.
Isolation
Slowly cutting you off from other people.
Monitoring and surveillance
Checking, tracking, and needing to know where you are.
Financial control
Controlling money to control choices.
Guilt and obligation
Making your ordinary choices feel like a betrayal.
Reality-testing and denial
Rewriting what happened until you doubt your own memory.
Moving goalposts
The rules change so you can never quite get it right.
Threats and intimidation
Fear used as a way to get compliance.
Intensity cycles
Extremes of warmth and withdrawal that keep you off balance.
Degradation and criticism
Steady chipping away at how you see yourself.
Rules and permission-seeking
Adult life becomes something you need approval for.
DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender)
You raise a concern — and somehow end up apologizing.
Sexual coercion
Going along with it because saying no costs too much.
Reproductive coercion
Interference with contraception, pregnancy, or your decisions about either.
Repeated unwanted pursuit
Contact and attention that keeps coming after you asked it to stop.
Using what you care about as leverage
Children, pets, family, status or reputation turned into pressure points.
Why purple and teal?
Purple is the color of domestic violence awareness. It stands for the courage of people living with control, intimidation and harm inside their own homes — and for the communities that believe them.
Teal is the color of healing after loss and trauma. It stands for remembrance of those who did not survive, and for steady support for the people who carry that grief.
Woven together, these two colors are the heart of MendRii: recognition of abuse that is happening now, and hope for what comes after. They are why you see purple and teal across everything we make.
These lessons are educational. They are not a diagnosis of anyone, and not legal or clinical advice. Universal confidential support is available on the Get help.
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