“There is no standard for the victim of an abusive relationship”, says pop psychoanalyst

Last weekend, presenter Ana Hickmann reported having been attacked by her husband, Alexandre Correa. The presenter even opened a police report against her husband, in which she states that the attacks began after a fight and that she had to go to the hospital afterwards.

The case had repercussions on social media and raised the question of abusive relationships on social media. And this is more common than you think. According to a study published in the scientific journal The Lancet, one in four women has suffered domestic violence throughout their lives.

Getting into an abusive relationship can happen to any woman, just as it happened to Manuela Xavier . The psychoanalyst and influencer needed strength to get out of the relationship that imprisoned her. “We think it’s love, when, in fact, it’s not. But these are such small things, sometimes, that women don’t even notice,” she points out.

To break the cycle of living with the aggressor, she highlighted that it is important to have a support network. “Having friendships that help you get out of this is essential, that’s why I started talking about abusive relationships on my social networks so women can realize that they could be living in a relationship like this and how to get out of it. That’s when I decided to talk about it on my social networks and show that people can get out of this situation and don’t have to be ashamed,” she explains in an interview with CNN.

There is no standard

An abusive relationship can fit into different characteristics, as the influencer points out on her social networks and also in the book “Eyes open: an untold story about an abusive relationship”. “It could be that person with the ‘shortest fuse’, who starts criticizing your clothes, controlling your money, then moving on to more extreme cases such as aggression or femicide”, explains Xavier.

And in recent weeks, several cases of celebrities who suffered from abusive relationships have come to light, in addition to Ana Hickmann. Cases of abuse against Patricia Ramos It is Gleici Damasceno . The last two exposed their abusive relationships on social media, while in the case of the former model, the police report was published by the Leo Dias portal.

“Some people have the wrong idea that people who are victims of abusive relationships are more ‘fragile’. However, there is no pattern for the victim of an abusive relationship. You can see that the celebrities who spoke about what they experienced are empowered women, who you would never imagine would go through this. But this machismo is rooted in our society, it is not something easy to change”, he adds.

The psychoanalyst reinforces the importance of public figures guiding dialogue with topics like this, which, despite being common, are not usually at the center of the conversation. “The courage that Gleici and Patrícia had to expose the cases gives courage to other women to leave this abusive cycle. Ana Hickmann’s case is a little more delicate. But when we started to see these women talking about the abuse, we realized that this could happen to any of us. That’s why it’s important to speak up before it leads to physical violence or even death,” she points out.

In the first half of 2023, cases of femicide in Brazil increased by 2.6%, compared to the same period in the previous year. The country registered 722 female victims of homicide, in contrast to the 704 occurrences in the first six months of 2022. At the same time, cases of rape and rape of vulnerable people experienced a significant increase of 14.9%, totaling 34 thousand female victims of this crime. Notably, 70% of rape cases involved girls as young as 13 as victims. These alarming data were released by the Brazilian Public Security Forum last Monday (13).

And you?

For her more than 400 thousand followers, Manu is an example, but she felt within her that she could do more. “I had a desire inside me to help more, you know? I wanted the conversations I have with my friends to become a conversation between women,” she explains.

That’s where the idea for the program “E Você?” came from, which premieres next Tuesday (21), on YouTube, with the first guest being the singer Manu Gavassi . “I chose to launch it directly on YouTube instead of audio platforms because I wanted people to feel like they were talking together, you know? A chat between friends, and each conversation ends with the question ‘What about you?’, which is where the name of the program came from”, she adds.

“I called the deputy Erika Hilton , Camila Coutinho , Jade Picon and other strong female role models. I’m really looking forward to the launch, it’s a project that I’ve dedicated a lot to,” she concludes.