REFLECTION PAPER
A relationship is either healthy or unhealthy. The only way to determine
whether your relationship is healthy or not, is to step out of your own
relationship and think about it. Healthy and unhealthy relationships have
many different qualities. A healthy relationship is one with mutual respect for
one another, trust, honestly, support during good and bad times, fairness,
separate identities, and good communication. However, when these qualities
are not present and qualities such as disrespectful, control, or abusive
behavior are present, the relationship is unhealthy.
When verbal insults, mean language, hitting/slapping, and force are shown,
it is also warning sign that there is abuse in the relationship. When one is in a
unhealthy relationship it should be fixed or the person should just leave it.
Throughout our lifetime, different relationships are established with different
people. Along with these different people, come different types of
relationships. Whether they are family relationships, friendships, work, or
love.
Survival relationships are one type of relationship, it is where one
partner feels like he/she cannot make it on his/her own and needs a partner,
or both partners may feel that way.
This relationship is just based on the person’s personal need of having
someone to comfort and provide for. An issue that is usually associated with
survival relationships is abuse and hostility because each partner is just trying
to get the other to provide what he/she is missing. Abusive relationships are
one where a partner is either hurt or harmed from the other, either physically,
mentally, verbally, etc.
A conflict that can arise is someone getting seriously injured, even killed. If I
was in this relationship, I would seek help from anyone. Sometimes the abuser
may not even know what he is doing. However, if he is aware, leaving is what
I’d do. Sexual relationships are another type of relationship based solely on
sex. Another relationship is a friend with benefits one where they are not
considered going out but they do engage in sexual activity. A conflict that can
occur is insecurity about whether your partner really loves you, in the case
that you fall in love with that person.
Honest and Trust relationships are one where trust, support, and happiness
are present. Each person is accepted for who they are. There are no bad
conflicts to this relationship except for minor arguments. The relationships
listed here are not the only relationships out there, there are way more, but
these are a couple of them. Relationship abuse include mental, physical,
sexual, verbal, cyber, and psychological. Signs of an abusive relationship
include the partner harming you physically (slapping, pushing, grabbing, etc.
, controlling you (how you dress, who you hang with, what you say),
humiliating you or making you feel inferior to them, threatens you or
herself/himself if you leave relationship, twists the truth, forcing you to do
something you don’t want to, demanding and manipulative, and jealousy or
anger towards you when you spend time with other people. These signs should
be carefully watched for. Consequences from abusive relationships can be as
minor as having bruises on your body to having psychosis, post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression or psychosomatic disease.
Sexual abuse can have a major impact on a person, especially at a young age.
In the article Abuse in teenage relationships 'more prevalent' than thought, a
girl named Emma admits to having been abused. The sign of being abused is
that she was forced into having sex a few times when she was merely 13. Being
forced to do something you clearly do not want to do is considered to be abuse.
The consequence of this was that she was never able to admit it or even tell
anyone, it haunted her for most of her life. Abuse can have serious effects
similar to what this girl was going through.
To help this girl out, she should seek help from professionals. By talking about
it to professional people, she could be able to straighten out her mind and
realize it was not her fault. By coping with what happened and moving past it