ways to be supportive

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identify ways you already support your friends

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Support can be a phone call, a hug, a visit, a ride to school, help with a project, advice, a sympathetic ear

• Think of the important friends in your life
• List the ways you support each of them

 
Offer support that empowers

• Help your friends improve at a skill you may be good at
• Let your friends teach you or help you with something
• Skillshare

Be an active listener

• Show that you understand and care about your friend's problems
• Be empathetic, not judgmental
• Don't offer advice unless your friend asks for feedback
• Be constructive by helping your friend look beyond the current situation for possible solutions 

Ask your friends for support

• Let your friends know what you need from them
• Make a list of how you would like to be supported by your friends
• Show appreciation when a friend does something nice for you

Encourage friends to ask you for support

• Ask your friends if you can help them
• Offer suggestions for how you might help
• Follow through on what you say you will do​​

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Define the boundaries of friendship that work for you

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It is common for friends that are not truly friends to try to blur the lines in your relationship and try to get "benefits", this is coercion a red flag of abuse.

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cycle of violence, it can start with small stuff

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The cycle of attempting to obtain and maintain control over another person can be seen in different types of relationships. 

​It can be part of an unhealthy work dynamic, friendship, or romantic partnership. 

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http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/sexinfo/article/cycle-domestic-violence

​Violent Episode

• Gets you to do something you did not want to do
• Asks you something inappropriate that they would not ask in front of other people 
• Yelling at you or insulting you
• Use of a weapon, or throwing something at you
• Causing injury, physical or emotional
• Destroying possessions or taking something without your permission

Calm stage

• Asks for forgiveness
• Says they will not do it again
• Makes promises, especially unsolicited promises
• Is affectionate, gives excessive compliments
• Denies the abuse happened or that they will take responsibility even though they didn't really do anything

Tension-Building
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• Picks a fight or tries to start an argument
• Acts jealous or possessive
• Ignores you/ gives you  the cold shoulder and pretends that they are not doing it
• Criticizes or threatens, makes you feel bad, maybe tells you that you smell bad
• Appears to have unpredictable mood swings
• Isolates you from others
• Says things to you that nobody else is aware of

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An abuser might lead you to think that you are friends and then lead you you think that they want a relationship so you will do things that are outside of the boundaries of a friendship. 

They might manipulate you into having sex, thinking that they care about you, and want a long term relationship.

They then deny ever suggesting that you were anything other than friends.

They might pretend that the sex never happened, but expect you to still be ok with being friends, just as you were before the incident, this is a form of rape. 

This can lead a person to feel uncomfortable in the environment they usually hang out it in and can lead to a sense of isolation and silencing.

This behavior is normalized in some social settings, it is ok to speak up and let others know how you feel about the situation, they might ignore you, but you gave them a chance to listen to a different perspective.

Hopefully they have learned ways to be supportive. 

We cannot change abusers, we can only stay away from them, and set boundaries if we need to be near them, it is not our job to monitor the boundaries, we can only do our best and hope for the best. 

People do abusive things for a sense of power and control, sometimes power and control are maintained via privilege dynamics.
 

​We have peace when power is shared.
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