This week's edition of #dvam is about teen dating violence. The Center for Disease Control completed a study in 2011 where they found 23% of females and 14% of males between the ages of 11-17 experienced some type of abuse - physical, emotional, and/or sexual - by an intimate partner. Do you understand what that looks like?
23% translates to almost 1 in 4 females...
and 14% translates to a little more than 1 in 7 males...The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence maintains up-to-date statistics about domestic violence in the United States. With our current trends, it is estimated 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men experience physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. So given this, statistically speaking, most girls experience their first abusive relationship during adolescence.
For those of you who enjoy science - especially biology/anatomy, this will probably be interesting to you. The human brain does not finish developing until you are in your mid-twenties. The last part of your brain to complete development is the prefrontal cortex. This part of your brain is responsible for executive function. Executive function includes things like attention span, control over inhibitions, reasoning, problem solving, planning, etc.
Switching gears, let's talk about the chemicals released during a trauma:
Catecholamines: This is better known as the "fight or flight" response people often experience during a traumatic event.
Corticosteroids: most simply put, this provides the body with energy to react to the fight/flight/freeze instinct.
Oxytocin: This inhibits memories from being organized in a logical way.
Opioids: prevent pain.
To tie all of this together, teenagers are in an interesting phase of life. Brains are not yet fully developed, tons of hormones are being released and integrated through puberty, and there is a lot of pressure to do well in school to set up for the next phase of life: college and/or a career path. When you add a trauma, such as dating violence, life gets even more complicated. All the above mentioned chemicals get released during and following a trauma, but the part of their brain that is in charge of reasoning and problem-solving is not fully developed. Additionally, those chemicals can take days or even weeks to regulate, and that is totally dependent on no further traumatic events happening again.
As adults, it is important for us to understand the relevance of teen dating violence and their developmental stage so we can be empathic to their experiences. With that said, continue to sport your purple ribbon for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and also wear an orange one in February for Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month.