In “How to Identify Love by Knowing What It’s Not,” Augusten Burroughs explains how to tell the difference between abuse and love. Burroughs explains that there are two different types of abuse: physical and emotional. He goes on to explain that it is difficult to recognize an abusive relationship. Furthermore, Burroughs also says that it is hard to leave an abusive relationship. I agree with Burroughs that there are two different types of abuse, and that it is difficult to recognize, and to leave an abusive relationship. Burroughs talks about two different types of abuse: physical and emotional. Physical abuse is easy to recognize. Hitting, slapping, shoving, are all examples. However, emotional abuse is much harder to recognize. As Burroughs says, “Their covert abuse is administered in small, cunning ways.” (396-18). I believe this to be true. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. My boyfriend, at the time, would call me an idiot, who would never amount to anything. Then he would say it was okay because he would fix it. He would tell me that I wouldn’t be able to survive without him …show more content…
Burroughs says that the reason you can’t recognize that you’re being abused is that you never think it will happen to you (398). I agree with him. In my relationship, I didn’t see that I was being abused. And the reasons that I didn’t see that I was being abused are the same reasons that Burroughs says. “Domestic violence always only happens to other people, and you are too smart and sophisticated to ever, for one moment, be with somebody abusive” (Burroughs 398). He goes on to say that people think of abuse as a lower-class problem. I thought that if I was being abused I would know it. I also thought that there was no way that I would be in an abusive relationship. I thought abuse was physical. I didn’t realize that emotional abuse was also abuse. Burroughs gives the checklist from the National Domestic Violence