All semester, and most of the past year, I’ve been focusing on what abusive relationships are like and how they can affect victims. I spoke with friends who had their own experiences with abusive relationships. I learned about how it affected them along with the kinds of events that went down for them to realize it was an abusive relationship. One person even said they didn’t realize it was an abusive relationship until months after distancing themselves from the situation because it consisted of a lot of calculated manipulation. It showed me how it can be subtle enough where the victim may not realize what is being done to them, situations like gaslighting, where the abuser attempts to make them feel crazy and eventually make them constantly question themselves and reality.
Aside from personal experiences I’ve witnessed, I also have been visiting AVI every week to discuss abusive relationships and the variety of experiences people can have. People either get out of it easily and fairly soon or feel stuck due to their self-esteem being lowered so often or even financial reasons. We went over the little things that could point to abuse, ranging from physical to emotional and mental abuse. As a result of the abuse, some people have experienced PTSD afterward, as they lose a sense of safety or control of their own life, or even lose trust in general with most people in their life.
Virtual Reality started showing up from as early as the 1950s before it became what we know today. Virtual Reality would be a good option to educate since it is already used for educational purposes for nearly all ages and ranging from social simulators or medical and anatomy education. I personally have seen it used to navigate the human body and learn about the anatomy or even to learn to perform surgeries. It even has been used in prisons to help prisoners learn how to navigate throughout life after they are released from prison. Along with helping prisoners, there is a simulation of what solitary confinement is like to share that experience with the general public to get them to understand what it is like in there. It’s a great example of using VR to make people understand certain unique experiences that not everyone may experience. It has worked well enough so far to make others feel like they understand what it is like. This is why I believe using Virtual Reality is the best option to educate and show people what an abusive relationship can be like and experience it as well as they can without having to go through it.