*trigger warning: relationship abuse*

On Tuesday October 18, Project Safe had a guest speaker coming from Day One. For those of you that don’t know what Day One is it is an organization that helps end abusive relationships and domestic violence in youth relationships.

What do you think is an abusive relationship? Well, we were also asked that question and here’s what we came up with. Some of us characterized abusive relationships as involving violence,  stalking, and controlling. For example, stalking can be following someone or going through their Facebook excessively. Before a relationship becomes abusive you should look out for warning signs. The biggest warning sign that we were taught was OD jealousy. OD jealousy can be always wanting to know who they’re with, what they’re doing,  and where they at. OD jealousy can also be accusing your partner of flirting or cheating with someone else all the time.

Claudia had also told us a story about a young women who was being abused by her partner. She started to get abused when she was 13 years old.  The first time this happened she was in school on the lunch line. Her boyfriend had saw her and thought that she was revealing to much cleavage.  After he noticed that, he had ripped her shirt. She was so scared and upset she went into the bathroom and began to cry. From that moment the relationship just went downhill. Eventually she had gotten help but she was almost killed before she got help. Now she is 19 and uses her story to educate young people. This story was very inspiring to us.

At the end of our workshop, the youth of PRY expressed our appreciation for Claudia coming in to talk to us. We felt that she was very real with us, friendly, understandable, nonjudgmental, and informative ! You don’t find a lot of Claudia’s around.

For more information on Day One or if you need help you could look out for our video that we would be posting next week and visit their website at www.DayOneNY.org.