Nothing in this article makes anybody safe, and none of it is your responsibility. What happens is done by the person doing it, and there is no correct behaviour that prevents it.
What is true is that some decisions made in the first thirty seconds change how badly it ends, and those decisions are much easier to make if they were made in advance. That is the whole purpose of this page. Read it now, when nothing is happening.
Before anything: the rooms
Move towards a room with a door out and away from rooms with hard surfaces and objects.
Away from the kitchen. Knives, hot oil, gas, glass, hard edges. It is the most dangerous room in any house for this and it is also where a lot of arguments start, so moving out of it is the first instinct worth training.
Away from the bathroom. Tiles, porcelain, a hard floor, no second exit, and a door that locks in a way that helps him rather than you.
Away from stairs. Never towards them, never up them. Upstairs is a trap and falls do serious damage.
Towards a door to outside, or a room with a window facing a neighbour, or a room where a phone is.
Walk the route through your own house once, in your head. It takes two minutes and it is the difference between deciding and reacting.
In the moment
- Protect your head and your neck. Arms up, hands over the back of the head, elbows in front of the face, chin down. Curl on your side rather than on your back if you go down, and keep your knees up to protect your abdomen.
- Get out if the way is clear. Leaving is better than any other option, and a house is not worth more than you are. Do not stop for shoes, a bag, or anything else.
- Do not get cornered. Keep yourself between him and the way out where you can, rather than backing into a room with one door.
- Try not to escalate it. Not because you are responsible for his behaviour, but because in the moment your only aim is for it to stop sooner. Arguing the point, correcting him or answering an accusation can wait until nobody is being hurt.
- Think hard before fighting back. It sometimes works and it frequently makes injuries much worse, and it can also be used against you later if there is a court case. If you have to defend yourself, defend yourself. Just do not choose it as a strategy.
- If he is drunk, remember he is less steady. Distance is more useful than anything else.
If there are hands on your neck
Turn your chin down towards your chest if you possibly can, and pull at his elbows or wrists rather than his fingers. Fingers are strong and elbows are not.
Afterwards, get medical attention the same day even if you feel fine and there is nothing to see. This is not optional advice and the reasons are set out in full in the article about strangulation, which is the single most important page on this site.
Getting help without making it worse
Shouting for help is not always safe and it is worth thinking about what you shout.
Calling a specific neighbour by name works better than a general cry, because a general one is easy for everybody to decide is not their business, and a name makes it somebody’s. “Mama Chidi! Mama Chidi!” gets a response that “help” does not.
We would not advise shouting thief. It draws a crowd, and a crowd in that state is unpredictable and dangerous to everybody including you.
If you can reach a phone, 112 is the number and the address comes first. Say the address, then what is happening, then your name. If you are cut off, they have the address, which is the part that matters.
If you have arranged a code word with somebody, this is what it is for, and a short call saying one ordinary sentence is far less risky than a call that sounds like a call for help.
The children
They should already have one instruction: go to the named place and stay there. Not intervene, not fetch anybody from inside the house, not try to help. Children who intervene get hurt, and the older ones will try.
If they are in the room, do not call them to you. Tell them to go, using the words you agreed, and do not look back at them. How to set that up covers what to say and how to practise it without frightening them.
Straight afterwards
- Get somewhere safe first, even if that is only a neighbour’s house or outside the gate. Do not stay in the house to tidy the situation.
- Check yourself properly. Adrenaline hides injuries for hours. Head, neck, ribs, abdomen, and anything that hurts more the next morning than it did on the night.
- Get seen if there was pressure on your neck, any blow to the head, loss of consciousness, abdominal pain, pregnancy, or any bleeding. What is time critical sets out the rest.
- Photograph the injuries when you can, with something in the frame that shows the date if possible, and photograph again after two days when bruising has developed properly.
- Write it down the same day. Date, time, what happened, who was there, what was said. Memory is unreliable about this within a week. How to keep that record safely matters as much as making it.
- Tell one person. Not for a decision, just so somebody other than you knows it happened.
What not to do afterwards
Do not clean up before you have photographed anything broken, if you are considering reporting it. Do not delete the messages that come afterwards, including the apologies, because those are frequently the clearest evidence there is. Do not agree to a family meeting that same night. And do not accept an assessment of how serious your injuries are from the person who caused them.
The thing to be clear about
You did not cause it, you cannot reliably prevent it, and managing it better is not a skill you should have to acquire.
Everything above is damage limitation for a situation that should not exist. It is worth knowing because it works, and it is not a substitute for the longer conversation about what happens next. When you are ready for that one, the version for women who are staying is where most people start.
Questions people ask
Should I fight back?
If you have to defend yourself, do. As a strategy it frequently makes injuries worse and it can be used against you later. Getting out, if the way is clear, is better than any other option.
Is it wrong to apologise or agree with him to make it stop?
No. In the moment your only aim is for it to end sooner, and saying whatever achieves that is a survival decision, not a concession. Nothing said under those conditions means anything.
What should I shout?
A specific neighbour’s name. A general cry for help is easy for everyone to decide is not their business. We would not advise shouting thief, because the crowd it draws is dangerous to everybody including you.
What do I say if I get through to 112?
The address first, then what is happening, then your name. If the call is cut off they still have the address, which is the part that matters.
He was drunk and does not remember. Does that change anything?
Not medically and not legally. It also does not change what you should do afterwards, which is get checked, write it down, and photograph anything visible.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, call or send a message to +2348025170267, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
- This is not medical advice.
- Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here replaces being examined. Do not delay seeing a doctor, nurse or pharmacist because of something you read here, and do not start, stop or change any treatment on the strength of it. If something is time critical, go and be seen.
- This is not counselling, and it is not financial advice.
- Articles about trauma, sleep, money, debt, renting or starting a business describe what commonly helps. They are not therapy and they are not a recommendation about your own money. Speak to a counsellor, a qualified adviser or your own bank about your circumstances.
- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
- Law changes, services close, numbers stop answering and practice varies by state. We correct what we find, and we cannot promise that every page is current on the day you read it. Where we do not have something confirmed, we say so rather than fill the gap.
- Reading this does not make us your lawyer or your doctor.
- No professional relationship is created by reading an article, and we cannot accept liability for decisions taken on the strength of one. What we can do is help you reach somebody who is qualified to advise you, which is what the legal and health parts of our work exist for.
- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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