**Acknowledging this broader circle of victims is essential for true justice and recovery.**

When most people hear the words victim of abuse, the image that immediately comes to mind is the person directly experiencing harm, possibly with outward physical injuries. Our first instinct is to see the individual targeted as “the victim.”

And yet, abuse rarely confines itself neatly to a single person. It ripples outward. The effects touch families, friends, communities, workplaces, and even systems built to protect us. The term victim is much broader than we typically imagine.

This expanded understanding matters for two reasons:

It validates the experiences of people whose lives are disrupted by abuse, even if they were not the direct target.
It highlights opportunities for intervention, prevention, and healing that extend beyond supporting the survivor alone.

Let’s explore who is considered a victim of abuse beyond the actual victim, how abuse impacts them, and why acknowledging this broader circle of victims is essential for true justice and recovery.

1. Children in the HomeWitnessing Abuse

Children who grow up in homes where abuse occurs, even if they are not the direct targets are among the most vulnerable secondary victims.

Research shows that children who witness domestic violence experience trauma almost as deeply as those who endure it firsthand. Hearing shouting, seeing one parent hurt the other, or living in fear of unpredictable outbursts shapes their development, trust, and sense of safety.

“Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it’s supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful – something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for.”
– Susan Forward, Toxic Parents

Emotional and Behavioral Impact

Children exposed to abuse often show signs of anxiety, depression, difficulty concentrating, and behavioral issues at school. Some become hyper-vigilant, constantly scanning for danger. Others may mimic abusive behaviors in their own relationships later in life.

Breaking the Cycle

Recognizing children as victims in their own right allows educators, healthcare providers, and legal systems to intervene earlier. It also emphasizes the importance of trauma-informed care, not just for the abused parent, but for the entire family system.

2. Extended Family Members

When abuse takes place, parents, siblings, and relatives often feel the shockwaves.

The Emotional Toll

Parents of adult survivors may carry deep guilt: Why didn’t I see it? Could I have prevented it? Siblings may feel powerless or angry. Grandparents may be cut off from grandchildren when abuse leads to isolation, separation or custody battles. Family support is essential for a victim, but many times family members do not know what to do.

Secondary Trauma

Hearing detailed accounts of abuse can itself be traumatizing. This is often called secondary trauma or vicarious trauma, and it mirrors symptoms of post-traumatic stress: intrusive thoughts, sleep disturbances, and emotional numbness. The target victim may not have anyone else to express their feelings, confide in, or listen to what they are experiencing, family members are most likely to be that sounding board.

Alienation and Loss

Abuse often isolates the direct victim. But, it can also fracture entire families. The abuser may manipulate situations to cut off supportive relatives, leaving them grieving the loss of connection and struggling with helplessness.

3. Friends and Social Circles

Abuse doesn’t just happen behind closed doors; it spills into the social networks of those involved.

Strain on Friendships

Friends may watch someone they care about slowly withdraw, cancel plans, or adopt behaviors that don’t align with their personality. Trying to intervene can be emotionally draining, especially if the victim is not ready to leave. As a confidante, a friend may want to help and become frustrated when help is dismissed unintentionally.

Recognizing secondary victims of abuse expands both our compassion and our responsibility. *Healing must be collective.* Supporting survivors means also supporting their children, families, workplaces, and communities.

Risk of Retaliation

Sometimes friends who offer support are themselves targeted by the abuser through intimidation, harassment, or being smeared in social circles. Often a close friend may put themselves in the path of danger from an angry abuser. Supporting someone in an abusive situation carries the risk of retaliation, as abusers may lash out at friends, family, or advocates who try to help. This danger often creates fear and silence, further isolating the victim and those who care about them.

Emotional Exhaustion

Loving someone in an abusive situation often brings waves of fear, frustration, and helplessness. Friends, too, carry the burden of worry, making them indirect victims of the abuse dynamic. Emotional exhaustion sets in when the constant stress of worry, fear, or caregiving depletes a person’s ability to cope. For those connected to abuse, this weariness can lead to burnout, hopelessness, and difficulty offering continued support.

4. Employers and Workplaces

The workplace is often overlooked in discussions of abuse, but the impact can be significant.

Lost Productivity and Absenteeism

Victims may miss work due to injuries, court dates, or emotional exhaustion. Co-workers and managers absorb the fallout, often picking up extra responsibilities. When able to work, the victim’s productivity is often decreased setting up another layer of stress and guilt.

Safety Concerns

In some cases, abusers stalk or harass victims at work, putting the entire workplace at risk. Employers must respond not just to protect the target victim, but the whole staff. The victim is working with fear for themselves, fear for co-workers, and fear of losing their job altogether. Often the abuser will cause the victim to lose their job, keeping them under control and creating other forms of abuse, financial, emotional and coercive control.

Emotional Impact on Colleagues

Colleagues who notice changes such as bruises, fearfulness, or sudden absenteeism may feel powerless or distressed. They too carry part of the burden, even if indirectly.

5. First Responders and Service Providers

Police officers, social workers, shelter staff, medical personnel, and advocates interact with abuse daily. They are essential to addressing the crisis, but exposure comes at a cost.

Compassion Fatigue and Burnout

Repeatedly hearing stories of abuse, witnessing trauma, and navigating systems that often fail victims can wear down even the most resilient professional. In most cases, service providers are the first line of defense for a victim who is often in a state of heightened emotions, anger, fear, and confusion.

Vicarious Trauma

Service providers may internalize the trauma of those they serve, leading to nightmares, hyper-vigilance, and emotional withdrawal. Their job demands a high level of empathy and engagement with traumatized individuals, which can lead to vicarious trauma with symptoms including increased use of substances, aggressive outbursts, relationship problems, and declining job performance.

Secondary victims often are first responders and victim service providers. It often arises from constant empathetic engagement with survivors of traumatic events, internalizing their stories or images of trauma.

Victims Too

While they may not be the target of the abuse, first responders are deeply affected by it. Acknowledging them as secondary victims helps normalize mental health care and trauma-informed practices within these professions. Coping skills and secondary trauma prevention should be offered along with self-care practices, and professional and peer support if needed.

6. Communities and Neighborhoods

Abuse erodes more than households; it erodes trust in communities.

Fear and Instability

When a neighborhood repeatedly hears shouting, police sirens, or sees children removed from homes, residents may feel unsafe or helpless. Exposure to violence is commonly amplified by social media, where traumatic incidents are often shared widely.

The Cost to Community Resources

Abuse in the home increases demand for police intervention, court proceedings, medical care, and shelter services. These costs ripple outward, affecting everyone.

Cultural Silence

In some communities, abuse becomes a hidden “open secret.” Neighbors may know something is wrong but fear stepping in. This collective silence deepens the harm.

7. The Legal and Judicial System

Frequently systems designed to help can become victims of the abuse cycle.

Overburdened Courts

Domestic violence and abuse cases strain court systems, which are already backlogged. Judges, lawyers, and clerks may experience compassion fatigue or frustration. Professionals may also be exposed to graphic depictions of violence, abuse, or death through testimony, evidence, or crime scenes leading to becoming secondary victims. It can come from a single case or an accumulation of cases with horrific circumstances.

Manipulation by Abusers

Abusers often weaponize the court system through filing frivolous lawsuits, dragging out custody battles, or using legal proceedings to maintain control. This manipulation not only victimizes the survivor but drains time, money, and energy from the system itself. The term “litigation abuse” describes how abusers continue to intimidate and control their victims which turns the courts into a new battleground. Such tactics are the cause of financial and emotional exhaustion, not just for the victim, but judicial professionals as well.

8. Society at Large

When abuse is widespread, society as a whole becomes a victim.

Economic Impact

According to the CDC, intimate partner violence alone costs billions annually in medical services, lost productivity, and criminal justice involvement. These costs don’t just affect the survivor, they also affect every taxpayer.
Communities bear the cost of supporting survivors through emergency services, healthcare, social welfare, and legal systems, all of which are strained by the effects of abuse. They also bear the cost of supporting the victim’s children who may be placed outside the home in hopes of a more stable environment.

(“The estimated intimate partner violence lifetime cost was $103,767 per female victim and $23,414 per male victim, or a population economic burden of nearly $3.6 trillion (2014 US$) over victims’ lifetimes, based on 43 million U.S. adults with victimization history. This estimate included $2.1 trillion (59% of total) in medical costs, $1.3 trillion (37%) in lost productivity among victims and perpetrators, $73 billion (2%) in criminal justice activities, and $62 billion (2%) in other costs, including victim property loss or damage. Government sources pay an estimated $1.3 trillion (37%) of the lifetime economic burden.” Lifetime Economic Burden of Intimate Partner Violence Among U.S. Adults)

When children are exposed to violence in the home that is not positively addressed, they tend to continue to perpetuate the cycle on the streets.

Normalization of Violence

When abuse is minimized or tolerated, it creates a culture that normalizes harmful behaviors. This collective harm perpetuates cycles of violence across generations. By trivializing abuse in the home, or violence in the community, and glorifying it “on the street,” people become desensitized to the higher implications. In some sectors it becomes a badge of honor.

Erosion of Trust

Abuse undermines trust in institutions, relationships, and community safety. The more it continues unchecked, the more society as a whole bears the scars. Often there is more abuse found in lower economic neighborhoods where there is also less quality in the local resources and social networks. Broken community trust deters residents from participating in activities that may enhance their situation and show them a better way to deal with violence.

9. The Abuser as a Victim of Their Own Behavior

This is the most complex and controversial category. While accountability must always remain front and center, some argue that abusers are also victims of learned behavior, untreated trauma, or systemic failures.

Intergenerational Trauma

Many abusers grew up in abusive households. Left unaddressed, their learned patterns become cycles of harm. Intergenerational violence occurs when patterns of abuse, neglect, or harmful behaviors are passed down from one generation to the next, shaping how children learn to view relationships, conflict, and power. Breaking this cycle requires intentional intervention, education, and healing to ensure future generations are not bound by the trauma of the past.

Lack of Support for Change

Despite the widespread harm caused by abuse, there are limited programs dedicated to rehabilitating abusers and addressing the root causes of their behavior. This lack of support and resources often leaves individuals trapped in destructive cycles, with few opportunities for accountability and lasting change.

Caution in Language

While it’s important to recognize the humanity of abusers, this perspective must never excuse or minimize the harm they cause. The priority must always be the safety and healing of those directly impacted. Caution in language is essential when discussing rehabilitation for abusers, as careless wording can unintentionally minimize the suffering of victims. Clear communication ensures that accountability remains the priority while still acknowledging the need for broader solutions to break cycles of harm.

10. Recognizing the Invisible Victims

When we broaden the definition of “victim,” we don’t dilute the suffering of those directly harmed. Instead, we recognize that abuse creates a web of pain and trauma. The abused parent, the child who witnesses it, the friend who carries silent worry, the police officer who takes another heartbreaking call; they are all touched by the same violence.

By naming these ripple effects, we open the door to better solutions:

Trauma-informed schools that support children of abuse.
Family-centered interventions that recognize extended relatives’ pain.
Workplace policies that protect victims and colleagues.
Mental health services for first responders and advocates.
Community engagement to break cycles of silence.

Beyond the Single Story

Abuse is never contained. It spreads across homes, families, friendships, workplaces, and communities.

The target victim carries the heaviest burden, but they do not carry it alone. Everyone connected to the abuse, in large or small ways, bears its weight.

Recognizing this truth expands both our compassion and our responsibility. When we see that abuse creates many victims, we also see that healing must be collective. Supporting survivors means also supporting their children, families, and communities. It means strengthening the systems and people who respond. And it means creating a culture where abuse is no longer tolerated, minimized, or hidden.

Because until all victims are acknowledged, the cycle of abuse remains unbroken.

More information from the Blog:

6 ThingsVictims of Abuse Expect on Their First Call for Help

The Hidden Danger: Domestic Violence, Guns, and the Gaps That Kill

How the EAA Applies in Crawford v. Washington and the Forfeiture by Wrongdoing Clause

If you are an Advocate or Professional and are interested in Training on the EAA

Victims Beyond the Target