Elder Abuse

What Is Elder Abuse?

Elder abuse occurs when an older person is harmed, exploited, or controlled by someone they trust — often a family member, carer, or close associate. It can happen in private homes, community settings, or care environments.

Common forms include:

• Emotional or psychological abuse — intimidation, humiliation, threats, or isolation

• Financial abuse — misuse of money, coercion around assets, or pressure to sign documents

• Physical abuse or neglect — harm, restraint, or failure to provide basic care

• Control over decisions — limiting autonomy, access to services, or contact with others.

Abuse is not defined by age alone, but by loss of safety, dignity, and choice.

If something feels wrong, it deserves attention.

Religious or Belief-Based Abuse

When Faith or Belief Is Used to Control

Religious or belief-based abuse occurs when faith, doctrine, or spiritual authority is used to justify harm, enforce obedience, or silence someone who is being hurt. This form of abuse can exist within organised religion, informal faith communities, or personal belief systems.

This can look like:

• Pressure to remain in unsafe relationships "for spiritual reasons"

• Teaching that submission, endurance, or suffering is morally required

• Use of religious language to excuse violence or coercive control

• Fear of spiritual punishment, shame, or exclusion if someone seeks help

• Discouraging contact with outside support or authorities

Faith itself is not abuse. Abuse occurs when belief is used as a tool of control.

Seeking safety is not a moral failure, a lack of faith, or a betrayal.

If you're being told that your faith requires you to accept this, we've looked carefully at what the Gospels actually say about power, silence, and the status of women — and the answer may not be what you've been taught.

Further reading

Intimate Partner Abuse

This section is being developed. If this is your situation, please get in touch — we're here to listen.

Why We Talk About Behaviour — Carefully

Many survivors are told:

• "They can't help it"

• "It's just how they are"

• "You need to be more understanding"

These explanations often shift responsibility away from harm and onto the person being hurt. This page exists to clarify a crucial point:

Understanding behaviour is not the same as excusing abuse.

Abuse is defined by patterns of behaviour and their impact, not by diagnoses, labels, or personality traits. While some discussions focus on mental health or behavioural differences, HKSG's concern is always the same: whether someone's actions create fear, control, intimidation, or harm in another person's life.

Understanding behaviour can be useful — but it must never be used to minimise, excuse, or reframe abuse.

Why We Talk About Behaviour — Carefully

Many survivors are told:

• “They can’t help it”

• “It’s just how they are”

• “You need to be more understanding”

These explanations often shift responsibility away from harm and onto the person being hurt. This page exists to clarify a crucial point:

Understanding behaviour is not the same as excusing abuse.

Behaviour Is Not the Same as Abuse

People can be impulsive, emotionally intense, inattentive, or inconsistent without being abusive. Abuse occurs when behaviour becomes a pattern of control, such as:

• Intimidation or threats

• Repeated boundary violations

• Monitoring or surveillance

• Punishment for disagreement

• Inducing fear, guilt, or dependency

Abuse is about power, not temperament.

A Common Trap

Survivors are often encouraged to explain away harm by focusing on:

• Stress

• Trauma history

• Neurodivergence

• Mental health

While these factors may exist, they do not negate responsibility. Abuse is a choice about how power is used in a relationship.

If you find yourself constantly adapting, excusing, or minimising harm to keep peace — that's worth paying attention to.

When Self-Harm or Threats Are Involved

Threats of self-harm or suicide can be frightening and hard to carry. While anyone expressing suicidal thoughts deserves care and support, repeated use of such threats to control another person's behaviour or prevent them from leaving is a recognised form of coercive control.

You are not responsible for managing another adult's safety alone.

Support is available — for both immediate risk and for those living under this pressure:

• If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 000.

• For confidential support in Australia 1800RESPECT — 1800 737 732 (24/7)

What Matters Most

When assessing a situation, the most important questions are:

• Do you feel afraid to speak freely?

• Are your choices restricted or monitored?

• Do consequences follow when you resist or disagree?

• Do you feel smaller, less confident, or constantly on edge?

If the answer is yes, the label does not matter — the impact does.

HKSG's Position

We're not a crisis service, and we're not professionals. We don't intervene, we don't give legal or clinical advice, and we don't tell people what to do.

What we do is listen — without judgement, without agenda, and without pressure to act before you're ready.

If you're in immediate danger, please call 000. If you need specialist support for domestic or family violence, 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24 hours.

HKSG is best suited to people who are through the immediate crisis — or well into managing it — and are ready to start reconnecting with community life. That's the work we know how to do, and where we can genuinely help.

If this page has raised questions or reflected something familiar, you're welcome to get in touch. We'll listen, and if we're not the right fit, we'll help you find someone who is.

Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Survivors Group Inc.
A registered Australian charity
ABN 54 883 981 332