By Alivia Lee, A&E Editor

With prom season right around the corner feelings of love and happiness fill the air, happy couples in love are seen roaming the streets and enjoying this romantic time of year, but what really happens behind closed doors. Among teens and youth, dating abuse has become a much too common issue.

“I feel like a lot of people don’t think it’s a big issue because we don’t hear about it a lot. But I think it is a bigger issue than everyone thinks,” said sophomore Alexis Andrew.

Most people unless they are personally victims of abuse don’t see teen dating abuse as a big issue but, according to the Love is Respect organization one in ten high school students has purposely been physically hurt by a dating partner, one quarter of high school girls have been victims of physical or sexual abuse, and sadly only 1/3 of the teens who were involved in an abusive relationship confided in someone about the violence.

Though these stats appear to be low and insignificant when the actual numbers are calculated for the Rangeview population, the numbers are astonishing. When the one in ten statistic is put in place to the Rangeview population it means that over 200 students at Rangeview who have been in or are currently in relationships in just a year are victims of teen dating abuse, about 550 high school girls have been victims of physical or sexual abuse, and out of all these victims only about ⅓ or 250 students will ever confide in someone about the abuse.

“Physically, I don’t think it’s not an issue but emotionally it’s the biggest deal,” said sophomore Darlenne Guerra. “Everyone just wants to play games and get back at each other to try and see who’s really in it for the long run.”

Emotional dating abuse is as big of an issue and harm as physical abuse but sadly many people do not recognize the emotional abuse. As reported by The House of Ruth organization emotional abuse can include but is not limited to the use of demeaning or derogatory language, controlling behavior and threats or accusations.

Though physically harming a spouse does not seem to be an issue among teens sexual abuse is an issue that students have begun to notice.

“It’s not just physical abuse, it can be sexual too. Sometimes you get pushed into things by the person you’re dating when you don’t want to but they force you to,” said Andrew.

According to the TeenDV organization one quarter of high school girls have been victims of physical or sexual abuse or date rape. Unfortunately most of these cases of abuse go unnoticed or unnoticed.

Besides the abuse the big issue surrounding teen dating abuse is that so much of it remains unnoticed or unreported. Everyday students at Rangeview are affected or have been affected by either emotional, physical, or sexual abuse from their dating partner. The scary part is that out of all those students only about ⅓ of them will ever tell someone about it, meaning the abuse probably just keeps on occurring. Too much of this abuse among teens is unseen and it is time that more people and victims begin to recognize the abuse and speak up.