“He Messed Me Up”: Swedish Adolescent Girls’ Experiences of Gender-Related Partner Violence and Its Consequences Over Time

Abstract

This article illuminates two Swedish adolescent girls’ experiences of living in a violent relationship as teenagers and how this has affected their lives and health over time. Interviews were conducted in a youth health center. A combination of qualitative content analysis and narrative analysis describes violation, stress, trauma, coping, and agency during the period of adolescence and transition into adulthood. Despite Swedish progressive public policies on men’s violence against women, teenage girls are exposed to male partners’ violation, a severe gendered stressor. There is a need for the development of health policy and gender-responsive interventions geared specifically toward adolescent girls.