Domestic violence in young adult. How much it too much?

I'm writing a book on domestic violence, from the guys point of view. I've only written the prologue so far, but just wondered how much detail is too much? The prologue doesn't go into too much detail, but it will probably get worse as the book progresses. Just wondered if someone could give me a little feedback please?


PROLOGUE
I hated admitting to myself that I was angry, but right now, I was past caring. My councillor had told me that if I ever felt irrational anger, or like I was losing my temper and starting to feel out of control, that I should think about where I was, what I was doing, and who I would hurt if I lashed out. Signing out of the instant messaging program after trying, but failing, to get in touch with Amber, I tried these methods a few times, before giving up and almost putting my fist through the wall. If she hadn’t wanted to hang out with me tonight, I could have dealt with that. But to blow me off for Haley? That was completely out of line.
And people wondered why I lost my temper all the time.
She was pushing my buttons like she always did, I knew that. Sometimes I wondered if it was all a game to her. Let’s see how far I can get away with; how far I can push Zach before he fucking snaps. If that was the case, then it was a game she had clearly perfected, and Haley was probably giving her tips and tricks on the side. This was one of the reason I didn’t want Amber spending so much time with her. She was clearly a lunatic; one that was sleeping with her brother, for god’s sake. I’d seen the way she looked at Amber. She was probably manipulating my girlfriend right now, coming up with all the bullshit under to sun to make her end our relationship. That was, Haley could have Amber all to herself. But I wasn’t having any of it.
I slammed the lid down on my laptop with a lot more force than was probably good for it, and grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair. I’d specifically told her to call me when she got back to her dorm, and so far I hadn’t heard anything. I was not prepared to wait any longer.
I thought about what the pair of them could be doing, holed up nice and cosily in Haley’s room, and couldn’t understand why I had believed the bullshit she’d fed me about doing a paper. The girl was a fucking liar, and I was an idiot for believing her.
I left my room and stormed down the two flights of stairs and out of the apartment block. The girl’s block wasn’t too far away from the boys, only a ten minute walk, but I wasn’t allowed in there past ten o’clock. There wasn’t exactly people guarding the doors though, and I pulled my hood over my head so the CCTV wouldn’t be able to identify me. I reached her room and knocked on the door, but there was no answer.
Okay, think rationally, I told myself, knowing that seeing her when I was in this state wouldn’t be good for either of us. You’re pissed off, I get it. She’s not doing anything wrong. In a minute she’ll walk around that corner, you can kiss her goodnight, and then you can go back to your dorm. I sighed heavily in an unsuccessful attempt to calm myself down. I went over the steps my councillor had taught me, and it began to work, until I saw her walk around the corner. And I lost it.
“Zach? What are you doing here?” she whispered, standing in front of her door and trying to open it. “You know you’re not supposed to be in the girl’s dorms after ten. You’re going to get yourself into trouble.”
She got the door open and I followed her into the room, letting her talk, not interrupting. I slammed the door shut behind me, not caring who I woke up.
She headed straight for her bedside table and flicked a lamp on, turning to face me. “I’m sorry I blew you off earlier.” She said, holding out her hand to take mine.
I grabbed her wrist forcefully and pushed her away from me. “What time do you call this, Amber?” I yelled at her, my temper now reaching breaking point. “I’ve been waiting for you to call me and you stroll in at this time? Where the fuck have you been, huh? You know curfew is at ten. What have you been doing?”
I was past it; past holding in my anger and frustration, past being in control of my own emotions, and past caring if I hurt her or not.
“I was just at Haley’s, like I told you,” she answered, pointing at the books and papers that she had brought back with her. “I’ve been working on my paper.”
I shook my head at her, not believing a word that came out of her mouth. And the techniques my councillor had taught me? Useless. They’d successfully got me nowhere.
“How long does it take you to write a paper, Amber? Are you fucking stupid or something? Can you not string a fucking sentence together?” I glanced at the books she had motioned at, picked one up, and threw it at her. It hit her in the arm. “Actually, screw the paper.” I shrugged. “You know what the real problem is here? The fact that you blew me off to hang out with your fucking psycho of a friend.” The anger I felt toward her was nowhere near subsiding. In fact, I was only just getting started. She had already cancelled their plans to catch a movie, and I had been nice enough to let her go hang out with Haley. Okay, I hadn’t been happy about it, but I had allowed it to happen. The least she could have done was write her paper, and then have the decency to spend the rest of the night with him.
“Please don’t get angry Zach, I’m telling you the truth.” She pleaded with me, but I wasn’t stupid. I could see through her lies. “I was just a little upset by what you said earlier, and my paper is due in a couple of days so I really did need to get it done.”
I looked at her and gave her a false smile. “I’m not angry sweetheart,” I told her sarcastically. “I’m way past angry.” I moved toward her and grabbed her arms above her elbows. Her body was rigid, and I knew why. She was frightened. She had every right to be. “You’re not helping me here, Amber.” I shouted at her. I was supposed to be getting help for these little outbursts. Three months at this school with counselling sessions every day, and no progress. I knew I had a more serious underlying problem that caused me to lose my temper so easily and so often, but it didn’t help when she pushed me this far.
“How can I believe a word you say? I don’t know what you’ve been doing tonight. You could have been anywhere, with anyone.” I let go of her arms and moved backwards. Somewhere in the back of my mind, someone was screaming at me not to hit her. Not to touch her. Hot to hurt her. I wanted to listen, I really did, but between my anger at her and my frustration at myself, the voice got lost.
I looked at her, the look on her face and the silence, along with the anger I felt toward her and Haley’s closeness, and I exploded. My hands balled themselves into fists. I grabbed her, threw her on the bed, raised my fist and brought it down on her, hitting her hard in the face.

There's enough imitatable violence in these kinds of books already. And if you intend to use it, please make sure not to glorify it.

As a victim of domestic abuse myself, the last thing I want to do is glorify it, trust me. Just show it in a different light. These types of books, from my experience, are almost always written from the view of the female, and I wanted to do things differently, but with the same message of course. I've read a few of them and feel like I have so much more to add about the psychological side of the male.

And to answer your question: I don't think the problem is in the detail; the problem is in the execution.

You've got to be wary of the messages you send - glorification of violence, romantic nature of emotionally dangerous relationships, gender issues. YA novels, especially the popular ones like hunger games, twilight, etc, often send really bad messages though, so...

Also, you've got to have a brilliant innate or learned sense of psychology to pull this kind of thing off. I recommend you do a lot more research, read psychology books, try and find books that give first hand accounts of abuse, by the abusers not just the victims. I'm just not believing Zach here. Angry people don't think, at the back of their mind, "I have a serious underlying problem..." or "she has every right to be angry." People who are really angry are not rational like that. People who are really angry don't analyze things. Everything is immediate to their situation, no memories or thoughts of therapy, no distant commentary on his own feelings, just his feelings; they become incapable of empathazing; they use inconsequential actions (like a sideways glance, she's hiding something from him) as fuel for their anger; they are generally incapable of thinking "I'm in the wrong here" or if they do recognise their own guilt they ignore it; they generally blame the other party for things which are not their fault, or everything - even if the other party is an inanimate object. Never seen someone stub their toe and curse the floor? This passage feels like it's been written by someone who's never been really angry. That's a good personality trait, but it won't help you write this novel.

Also, you spend too much time describing the one punch. It makes it seem premeditated. He's not going to explode with anger, and then punch her. They happen at the same time. He might not even realise he's punched her until he feels the sensation of his fist hitting her face - something I think needs to be described, if this is a first person account.

You're going to have to risk losing people in the prologue by showing Zach's anger honestly, showing him hitting her in the full, from his perspective, without (yet) remorse or self-analysis or anything to temper the nastiness of it. But the people who baulk at this scene probably don't want to read the story anyway.

Here's the thing-

A well-written, realistic story of domestic violence could be really, really good. It could illuminate the issue to a lot of people, bridge the gap, like many other books and movies have done for me and other people: from the way I approached LGBT rights completely differently after reading I Am J to the way the movie Philadelphia transformed people's view of AIDS.

On the other hand, this is a really serious, very real issue. If you don't do a good job on it, or turn it cliche or faked, it becomes almost a mockery of the issue at hand. I know you don't intend to do that by any means, but there is very little that's more offensive than making light of something very serious. Like once I read a story about an abusive relationship that I know, from articles and studies I've read, had no grain of truth or liability in it- it was just what the author thought it was probably like, and that to me seemed such a huge dishonor to the problem she was trying to right about.

In your excerpt, Zach seems too much like he's looking down at himself and reflecting on his actions. When you're that furious, you aren't analyzing, you aren't thinking, you're just completely angry and lashing out. Amber isn't acting like a victim in an abusive relationship, and if Zach is going to counseling, presumably people are aware of his anger issue, in which case he wouldn't be allowed to be walking around like this, he'd been getting counseling in jail.