Knowledge About Abuse is Personal Power
The most effective way we can protect ourselves from abuse is to ensure we are very clear about what behaviors cross the line. This is not as simple as it sounds. When we are experiencing sudden, senseless attacks, blame, gaslighting, and false accusations we are likely to become increasingly confused about what is happening.
When I wrote my book Invisible Wounds, I was very much in recovery from an abusive relationship myself. My goal was to write the book I wished I’d had during that painful time. I’d experienced plenty of abuse in my life as a child, and also an adult, but I understood very little about it, if that makes sense.
Before I wrote Invisible Wounds I interviewed 50 women about their abusive relationships. Quotes from the honest, moving stories these women shared form the heart of Invisible Wounds.
When I look back on those interviews, I am struck by the fact that many of the women were still very confused about the abuse they had suffered, even though almost all of the women had left their relationships by the time I interviewed them, some several years before. They could vividly recall many distressing events, and could describe the ways they had changed as they struggled to cope with what was happening, yet many had not clearly defined what happened to them as abuse.
I believe a lack of understanding about the dynamics and effects of abuse can stand in the way of recovery from an abusive relationship. To heal we need an understanding of the behaviors of power and control and knowledge about the way power and control can play out in our relationships.
It is also important to fully understand that abuse can take a high toll on our mental and physical health, causing us to adapt and change our behavior in order to cope. Without this understanding it is easy to fall into the trap of accepting the blame our partners heap on us and take too much responsibly for the relationship ‘problems’.
A partner’s demanding, hurtful behavior can put us in the position of having to choose between going along with what he wants, or standing against it and living with the resulting conflict. No wonder we can begin to try too hard to make the relationship work, without clearly defining the fact that our partner’s behaviour is abusive. If our partner chooses to use power and control in the relationship, working to improve ourselves or our relationships is unlikely to change this.
When I interviewed the woman for Invisible Wounds I quickly began to see patterns in the destructive behaviors we had endured, and the way this mistreatment had affected us. That was a relief for me because it made me feel more ‘normal’. I realised I wasn’t ‘going crazy’ at that time. The deterioration in my mental health and self-esteem was not due to my personal inadequacies. This deterioration was the natural outcome of experiencing ongoing abuse. I was displaying the symptoms of being abused.
I had felt ashamed of myself for going along with what my partner had wanted, not standing up to him, compromising my values, trying too hard to make things right, and pleading with him to reach out to me. I now see that this shame was unnecessary. I was just doing what people do when they are on the receiving end of abuse. I was able to stop believing the abuse was about what I did or didn't do and to realize my partner’s behavior was totally out of line. His abuse belonged to him.
Although each of the stories of the women I interviewed was unique, I soon realised there were reoccurring patterns in the stories that were similar for many of us.
These are the common threads I discovered:
Our partners’ destructive behavior increased over time.
As the abuse escalated, many of us tended to try to manage our partner’s moods and demands by keeping the peace.
As a result of the increasing stress, we experienced deterioration in our mental and physical health.
Many of us had experienced our partners as charming men who, at times, could be delightful companions. This tended to keep us confused about the reality of our situation and hoping for positive change.
Most of us did not clearly label our partner's behavior as abusive while we were in the relationship.
Our partners tended to justify their harmful behavior by claiming we were causing trouble, failing to meet their needs, being disrespectful, refusing to do as they wanted, or deliberately provoking them.
Most of us believed our partners’ claims that we were to blame for his harmful behavior (at least some of the time).
In hindsight, many of us experienced a sense of horror at the toll the abuse had taken. At some stage most of us had doubted our sanity. Many of us had experienced depression, and some had had panic attacks, breakdowns, suicidal thoughts, or had attempted suicide. Once we left our relationships, we gradually regained our mental health and rebuilt our lives.
Most of us had stayed in our relationship for several years. Although we felt at the time that staying was the right decision, many of us felt regret for the lost years and wished we had left sooner.
In hindsight, many of us were aware of the way in which our socialization as women had led us to take far too much responsibility for the relationship, kept us striving to please, and helped to blind us to the reality of our partner's abuse.
If you are living with abuse in any form, do you identify with any of these common threads? We need to know the red flags of abuse and take these seriously. If these behaviors begin to appear in our relationship, we need to seek help to avoid any further abuse in our lives. We need to be clear when someone is crossing the line into abusive behavior so we can better protect ourselves.
The more we understand these things the least chance there is that we will wind up in another abusive relationship, or if we do, we will be better equipped to recognize it sooner and get out quicker.
We all have a right to peace, safety, and happiness – and we all deserve it!
© Copyright Kay Douglas.
“. . . the most supportive, realistic, and practical guide for abused women that I have encountered. Outstanding!"
- Lundy Bancroft, author of Why Does He Do That?