Facts about Domestic Abuse

October is Domestic Abuse Awareness month. Endless love to anyone effected

What is coercive control
It’s a pattern of behaviour designed to trap the victim. Tactics are often dressed up as being caring rather than controlling (“I’m just worried about you being out late at night it’s dangerous!”) They can be subtle, for example rather than verbal abuse, it can be “jokes” that really hurt you. If the perp is sophisticated, their tactics can be REALLY hard to name.

Tactics include...
Isolation - often dressed up as concern about the partner’s friends or the area they live in
Monitoring – checking online status, reading text messages, timing victim
Verbal abuse – put downs, embarrassing publicly, constant criticism
Gaslighting – denying conversations happened, lying, and generally causing the partner to doubt their own reality
Financial – preventing the partner from working, heavily monitoring what you spend, limiting access to bank accounts
Using children _ hurting child to punish the partner, damaging their partner’s relationship with the children etc
Sexual abuse – expecting sex when they want it, how they want it; coercing their partner into doing things you don’t want to do
Causing instability – they blow hot and cold about their feelings for their partner, their partner never knows what mood they’ll be in
Jealousy – accusing their partner of affairs, checking their phone or body for proof
Violence – can be low level, for example grabbing their partner’s arm to “make you listen”, throwing a drink over them
Threats – often the partner “just knows” what the perp will do to them if they do something, so the perp doesn’t even need to verbalise the threat. Can be violence but can be to disclose sexual images or personal information, financially ruin them, harm other people, kill themselves etc

It all effects their partner’s self-esteem and leads to them changing their behaviour to suit them. They pull away from friends or avoid social activities just to keep the peace. They may feel ashamed that they’re being abused

Myths about DA

Myth – there’s just as many male victims
Fact – the murder rate alone shows that women are more at-risk; the power imbalance between men and women helps perpetrators abuse their partner.
Myth – perpetrators are mentally ill
Fact – some are, but the majority don’t test as having MH issues. They use it as a tactic to get sympathy, and excuse their behaviour
Myth – if the victim left, everything would be fine
Fact – leaving is the most dangerous time in DA and is when most murders happen
Myth – DA is a loss of control
Fact – they rarely do it in the middle of Walmart! They do it in secret, subtly, and go to great lengths to hide their crime. That shows that they have control.