Is There Anyone Who Isn't a Trauma Survivor?

In recent years, I've noticed that we tend to divide the world up into "trauma survivors" and everybody else. But I'm not sure this distinction is entirely real; I think what we're actually dealing with is people who know they've been traumatized and people who have forgotten. Or maybe the division is between people who are visibly shaken by their trauma and those who look solid; after all, we live in a society that places an extraordinarily high value on appearances, where people get a lot of credit for acting as if everything is fine, and a lot of criticism (or pity) for letting their pain show.

Sometimes I wish that for each person that walks by me on the street, I had a way to know what has been done to that person over the course of his or her lifetime, the injustices and betrayals that have tied weights around that person's heart. It's true that people are traumatized by floods and earthquakes, but not nearly as often as their hearts are broken by cruelty or violence from other human beings, most commonly by people they loved or trusted -- their parents, their lovers and spouses, their neighbors, their mentors.

One of the messages I give to professionals in my trainings is that they need to stop thinking that they are different from abused women. Professionals, both male and female, often look down on abused women, thinking things to themselves like, "I'd never let someone treat me that way," and, "If she stays there, she's part of the problem," and many other disrespectful attitudes that dismiss the hard realities that a woman faces -- the hard realities that anyone faces who is in a situation where another person can get away with abusing power.

I ask therapists and police officers and child protective workers and judges to stop having that superior attitude. Everyone has been abused, if they are part of our twisted modern societies. If you haven't been abused by a partner, then you've been abused by a parent, or by an adult relative when you were a child, or by a tyrannical boss, or by a superior officer in the military, or by a dangerous bully.

But people often block out these kinds of experiences that they've had and forget what it felt like, which is part of why they can sometimes be so judgmental and impatient with an abused woman.

If we did better at recognizing and admitting that we've all been traumatized, that each of us has experienced betrayals and abuses of power, then we'd pull together behind abused women and stop letting the society blame them for what abusers do, and we'd stop letting abusers get off the hook. We're all in this together, and the sooner we realize it, the better for everyone.

Abuse Continues Long After Women Leave

by Susan

I saw a T-shirt that other day that said, "Domestic violence only ends when you leave."

If only that were true.

It's easy to think that the woman is free to leave at any time, and therefore she is choosing to be abused by staying. The reality is quite different. Ending an abusive relationship is only the first round of a boxing match with a blind referee against a heavyweight whose appetite for inflicting pain is never satisfied.

The woman risks everything, even her life and the custody of her children, when she leaves. She'll never stop looking over her shoulder. She alone knows what he is capable of because she's seen the ruthless violence that he saves for when they are behind closed doors. In public, he is very charming and no one will believe he is capable of doing what she says he's done. She'll look crazy.

The abuser will make the woman pay a steep price for her freedom. When she leaves, he will escalate the violence and abuse. He will call her night and day. He will tell lies to her family and friends. He will destroy her possessions. He will talk to her about all the ways he can take revenge, how no one will believe her, and how he always wins.

What she does after she leaves will not be based solely on protecting her rights or doing what is right for her. Rather, every single decision she makes will be agonizingly weighed against what the retribution will be from him. If I file for divorce, will he kill me? If I file for custody because he's abusing the children, will he try to get sole custody or falsely accuse me of child abuse? If I file for a protection from abuse order, will it only enrage him more?

He'll use the courts to continue his abuse. Instead of fearing being beaten when she gets home, she'll be afraid of being hit with more court motions. Our judicial system will allow him to make the divorce or custody process a living nightmare. He will delay the process, or bring frivolous motions. He won't answer her lawyer's letters, and he'll send dozens of his own. He will force her to use up what little money she may have fighting him in court over the simplest matters while the referee stands idly by doing nothing.

Or, worst of all, he will take her children away despite overwhelming evidence of his abuse toward them.

Is it any wonder she is having a difficult time leaving?

Now imagine a society that holds him accountable for his abuse. The referee doesn't just cry foul, but prevents the boxing match from even taking place. The abuser is arrested and prosecuted every time he violates a protection from abuse order or doesn't uphold his end of a custody agreement. Custody evaluators and judges believe disclosures of abuse from children, and she isn't afraid of losing custody for protecting her children. She doesn't lose everything she owns to break free; marital assets are split fairly. He is ordered to an abuser program for at least one year, and preferably longer.

It's time to stop blaming women for staying, because we as a society are the ones who let the domestic violence continue long after she's walked out the door. Instead, we need to start truly protecting women and their children after the relationship is over.

Helping A Loved One Who Isn't Ready to Leave

A woman who has contacted me before recently sent me the following letter:

“I have a sister I’ve been working hard to support as she struggles with how to handle her abusive husband. I’ve been glad to be there for her, and it’s been a nice role-reversal because she’s older than I am, my ‘big sister’. At times I’ve felt that I was really helping, and all of those hours on the phone and email seemed worth it. She finally separated from him a couple of months ago, which was a huge step. She was proud and I felt proud for her.

"But here’s what I’m writing about: Recently I found out from other relatives that she’s gone back to seeing her husband and is thinking about moving back in with him; she’s been lying about it to me, continuing to say how good she feels about staying away from him and what a mean, selfish, intimidating asshole he is.

“So one issue is that I feel betrayed. But even more than that, I just don’t get why she would do that. I start to feel like she just doesn’t have the same level of desire that I do to live away from abuse. She’s already said that she knows he isn’t going to change. I just don’t get it. Any thoughts you have would be good to hear. I’m discouraged… Best to you, Renee.”

Here is my response:

Hi Renee,

I've been thinking about your letter about your sister.

First, I really appreciate how hard you have worked to be there for her. It can feel like a heavy load supporting a woman who isn’t ready to end contact with her partner – but she really needs that support. I believe that in some ways the worse the man has treated the woman, the harder it can be to leave him, precisely because of all the harm he has done. This is especially true if the man is of the style that turns nice (or seems to turn nice) for substantial periods of time, then goes back to being abusive. The confusion and drama that this kind of man can create is overwhelming. Many of these men have the power to create an endless nightmare through the custody process and through turning the children against their mother, and I don't blame someone who isn't ready to pay that price. Some guys get more dangerous when the woman leaves than they were before, so the physical risks are high. Some women are so badly shaken by the abuse that they don't believe they'll ever find a love that's better, and they'd rather have intermittent love than no love at all. Some abusers do change, and even though they are very few, the fact that the possibility exists is very tantalizing. The impacts of abuse-related trauma are huge, and we are only beginning to grasp their depth.

And these are just a few of the reasons why it is so hard to break away. There are many, many more. We live in a society that makes it very difficult for women to get away from guys that treat them badly, and then we turn around and blame her for having so much trouble breaking free. I know it can be frustrating to support a woman who isn't ready to permanently end things, or who simply can't (because the costs of doing so would be too high to her and to her children). I think the best thing you can do as the helper is to go to someone else to get support for yourself about how hard it is for you to be there for a woman who is caught in that trap.

A wonderful book that I recommend is called Helping Her Get Free (former title: “To Be An Anchor in the Storm”) by Susan Brewster. It has great advice about supporting an abused woman, including supporting her through the decision not to leave (or at least not to leave yet). It’s the only book I’ve seen that recognizes how hard it can be to be the one in the helper role, and that speaks to the helper with compassion. The woman you are helping deserves understanding, but so do you.

And I understand why it’s upsetting to find that she isn’t being truthful with you. The thing is, she’s been so torn down by her husband that she is desperate for praise and approval from other people. So she is trying to tell you what she thinks you want to hear, so that you’ll be warm and kind with her. She needs, therefore, to discover that you are going to be warm and supportive with her unconditionally; that will help her climb up out of the shame (which her abusive partner has caused) enough to feel able to tell you the truth about things, during both the ups and the downs.

Thank you for being so thoughtful and concerned about your sister. She really needs you to hang in there with her.

Best to you,

Lundy B.

Expecting Magic From Abuser Programs

One of the questions I most commonly get asked at speaking events is, "Do programs for abusive men work?" My answer is that, when they are run well, they work as well as we can expect them to in the time they are given. A typical length for a batterer program is 52 hours -- that is to say, 26 weeks for two hours a week. Sometimes the meetings are only an hour and a half, so the total time is even less. In other words, we are talking about undoing twenty or thirty or forty years of destructive socialization that has made an abusive man who he is, all in six months! The expectation is far-fetched.
I encourage people to make the comparison to substance abuse programs. If a man (or a woman, for that matter) who had been drinking or drugging heavily for five or ten or fifteen years claimed to have licked the addiction through once a week counseling for a grand total of six months, most substance abuse experts would laugh the person out of the room. In the world of recovery from addiction, the common outlook is that if you go to three or four meetings per week for a period of a year, and work hard in the program for that year, you have probably finally gotten a good start on dealing with your issues; if you stick with it for a few more years, you might succeed in really turning your life around.
Why would we expect it to be easier for a man to overcome a problem with violence and psychological viciousness toward women than to deal with a drinking problem? Abusiveness is just as deep a problem as addiction, and every bit as destructive -- in fact, often more so.
If the society decides that it's time to send abusers the message that we take their crimes against women seriously, and that we refuse to live in a society that is shaped by domestic terrorists, we will start sending abusers to programs that they have to attend at least three times a week for two to three years. This will bring us in line with the kind of effort, and the kind of length of time, that it takes to make personal changes from deep, destructive, dangerous problems. Until then, we're continuing the pattern of slapping abusers on the wrist and sending them the message that change is optional. And it it's optional, very few abusers are going to choose to do the work, and make the sacrifices, involved in learning to respect women's rights.

Healing is Possible - A Thought for the New Year

In the depths of darkness, the kind of darkness that you can be cast into if you have a partner who tears you to pieces, it seems as though the light will never come again. But it is, truly, possible to scramble your way back to freedom and dignity, and to smile again. You can get there.

The human heart has an almost unlimited ability to bounce back from spiritually destructive experiences. Some deep part of us, the soul you could call it, fights not just for life, but for a good life, and a just one.

Your healing can begin even if the mistreatment hasn’t ended. Some important steps toward healing often happen for women while they are still mired in dealing with an abusive partner. In fact, if you get a little taste of feeling better, that can sometimes be the shift that gives you the strength to turn things around in the oppressive atmosphere that you are being forced to live in.

Certainly, you can heal faster if you can make the abuse stop, whether by calling on the police and the court system if they are helpful where you live, or involving your friends and relatives, or by threatening to leave the relationship (if you can do that safely), or by going through with ending the relationship (if you can do that safely). I will be writing soon about strategies for making abuse stop. But my message for today is that healing may be able to start right away, and doesn’t necessarily have to wait until the big problems are solved.

Healing is stimulated by developing a kind and supportive relationship with yourself, and by developing similar relationships with other people. This is how you create the context in which deep recovery can happen, through myriad paths that we will be writing about here. Because you yourself are the closest and most accessible person to you, it makes sense to turn some attention now to ways that you can be a loving, thoughtful friend to yourself. I will write in the weeks ahead about various ways in which you can do this, but here is one way you might begin:

Stop believing anything he tells you about who you are or what you are like.

And that means don’t believe him even if he’s telling you supposedly positive things about yourself – abusive men know how to use praise as a control tactic, just the way they use criticism. I’m not saying you have to argue with him about the mean or manipulative things he says. I realize that often it’s better, for your own peace and safety, to be quiet, or even to pretend to agree with him, so that he’ll feel triumphant and leave you alone. But in the privacy of your own mind, where he can’t hear what you are saying, keep reminding yourself that he is distorting and twisting everything, and he is so very wrong in his view of who you are.

You may be thinking, “But what about the criticisms he makes that I know are true?” Maybe your finances really are in a mess, or maybe you really have gained weight, or maybe your friends really have turned against you, and he’s throwing these things at you.

But even if he’s right, he’s still wrong. Why?

1) Because he’s exaggerating, even if there are partial truths to what he’s saying.

2) Because he’s telling you that everything that is difficult in your life is your own fault and shows what a weak person you are underneath, and that’s not true at all.

3) Because he’s ignoring how profoundly his mistreatment of you has contributed to these problems, or has even created them entirely.

4) Because people’s difficulties don’t – and shouldn’t – define who they are.

A man who chronically mistreats you is not a good source of information about who you are , including about your supposed weaknesses, or even your strengths. (Because even when he praises you, he’s doing that to try to mold you into who he wants you to be, rather than accurately reflecting back to you the person you really are – or he’s praising you to manipulate you emotionally.) His vision is too distorted, and too self-centered and self-serving, to have any useful clarity, at least when the subject is you. In short, it is impossible to abuse someone while also seeing them clearly.

Listen to yourself, and to people who treat love you and treat you well. Don’t listen to him.

Heroic Moms

Sometimes heroes are treated as villains. That's what is happening now across the continent to mothers who attempt to protect their children from violent and abusive fathers. These protective mothers are attempting to do the right thing; To make their children's safety the top priority; to teach them that intimidation, violation, and degradation are wrong; and to stand up for their own rights as loving, responsible mothers.

And they do so courageously. They are often dealing with men who have pounded them with their fists, or locked them in rooms, or raped them, or threatened to kill them. Yet these women are brave enough to take the risks involved in seeking freedom for themselves and their children.

Even those protective mothers who have not faced severe physical intimidation need courage, because courthouses are scary places, and family law judges have tremendous power that is rarely curtailed by legislatures or appeals courts. The adversarial system used in courts is the worst possible atmosphere for a traumatized woman, but it is the perfect system for an abusive man; the qualities that most succeed here are aggressiveness, skillful dishonest, and strong self-confidence (or even arrogance), along with the ability and willingness to spend huge amounts of money in order to win. It is difficult for abused woman to defeat her ex-partner in a court system that is designed (though not intentionally) to play to his strengths.

What's more, certain lawyers and court-appointed evaluators have developed theories to discredit protective mothers and their children when they report that they are being harmed by an abusive man. It has become the norm for children of battered women to be forced into extensive unsupervised contact with their battering fathers, or even to be sent into his custody.

We all need to recognize, and admire, the bravery, the survival skills, and the deep concern for her children that an abused woman has to have in order to go up against the abuser in court, month after month and year after year. These women deserve our support, admiration, advocacy, and activism to help them keep their children safe, and to change the gender-biased and sometimes corrupt legal system that is abandoning them and their kids.

Disorder in the Courts: Mothers and Their Allies Take on the Family Court System

This introduction is adapted from a section that I wrote for Disorder in the Courts: Mothers and Their Allies Take on the Family Court System, an e-book available from California NOW.

There is no love deeper, more complete, and more vulnerable than the love that caring parents feel for their children. There is a bond so strong that it can be hard to tell exactly where the parent ends and the child begins, and the line is even harder to draw when our children are very young. Mothers have an additional bond from having carried their children inside of their bodies and having given birth to them, and more than half of mothers have experienced a deepened attachment through breast-feeding their babies. And mothers are, in the great majority of cases, their children’s primary caretakers, especially during their early years. All connections between caring, non-abusive parents and their children are so important as to be almost sacred, but there is usually a particular quality to the mother-child bond. That life-giving and sustaining connection deserves the full support and admiration of communities and nations.

And just as there is a special beauty and importance to relationships between mothers and their children, there is a special and extraordinary cruelty in the abusive man who attempts to break or weaken the mother-child bond, whether by turning children against their mother, by harming the children physically, sexually or psychologically, or by attempting to take custody of the children away from her.

Children need protection from their abusive parents. In the realm of custody litigation which involves abuse, the abusive parent tends to be the father while the protective parent is usually the mother, because most perpetrators of domestic violence and of child sexual abuse are male. We don’t know that much about what happens to protective fathers, since their cases are much less common, but we know that protective mothers frequently encounter a system that is insensitive, ignorant about the dynamics of abuse, and biased against women. In this context, mothers sometimes find themselves being forbidden by the court from protecting their children from a violent, cruel, or sexually abusive father. And this outcome is a tragic one, for children and for their mothers.

On behalf of the hundreds of people across the continent who are currently working for family court justice, I want to communicate to you our caring and solidarity with the challenging road you have ahead of you, as you fight to keep your children safe in body and soul. I want to let you know how critically important we believe that project to be, and how much your children need you to stand up for their rights and their well-being. You deserve admiration, not criticism, for the courageous risks you are taking on their behalf, and for your determination that all of you should have the opportunity to live in freedom and kindness.

Our society is currently giving mothers a powerful and crazy-making mixed message. First, it says to mothers, “If your children’s father is violent or abusive to you or to your children, you should leave him in order to keep your children from being exposed to his behavior.” But then, if the mother does leave, the society many times appears to do an abrupt about-face, and say, “Now that you are spilt up from your abusive partner, you must expose your children to him. Only now you must send them alone with him, without you even being around anymore to keep an eye on whether they are okay.”