Help Her Out

I've heard people describe their abusive relationships as addictive.

I have experience of both and I understand the similarity. There is an intensity to it. Rather than a high or escape of any description, you may feel you are drawn to, crave, are trapped by, want or even need the relationship itself, horrors and all. And the reason it's so hard to leave, and the reason the majority go back, can loosely be compared to addiction.

But whereas addiction is part genetic, part illness, part condition (just not part choice!), continuing in an abusive relationship is the direct effect of external coercion.

Coercion is so subtle, so insidious that within a relatively short time the effect on the victim (for want of a better word. I find it appropriate, substitute otherwise), is to believe that they stay, they isolate, change their dress sense, change their lifestyles - even that they annoy their partner - all through their own choices, behaviours and even their personality. This rapidly leads to the only logical conclusion in these circumstances, that they are the problem. If they didn't do x,y,z then he wouldn't get angry. He didn't make you so scared you deleted all text messages from males - even family members - you chose to do it. He didn't force you to stay in, you felt too down to go out. You were too stupid for that job anyway, he was right that dress was too revealing, you did speak too loudly etc etc etc.

And the flip side - he didn't hold a gun to your head while you bought his drugs/shoplifted/stole etc etc etc.

If anything is truly wicked it's coercion.

The behaviour of an abuser is so alien to our perceptions of the norm that it is extremely difficult and painful, firstly to acknowledge they are doing this to you at all, then to truly realise this is not just not ok, it's life threatening, and finally to do something about it.

Understanding and accepting more often than not comes later, much later. I still struggle with accepting the full horror and reality of my experience seven years on.

The effects of self-blame, shame, guilt, low self esteem can also take some time to recover from.

When love is a factor in the relationship, or what is declared as love then the cognitive dissonance is huge - he loves me, he says so therefore he can't mean to make me feel like this, it must be me. And you love him, or who he was, or who you think he can be. One of the most powerful bonds.

The recent retelling on television of the attempted murder of a woman by her husband by means of tampering with her parachute depicts and explains coercion very well. When the case first went to trial, the victim would not, or rather could not, testify against her diagnosed narcissistic psychopathic husband, father to her children and love of her life.

This prompted something I've never seen before in a court. The retrial was based firstly entirely on educating the jury on coercive control. They then demonstrated through the text messages, former relationships, friendships, and work reports how the perpetrator was exercising it, and how his wife was behaving now, was the clearest example of its effects. Testimony, DNA, witnesses and forensics all but disappeared in the face of the clearest proof of all, the wife's behaviour.

At the end of the documentary, and some years after the event, the wife takes part in a television interview in which she continues to express disbelief.

For me, the two biggest take aways from this film are these: if a jury needs educating on coercive control, we probably all do. And if the words of the victim are no longer relevant in a court, then that indeed is proof of the power and damage of coercion.

And as always we are not alone. That woman is not mad, bad or stupid. She's traumatised.

Like addiction, coercion does alienate the sufferer, it infuriates the friends and family and too often it leads to potential life-savers becoming frustrated and dismissive. Like addiction it is not a choice, you are at that time no longer yourself acting under your own free will and more than ever you need others, to listen, and as illustrated in the documentary, to recognise it.

With addiction there is a chance to help yourself, though not always recommended.

With coercion it is imperative that help is given.

And from there we can help the woman to help herself.

My mother is 85 and is suffering from the early days of dementia. I made a request last week to speak with her GP. They kindly offered that a doctor would phone me on Monday morning. They said his name. I faltered asking for the spelling of his unusual surname. I was correct.

It couldn't be, but I knew it was. It was my former GP. The one who said “I believe you” when I said I had not caused my own bruises. He believed me when I said I had not fallen. He believed me when I said I had no recollection of the night before but that I hadn't been drinking or taking drugs.

I don't know how many times I saw him. I remember him asking me to describe as much as I could. I told him I opened my front door then nothing until I woke in my bed, injured and often temporarily unable to move while nothing was different in the house at all.

I don't know how long it was before he said, "you are being drugged. I believe they are using weapons. I am fearful for your life. They're going to kill you".

He knew the police were doing nothing.

He knows I didn't take his advice first time.

So for five days last week, building up to the call I wasn't well, with going over it all, insomnia, circling thoughts, “will he remember me? Shall I bring it up? Will he be grumpy?”

I worried about this last question because the last time I saw him I'd escaped the day before. I'd hidden in bushes until his surgery opened. He was late and harassed. I stood in front of him and said, “you were right”. He asked me what the police said. When I told him he said “ for fucks sake “ and I remember being shocked at him swearing. I told him I was going. He said “Good, and don't come back this time, ever.” He looked at me to make sure I'd understood him and I nodded. He said something about being busy and I left.

So it was this I was reliving plus the rest before I spoke to him on Monday. He was lovely. I told him my old name. He remembered me. I asked him how he knew what was happening to me and he couldn't remember all the details but mentioned my presentation, the illnesses and how terrified I was. He also mentioned ketamin. Though he couldn't be 100% certain that was the drug used on me he thought it likely. He just about answered a question I've been asking for seven years.

We talked about my mum and her prognosis and then he suddenly said, “but you're ok now?” I answered yes and how lucky I was to have landed where I have mainly because that's what he wanted to hear. He asked me again at the end of the call. This time I said more. I told him I'd been street homeless, I had PTSD but yes, I'm ok now.

And realised, in a uppy downy kind of way, I am.

A strange title I know but it refers to a behaviour of mine that I find a little strange.

This piece also spells out some of the truths about sexual and violent assaults, the police, the ‘justice’ system, and briefly addresses some of the clickbait and media myths.

Since my ordeal I have been drawn to watching true crime documentaries. Prior to it I couldn't even watch a violent episode of EastEnders. I have Complex PTSD (or ‘no shit Sherlock’ as I like to refer to it), and more recently I find the more graphic stuff, or extremely real (to me), close to home programmes out there too difficult to watch. I am getting better at knowing when to turn them off, when they're going to make me sit up all night with the lights on, or pour with sweat from a night terror.

But why watch them at all?

Am I seeking a sort of reassurance that I'm not the only one? That sometimes you can not just survive but thrive? That I'm luckier than some? Am I reliving it in a ‘safe’ manner? I really don't know. It may be none of those reasons, or all.

But I'm always left with the same feeling:- anger. I didn't get justice for what happened to me. To say the police didn't help is to tell half a story and the one type of programme I simply cannot get through is where the police are heroes. In response to the overwhelming number of documentaries revealing the police at worst to be perpetrators, at best accusing the victims of lying and destroying their lives forever, up pop the occasional docuseries where the police behave decently and solve the crime. Well done for doing your job. That's not interesting to me, it's very weak propaganda.

The documentary I've just watched is one of the former. It takes place in America and involves the now oft mentioned “College Football” fraternity. More are more frequently this group of largely wealthy, virtually untouchable gang are named in rape cases. Ever so rarely are they convicted.

In this Netflix offering the police accuse the victims of lying, then themselves lie, coerce and conceal evidence before tying it all up nicely in a bow by convicting and imprisoning the traumatised women.

One police officer (now retired of course), speaks to the journalist. Countless others refused or simply ignored her request for interview or even a statement.

He does a good job of explaining practically why officers do this to victims (it's quicker than investigating), and talks us through the bullying techniques used by the officers in interview with the young traumatised girls.

The journalist asks him why he cares. It must seem odd to her after the number of doors she's had slammed in her face.

“Good question.” His eyes fill with tears. His sister was sexually assaulted when she was a child. “The police did nothing.” She grew up and became addicted to drugs - a direct result of her experience he believes. Then she's raped by two men as an adult. “And the police did nothing.” His sister commits suicide.

I feel sad - for him, for his sister. But most of all I'm saddened by the fact that the reason he cares is because it happened to someone he loved and not because he's a human and that it is his job to care.

More truths. Police statistics on domestic violence with or without sexual assault are not classed as 'official'. Think about that for a minute.

One in four women are or have been in an abusive relationship. One in three women have been sexually assaulted. Check out this little graphic for what happens next:

I don't want to go into statistics too much but for my references and further reading go to this gov.uk webpage.

Yes, it's depressing on a wide scale but happy stories don't catch the same ratings. And I'm writing this from the luxury of having escaped and with a budding objectivity.

While in the situation I wasn't allowed to watch television. At one point they disconnected the internet and the electricity as well as my phone. I was too weak and confused to leave, to even understand what was happening. While you are in it, you only need to do one thing. Tell someone, run if you can. Or start with documenting, buying a second phone, packing a bag. Or read or watch someone else going through it and getting free. See what helped her out.

And now for that myth.

I'm no mathematician but of the one in four women who experience domestic abuse and the one in three who experience sexual assault (2025 UK figures) there'll be an overlap.

By reading extensively around the low prosecution rates, the poor treatment of victims, why victims of either don't come forward, how the police behave towards female victims, media portrayal of rape victims, the abusers and abused etc etc etc, I kept coming across one little myth that causes so much harm.

“Women just cry rape.”

The media coverage of false allegations is outrageously disproportionate to the reality. Real research, real evidence puts the number of false allegations at somewhere between 0.1 % in the UK and between 2% and 4% across Europe and the US. Of that number the vast majority are vague allegations that are either withdrawn by the accuser or found to be false long before they reach the stage of any real police investigation.

And to muddy that statistical pool further, legal terms such as “no crime” or “unfounded” (which don't literally mean what we may think) add to that already miniscule number classed by the general public as false allegations.

For a very readable article on this go to this Open University webpage where there are are also links to the nitty gritty of the numbers.

Yet in my search for this subject I had to wade through pages that back up that myth. And the number of clickbait links (interestingly links to sites written by and for men) I had to hurdle took even me by surprise.

So walk through the internet with caution. There are plenty of landmines there.

I might be a sucker for true crime but it'll be a long time before I click my way into what looks awfully like the murky, myth filled misogyny of the manosphere.

If your perpetrator is a police officer or you find you are not given any help from them, do not despair. Firstly you are not alone (see above). You may feel your obstacles are insurmountable but truly they aren't. The freephone numbers and refuges are independent and your safety from any abuser, including the police, is paramount. (In the refuge I was asked immediately if the perpetrator was in the police force). Talk to us, talk to them. You can get out. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline is available 24/7 at 0808 2000 247