How It Starts

Empathy and porous personal boundaries are fertile soil for the abuser to root into the target's life. Here are some tools to recognize abuse

Dear all,

Thanks for your patience, as always. I’ve been traveling over the past week, as well as doing some pre-reporting for a pitch for a year-long fellowship to focus on the family courts. Speaking of — shout out to protective parents in Arizona — have you worked with any of the following individuals, as a therapeutic interventionist, or otherwise? I'm collecting information for an investigative story pitch. Please reach out to me at: <protecttheparents@proton.me>

Looking for details / documentation on:

• Kristyn Alcott

• Julie Skakoon

• Heidi Quinlan

• Dr. Raymond Branton

• Dr. David Weinstock

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This post is a re-share of an earlier piece from the early days of the publication. It’s still useful and relevant, I hope it could help you or help someone you know / suspect might be in an abusive / controlling ‘relationship.’

Once a woman* recognizes that she is in an abusive relationship, the first feeling is usually confusion. A slew of hard emotions is coming— grief, rage, regret, shame— but the first thing we feel is disbelief, bafflement.

How did this happen? Why didn’t I see it sooner? Where did it start? Is it true?

My lightbulb moment was when he told me he was going to burn down our apartment. If I didn’t do what he wanted, he was going to torch the place. I had known him to threaten other people and to follow through on those threats. “You know what I’m capable of,” he warned, lying calmly in bed.

Photo by Robert Harkness

In the moment, your mind is racing. You try to reason and point out the factual— burning down an apartment will lead to jail time. That’s irrelevant. The abuser is so driven to control his target, at any cost, peripheral concerns don’t register.

What really got me, and changed everything, was that he informed me so matter-of-factly. He was always a yeller. I thought of this “partner” as someone who was wonderful but had a temper problem, a short fuse. His approach to many things was to simply become the loudest.

We briefly attended couple’s therapy, I read books/articles to him about anger management. There were extended periods of peace. Respite from his hot-headedness fueled my hope that he (and we) would work through the temper problem over time. This delusion kept me in the situation for some time.

When someone is visibly angry, yelling and shouting, we sometimes give them a pass. In a heated moment, people can say things they don’t mean. It is this kind of forgiving, beneficent empathy, let-me-see-it-from-your-vantage approach that gets the target (the woman, the abusee) in trouble.

This time, though, there was no yelling. In cool tones he threatened my life. This was what woke me up and forced through the realization that I was in an abusive relationship.

My penchant for empathy meant that I’d often prioritized his feelings. Seeing him angry, I would work to soothe him and calm him down. I had not grown up with the concept of boundaries. I thought if you cared for someone, you kept trying to get through all challenges.

But to be blatantly threatened — this rang a loud warning bell.

In confusion, I began to read through DV websites. This partner’s behavior ticked a lot of boxes. If you are wondering if you are in an abusive relationship, or think perhaps a friend is— OR, even better, you are trying to educate yourself on warning signs so that you can avoid an abusive relationship from the jump — here are some resources:

— the National Domestic Violence Hotline “warning signs of abuse”

— a 32-question “abusive partner” quiz (will also tell you different forms of abuse you might be experiencing)

— a 15-question “composite abuse scale”

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I’d love to hear what issues might be most pressing for readers, so that I could serve readers better.

Take care.

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* Men can be the victim-survivors of abuse, but statistics show that intimate partner violence predominantly directed at women.

According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 women are subject to intimate partner violence (based on global statistics). According to the Center for Disease Control, 1 in 7 men are subject to such abuse (based on national statistics). It is estimated that, in the United States, domestic abuse affects 10 million people annually.