Identifying Covert Forms of Violence: Coercive Control | Sabrina Victoria | TEDxDelrayBeach

I was walking towards the kitchen to make it coffee when he screamed my name from the bedroom he was in his closet yelling and tearing clothes off of hangers and discarding them all over the floor like a child throwing a tantrum and before I had a chance to decipher what was going on I see him pick up a wooden hanger and Chuck it across the room with so much force that my body automatically flinched and I covered my face it smashed against the wall I stood there nervous Frozen waiting to hear what I had done wrong this time because everything was always my fault and behavior like this it was normal 30 second conversations turning into 2hour accusations blaming and berating like I was a potential suspect in a murder investigation today's crime not ironing his clothes to his standards accused of taking his dirty clothes out of the hamper and hanging them up filthy and wrinkled I was lazy and because he pulled me from the ghetto I did not understand how to take care of nice things his words not mine I'm not going to bore you with the countless of things he said to me I think you get the picture I swallowed my words and I offered to iron whatever clothes he needed me to this was my life head down always submit and as I begin to Reon clothes that I had already ironed I hear him yell from inside the bathroom did you make my coffee I stood there torn between do I finish ironing or do I make his coffee and my first thought was I should have woken up earlier I need to do better now this story might stir emotion in a few of you and some of you might be thinking well maybe May her ironing is actually awful and see that's what I want to talk about today is these short stories that are told all over the world by men and especially women they're very hard to decipher I want to ask you think about your own life for a moment have you ever retold a traumatic story and the person listening just isn't quite getting it like they don't really understand the gravity of it imagine that story being the deciding factor on who gets child custody or whether or not an abuser is arrested see how do you describe fear how do you describe trauma when there are no bruises no cuts and no evidence see this was my situation I endured mental emotional sexual and financial abuse that was so bad that it often had me on the floor of my bathroom in the dark crying and screaming at the same time because crying was no longer enough of an outlet to release all of my pain that was all happening behind closed doors on the outside it looked like a fairy tale there was fancy houses fancy cars big smiles fake Smiles there was so much abuse happening behind closed doors invisible abuse also known as coercive control now this Behavior was first acknowledged by the United Kingdom just recently in 2015 they passed a law to protect victims from this kind of abuse hold a sentence of five years then soon after just recently again 2020 here in the United States California enacted Senate Bill 1141 now although these Milestones are creating a ripple effect for change they also demonstrate the lack of knowledge up to this point which is why I'm on this stage today I want to discuss three main points what invisible abuse looks and sounds like who this is happening to and why continuing to create a ripple effect for change is so important now some of you might have heard of Patricia Evans she is fully dedicated to educating people on this form of abuse she has written five books and she has researched over 30,000 cases in verbal abuse she often talks about how abusers purposely use coercive control because they know physical violence means jail it's strategic it's a pattern first build love and trust with the victim second start to take control the object of the game is to make somebody completely dependent on them and there are several ways of doing this the two most prevalent that you'll see everywhere is control all the money and keep you isolated from your family and your friends these are master manipulators that use a combination of Mind Games that are nearly impossible to win I want to describe three main types of techniques that abusers use the first one coer of control it's a pattern of intimidation humiliation and threats used to harm punish or frighten the victim two gaslighting they deny events they downplay situations they make you question your own memory your own perception three is love bombing when they sense that you're leaving when they sense that you are fed up they suddenly shower you with love attention gifts now I don't know about you but I love visuals so I'm going to set this up for you first the abuser sets a foundation of love and trust and this is confusing because all relationships are built on love and Trust the difference is is an abuser while they are building this foundation will start to sprinkle in they'll start to test the boundaries with something small like name calling just to see what happens and you let this go because you see this beautiful Foundation of love and Trust being built then time goes on and they sprinkle a little bit more of Smashing of things outbursts of anger and as time go on you start to realize oh my gosh some red flags Happening Here I need to leave and you threaten to leave this is when the gaslighting comes into the play they downplay you're exaggerating you don't know what you're talking about you don't remember it correctly they blame you it's your fault if you wouldn't have done this then I wouldn't have done that and if that technique doesn't work work they flip to love bombing you're the best you're the greatest you are number one I will never do it again I promise please just give me one more chance some of you here know that one more chance give me one more chance and you do you drop your guard and this is the cycle and as time goes on it gets worse sexual coercion through guilt and force jealousy threats bullying imagine the confusion of the love and the trust and they just out of nowhere out bursts of anger daggers to the soul one after the other dominating controlling demeaning severe and verbal abuse according to the National Library of Medicine this poses a risk of posttraumatic stress disorder that's PTSD you see on a biological level these victims start to flow into a state of constant constant hypervigilance meaning they use all of their energy trying to make everything perfect every day in order to not get any punishments that's the abuse and in order to receive more rewards that's the love bombing you see they don't know it's a game this abuse doesn't see race culture color religion status age size it does not discriminate in 2018 the CDC found that one in two women and one in three men will endure this form of abuse at some point in their lifetime and the reason they don't leave there's lots of reasons a few of them fear of retaliation pressure from religion and culture shame and to be quite honest with you a lot of times these individuals me included don't even know it's abuse because we are told as a society that brute that we are told as a society that abuse is cuts and bruises so by the time these individuals start to see this cycle where they're like oh wait a minute it just continues they're already married Mar they already have children which then raises the level of fear because on one hand if they decide to leave a lot of times these individuals have no job they have no money it's been controlled so there's a real fear in losing custody of their children or if they do have a job and they do have money knowing that their abuser could drag them through legal battles that are going to drain them of all of their money and all of their resources and then worse yet the abusers that hide their finances hide their income ensuring that their victims get absolutely no financial support for themselves or their children and then after all of that these children end up spending unsupervised time with that abusive ex and then if they decide to stay I did that too the guilt and the shame knowing that they're growing up up in a toxic environment that normalizes this abuse this is heavy stuff for an already emotionally individual to have to contemplate on a daily basis which one do you choose and is anyone even going to believe you even after sharing all of this I am going to tell you that there is hope for those of you listening who are living with somebody who is abusing you for those of you who know someone who is being abused I broke the cycle I left the fancy life and I escaped with my son my clothes and my bicycle and I started all over again with a mattress on the floor it's time to set boundaries it's time to distance ourselves in order to break the cycle of generational abuse three key words that I want you to walk away with one Community if you are someone living with this if you know someone living with this you need Community this is invisible abuse you cannot see it you need to be around people community and professionals who can see it it second is educate everybody needs to know what coercive control looks like so that when you see the red flags you can save yourself and others know what a healthy relationship looks like and know what healthy communication looks like and lastly Network the United States has five states that have laws implementing that have implemented laws to protect these individuals there are 10 more in the process where is Florida in that mix nowhere we have to set up workshops in order to educate our police officers our judges and our counselors on this form of abuse coercive control this abuse thrives in silence today we have started to create a ripple effect to break that silence somebody needs to believe her will it be you thank [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 3,299

Keywords: Activism, Behavior, Bullying, Conflict, English, Social Sciences, TEDxTalks, Voice, Women, [TEDxEID:53115]

Id: HT2CpBUpWjI

Length: 18min 44sec (1124 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 08 2024