Stuff We Still Get Wrong About Relationship Abuse

Horrible, life-sucking relationships are often swept under the rug. Sometimes that rug is (mis)labelled, "Bad Life Choices," other times it's called "Stuff I'll Remember to Forget," and most commonly in my world, "That Time I Dated the Crazy 597 more times." There are a sleigh-full of reasons why abusive, toxic, and shitty relationships are kept in the dark, with a ton of socioeconomic, and cultural factors that I won't bore you with.In light of more recent tragedy however--that somehow keeps perpetuating itself--I think we owe it to ourselves to talk about some realities of abusive relationships.
If you're a guy, who's reading this with the a lump in your throat, thinking that this post will be some whacky misandry attack, I urge you to fear not, and read on...we need your support.
1. Abuse doesn't always look like this:

As a society that is often most motivated by extreme cases, it's common for abuse to be depicted as black eyes and swollen mouths, which is all too often a reality. But, there is a large chunk of people who are being abused emotionally, financially, and/or sexually. In many cases, these methods of maltreatment are co-morbid or proceeding physical abuse.
Psychological abuse occurs in many varying forms, including Gaslighting, verbal abuse, threats, coersion etc.All forms of abuse are subject to different manifestations, some occurring slowly, over a long period of time, and others occurring as if a "switch" has been turned in the mind of the abuser.

2. Abuse can happen to anyone, even you. There seems to be this commonly accepted belief that abuse only happens to stupid or vulnerable people. Assigning the blame on the survivor in this way can distract us from the bigger societal issue at hand, and allow us to relieve the abuser of some, if not all, responsibility for intimate violence.
In reality, abuse can and does occur across cultures, races, sexual orientation and ability levels. It does not discriminate geographically, though some countries have higher instances of violence against women than others. Personally, I think it is important to remember that abuse has room to develop when one is motivated to control another. Applying that fact to your own life and maybe using your imagination a bit, you can probably understand then, just how many different variations abuse can have. It knows very few circumstantial bounds.

3. Lying, shame, and isolation are quite frequent among survivors. There's a prevalent thought that tells women they should just leave if they are being treated poorly. While this is always a desired outcome, it is hard to do, given the side-effects of abuse (See: abused woman characteristics, mid-way down). I wrote briefly about said side-effects and barriers at some point last year, dancing around the idea that the woman who has been mistreated is not the same woman she was when she entered the relationship. Factors of debilitating shame, confusion, and self-esteem make leaving sometimes seem unimaginable.

4. It's not cut-and-dry. A lot of people tend to view abuse as this bad situation, which is full of wretched treatment in any number of forms. Trust, abusive relationships are wretched, but it's not as though the perpetrator hits the girl (or guy) once and then hits them predictably for the duration of the relationship. It is much more inconsistent than that. Stats show that the typical pattern of intimate violence actually predicts a honeymoon phase, followed by building tension, explosion (peak of abuse) and apology/reconciliation.VAW centres will tell you that generally, the length of time between each phase decreases, as the relationship continues. Eventually, most abusive partners don't even bother to apologize, simply waiting for the other to "break".

5. The Trust mechanism of survivor's is smashed to bits. This problem is severely under-discussed. In my experience, people close to the survivor will note change in her (or his) behaviour, sometimes saying things like "You've become more sensitive," or "I'm kidding. You know that." But truth is, she (or he) doesn't know that. And, as a result, might push you and everyone else away. Picture getting brutal wintery Canadian frostbite and then going out into the cold the very next day. Your nerves are gonna be shot, and you might feel weird pricklies, as your fingers try to adjust to the temperature. Now combine the metaphors--Your trust mechanism has confused pricklies all over it. Yeah, you get it, right?

5. The Jury is still out on the causes of abuse. A while ago, I attended a group for women who have been mistreated, you know, for kicks. The group was beautifully focused on us women and our self-care, but at least once a meeting someone would ask the inevitable "But WHY is he doing this/Why is this happening?WTF is going on??"And we mostly received one of two answers: 1. Because he can and 2. We don't really know, all we know is you need to focus on you. Generally, if a woman's group, based on female healing and empowerment has to answer a question of yours with the uncertainty ofwe don't really know, you best believe it's true. A little bit of research would tell you that there are a number of factors contributing to the cycle of violence, such as abuse in the abuser's childhood and gender norms that allow space for aggression to happen in the place of communication. There have been studies that relate domestic violence to economic status, reporting that lower income families generally report more domestic violence than wealthier people, but other studies show no correlation. We could blame sexism. We could blame gender identities. We could blame religion. We could combine them and make a mosaic of blame. But we still don't know why abuse happens. All we know is it's worth stopping.

If you think you might be encountering relationship abuse, check the cycle of violence , or here for a more detailed description and consider reaching out to Family Services Ottawa for counseling and support services

Why Does She Stay?

Try not to cringe, but I've written a whole post on why women stay in abusive relationships. If you think it's tough to read about, count your lucky ducks you haven't lived it.
It’s common for people to be nonchalant about violence against women, because there’s often this train of thought that whispers, “If she was really being treated that badly, she would just leave.” After all, if you touch a stove, and the stove burns you, you don’t put your hand there next time. But abuse is hardly ever that simple. I could write a whole book on the logic which keeps women intertwined in abusive relationship, but I’ll conserve space. Here’s my condensed version:

1. Safety. At first it seems backward that a woman would stay with a violent guy because they fear for their physical safety. One too many outbursts with the guy and the girl could find herself hospitalized, right? But think for a second, of the alternative. Abusers are at their peak every time a woman tries to leave.(fourth paragraph down of link). If he’s verbally and/or emotionally abusive while you’re still with him, it’s bound to escalate, and quite possibly become physical when you’re trying to get out. Women that live with their abusive partners then, are often left weighing the lesser of two terrifying evils: If you stay he’ll hurt you, if you try to leave, he’ll hurt you badly, or kill you.
2. One Big Mindfuck. I remember entering into my counselor's office for the first time when I was trying to leave my abusive relationship. It was a whole big thing for me, this counseling thing. She started off by asking how he mistreated me. I explained that he had a way of cutting me down and then being nice the next day (or soon after) and acting as if nothing had ever happened. My counselor nodded understandably, asking if he had ever hit me or done anything physically unwanted. “Only a couple times, not really though.” I didn’t want her to think I was looking for attention. And, I didn’t want to make it any bigger or more real than it already felt.
“Not really though,” is key here. Not only does it show the extreme denial of circumstance and intense minimization, but the deep confusion that resulted from a lot of emotional manipulation. Being hit or touched in a way that is unwanted is usually pretty cut-and-dry, and yet I wasn’t sure what I had encountered. As a coping mechanism, many women repress and deny what is happening to them in order not to breakdown, or because they can’t deal with their worst fears being their reality. When they are in such a state of natural denial and perpetual minimization, the concept of leaving is almost unfathomable.
3. Stockholm Syndrome. This is a branch off the Mindfuck tree, but it is big enough to stand on its own. It means that the woman stays not only because she thinks the man needs her, but because the man regularly attempts to persuade her that he can’t live without her. This can be as subtle as a million texts about wanting to blow his own head off while she’s out at the bar (after a breakup), or as overt as showing up unwelcomed, threatening to kill himself if she actually leaves. As with all abuse scenarios, there’s a plethora of different varieties and methods under which this emotional manipulation occurs, but the end goal is the same: power and control.
4. Financial Obligation/ Reliance. Sometimes, amongst all the emotional manipulation, the abuser has gained control of the woman’s finances. This happens most evidently in marriages or unions where children are involved. I’ve heard of girls being given weekly “allowances” in marriages, giving them barely enough to get by and leaving them stranded if they run. The money dangles over their head as a reminder of the ties they have with their partner, making it nearly impossible to leave.
I once had it explained to me that being in an abusive relationship is like standing too close to a painting. You can see all the colors and have taken in many of the details, but it isn’t until you step back that you see what the painting really is. Abuse can be like that. We as women become so used to the patterns and intricacies involved in the mistreatment, that everytime an abusive partner gaslights us or throws an apology our way, we fail to see the bigger picture, and the abuse cycle continues on. On average, a woman in an abusive relationship makes 7 attempts to leave before she gets out for good(see last paragraph of this link). And that doesn't count "breaks" or short-lived break-ups, these are 7 whopping big attempts. As in, moving a suitcase of your stuff in and out 5+2 times before the big good riddance.And maybe now, you know a bit more about why that is.
**Please note that I am in no way an expert and have left a lot out, for the sake of my short-attentioned readers. If you want to add or complain, feel free to comment. If you think you might be in a shitty relationship, here's a good summary of the cycle of abuse.

Abuse: The World-Wide Cultural Epidemic

On Feb 22nd, Oscar Pistorius was granted bail for the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp.
With all the attention violence against women is getting in the news lately, from the skyrocketing reporting of assaults on women in Manitoba to the rape and murder of aboriginal women by police in BC, Pistorius' bail offers no break from the well-deserved coverage of women’s issues.In fact, this breathing time gives many of us a chance to asses, and fully form or opinions and compartmentalizasations of what this means to us individually. This might mean a strong word from us feminists, or a doubtful headshake from those doubting Pistorius’ guilt. Whatever the case may be, I think it’s important that we are careful not to put the Steenkamp case on a pedestal as “Supremely Horrifying and Outlandish Things That Don’t Happen Very Often.” I’d stand to argue that something in the DNA of our patriarchal (oh no the P-Word!) society --that is far and wide on this planet-- gives room for said Horrifying Thing.

Particularly important, is the way that men come to understand, internalize, and regurgitate the Steenkamp tragedy. Me, a female, has never claimed to be a full-on expert on generalizations of the male thought-process (partially because I only believe in human thoughts and learned gender-ingrained societal differences, not biological traits), but this does not mean that I cannot recognize the significance of how men come to view the Steenkamp case.
And so I do my best to put myself in the gender-prescribed idea of Male. And in order to properly clump around in my new comfy man-shoes, I tend to picture my dad’s reaction to the atrocity (sorry in advance, Dad). I picture his groggy stumbling to the coffee pot, pouring a straight black mug-full and patting my little step-sister on the head. He happily remembers it’s Sunday and picks up the paper. Pistorius’ name is plastered across the front page, his dead girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp featured a third of the way down.
“Ugh. Can you believe what a psycho that blade-runner turned out to be?” he says to his partner.

Boom. The discussion that follows is a back-and-forth about how crazy Pistorius must be, including speculations that maybe he was on roids and comments about his childhood/history and any other information that seeped into Dad’s brain.
I’m not a psychic, but this is how I see things going. In this hypothetical situation, my dad hypothetically did what a lot of men( and women) would do: he distanced himself from the perpetrator by labeling him. Not only did he call him psycho (which clearly separates him from the rest of sane mankind), he called him Blade-Runner, a nickname, which, given its negative context, dehumanizes the guy. And I don’t blame Dad’s hypothetical choice to do so. None of us want to seem even slightly relatable to a guy that shot his girlfriend three times.

I’m sure there is a kitchen somewhere on this end of the earth where this hypothetical situation was a reality. In fact, I’m willing to bet there were many. People seem to assume that by giving Pistorius the hefty “psycho” label they are solving an unanswered question. Whether subconsciously or not they are saying, This girlfriend killing thing is just a one-off, cuz that guy was a disabled looneytune”
This is the wrong answer to the unsaid but well known question of, is abuse an individual or a world-wide,societal problem?”
It’s the wrong answer because the Steenkamp case is not an isolated instance. Visit any emergency shelter. Step foot in any violent-partners women’s group. In either setting, you’ll find handfuls of girls who escaped just before the gunshots. You’ll meet women who were made to feel loved, adored, until they took on his last name. You’ll hear the stories of women who tried to leave many times but were consistently stalked, threatened, or lied to until they returned, more confused than ever. You'll come to know women who were slowly, and surely degraded over time, each blow compensated for by intense apologies and loads of flowers and phone calls.
Labelling abusers as insane helps us ignore a key factor in the problem of abuse: Something about the gender gap, the manliness which both sexes are taught to accept, allow us to--on some level--expect and accept an imbalance of power. And until that gap is met, different kinds, types, and extremes of partner abuse will continue to occur.
So next time you’re tempted to deconstruct Pistorius into little pieces that put him in that 2% population of psychopaths, remember...he was raised on the same earth, at the same time as you, I, and Chris Brown.

Hysterectomy Hysteria in India: The Booming Scam

For those of you who don’t know, there’s this awful new batch of doctors in India who are scamming women. Their method? Taking their uterus out unnecessarily.
Yes, you heard right. These “doctors” run private practices within low-income Indian communities, and sustain a high customer base because of the collapse of the Indian health care system. Many times a day, a woman with especially harsh menstrual cramps or a treatable bladder infection visit these doctors because the public hospital is not an option, only to be told they need to have an emergency hysterectomy.

As for these fraudulent health care professionals, they make about $200 per unneeded surgery. And when they’re in a hurry because they’ve got other falsely toxic baby making organs to remove, they simply cut along the Sharpie line and then close up, uterus still in place.

Evil at its Finest
BBC recently interviewed one of the many women sucked into this money-making plot, stating that the woman was “rushed to surgery” without even a chance to discuss the matter with her husband or get a second opinion. The article glazes over the fact that the women wasn’t sure of her own age. If you ask me, this is a trademark of a very vulnerable population, without access to public record or other concrete information. BBC claims the woman guestimates her age to be 25.
Which leads me to another disgusting point: majority of the women submitted to have the sham operation are under 40. Last I knew, most hysterectomies, (excluding situations where cancer and terminal illnesses are actually had) were performed upwards of 45. You know, when they are actually required. BBC points this out, noting that many of the hysterectomies done in these private clinics are not always needed.
I wonder if personal financial gain is the only motive, or whether it is, perhaps, also a method of population control. The women that have the operation are often on India’s version of social assistance, recieving roughly $550 per month. With the public hospitals not being able to meet their needs, maybe someone Up Top is hoping these women won’t reproduce and continue to harvest a poorer population.

Something About a Black Kettle
When Jill McGivering, BBC Reporter, asked one doctor about the surgeries and accusations that these women were being rushed into unnecessary operations, he looked up and said, “Oh, those women aren’t telling the truth. Unlike other clinics in the area, mine is ethical.”
This doctor is clearly ethical. Everyone knows that when a group of women have come forward to claim they have all been part of your scam, the right thing to do is just call them all liars. The Ethics Board would totally agree. No need to check in with the women,or to gather proof or anything. Just go back to work. You have a scam surgery to do at 3:00 and you have to be focused to make a fake incision.

To point out the obvious, this a tragic, tragic situation. A systematic abuse of women who are simply seeking medical treatment and instead get looped into a con. Even more sad is to think that it is only one of many. How do we stop these people?

The Other Side of the Story

Nearly anyone who knows me knows that recently, I have become very interested in acts of violence and abuse against women. It’s been an ongoing obsession of mine for about a year now, as I've tried to understand characteristics of abusers and “abuse dynamic,” as well as what can be done to prevent it. In a way it has sort of become an all-consuming hobby, which has jaded my perspective and caused me to see almost every relationship, no matter how insignificant, under the microscope of power-and-control dynamics.
For a while, I thought that seeing the world in this shit-stained way was OK, telling myself that it was justified and helping me “get through” one day at a time. And anyone who didn’t understand it, well... too bad.
But last week I was at a friend's house visiting their adorable service-dog who, much to the owner’s dismay, was inching towards me for attention. Instead of laughing or ravishing the dog with secret-affections, I heard myself saying, “Well, aren’t you manipulative.”
I had just accused a beautiful, innocent, square-headed black lab of a characteristic associated with sociopathic men (and women).
It was then that I realized I had a problem. Claiming the dog tried to fool me is where I draw the line.
In light of the fact that I had taken the whole control thing too far, I agreed to go to a lecture on wrongful conviction yesterday, with the same friend whose dog i had bitched out. I figured learning about two men that had been wronged by the system could help me remember my empathy for humanity, not just women (Girl power!) We sat in the back and I skimmed over the event speakers, Jamie Nielson and Robert Baltovich, a knot forming in my stomach as a read about each of their awful situations. Jamie Neilson was accused of rape in 1996 by a friend of an ex girlfriend, Cathy Fordham, and soon after the judge convicted him of sexual assault, assault, forcible confinement and uttering death threats. Despite his steadfast denial of all accounts and the courts complete reliance on one eye-witness account (the victim’s), Neilson lived the next 3 and a half years in prison. He was finally released when some brainy lawyers put their heads together and realized Ms. Fordham was also accusing over 30 other man of eerily similar crimes and situations. The nut-job ( and I do not use that word lightly)had fabricated the entire story, and well, she only served 6 months in prison and is now raising a family (Lord help us).
Robert Baltovich was 24 years old when he was convicted of the murder of his girlfriend Elizabeth Bain, after she disappeared from her Toronto home in June 1990. Though their was insufficient evidence, and a belief that the Scarborough Rapist (Paul Bernardo) might have escalated to murder and taken another victim, the Crown believed Baltovich to be a “spurned lover” who killed Miss Bain, and he spent the next 8 years in jail.
Reading about these men and hearing their testimonies shook my belief system just as I had expected. Both of these men were wrongfully convicted due to tunnel-vision (which usually occurs because its easiest to blame those whom were intimately involved with the victim and therefore is less work for the Crown, or because the cop on the case has emotional investment in what they believe to be the truth) This means that in both cases, the victims were categorized as abused and, in the case of Baltovich, killed. Had it not been for our CJS’ tendency to prioritize acts of violence against women and believe those who claimed to be victims, these men could have lived their whole lives in the free world, instead of in incarceration.
So, maybe our institutional dependence on women’s rights is very much to blame for the years these men spent behind bars. The problem with this viewpoint is that our society’s support for abused women and their delegations of the men accused of abuse is often very beneficial to women. Some women do not even realize they're being abused until they’re hit 3, 4, 5, times. Others realize the minute they are belittled, smothered, or mocked. But either way, the minute a woman dials 9-1-1 after an instance of physical violence with their partner, the man is arrested and escorted to the cop shop on the spot, no matter how many times he claims she started it, or that she fell. Immediate action like this is necessary is for a number of reasons:
1) The women’s safety is at stake without law enforcement intervention
2) The abuser might have succeeded in convincing the victim that the abuse is ‘not that bad,’ that ‘she deserved it’ or that she is not being abused at all.
3) 9 out of 10 times, this type of intervention circumstance is necessary for a woman to find the courage to leave an abusive relationship.
4) If ‘innocent until proven guilty’ was considered in the arrest of violent men, the men would be found innocent more often then not, not because they are innocent, but because a general characteristic of abusers is that they are amazingly persuasive liars, and often believe their own lies.
It is for these reasons that accusations of abuse are taken so very seriously by the authorities. Women in abusive situations frequently need all the help in the world to process what has happened to them, often dealing with symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, such as nightmares, depression, bouts of anxiety, loss of concentration, low-self esteem, suicidal tendencies and alcoholism or addiction problems, just to name a few. Picture falling asleep for a while, a light,restless slumber, and waking up a few years later having no idea who the fuck you are or what you stand for. That’s what it’s like, seriously. So clearly, rights for women who have been violated or abused need protection, and it is the system's belief that immediate arrest after an act of physical abuse is the first step in offering support for women.

And I must say, they couldn’t be more right. One of the functions of law is to be a voice for those who are voiceless, fight back for those who can’t fight, and if anyone’s in the position, it is more often than not, the battered woman. So what do we do when our laws assertive, face-forward approach to abused woman put innocent men in jail because of the odd personality-afflicted, psychopathic women uses those rights to her sick advantage, as in Jamie Nielson’s case? What do we do when a innocent man spends 8 years locked up because the easy battered-women conclusion closes the case?

I’m writing this because I have no answers. The lecture left a bad taste in my mouth, as I wondered what can be done about such injustices. I’m still at a loss. Regardless, I think that pointing fingers to one cause is ineffective, because I think a number of factors make up a wrongful conviction. And though I’ll likely be a raving feminist until the day I die, I hope to slowly regain enough faith in women AND men and fight for humanity’s injustices, not just those with flowers below their waist.