It’s not my fault, your Honour; they provoked me!

I was working late in my office one night when I received a phone call from a very distraught client. This woman had been having difficulties in her relationship with her husband and had expressed fears that he may harm her when he was drinking. She wouldn’t go to the police and she wouldn’t let me do it either, because it hadn’t happened yet, and she had no evidence that it would. But now she was on the phone crying; she had locked herself in the toilet, and he was kicking it from the other side and threatening her. She pleaded for my help, started screaming; there was a crash… and the phone went dead.

The rules are pretty clear about the counsellor’s duty when the threat of harm is imminent. I called the police, agreed that they would get there first, and then I entered the house once they were inside. There, calmly seated at the table, were the husband, the wife and the two policemen. The woman looked up at me, and then said, “I suppose you called the police, didn’t you? Well, thanks for nothing.”

Why does this happen? Why don’t people just leave when they are abused by their partner? Can’t they see the danger they’re in if they stay?

Well, yes, they can, but they can also see the danger they could be in if they leave. And that’s just one of the reasons behind why they don’t leave; will they survive through what is statistically known to be the most dangerous time in this cycle?

Another reason is financial dependence; since domestic violence is so often (or always?) about control, the chances are that the partner hasn’t had access to the finances, has been limited in how much they can spend and limited in what they were allowed to spend the money on. And without access to savings, will they be able to manage financially?

A pattern begins to take shape when another layer is added, that same control exercised by the abuser extends to what the abused person does, where they go, who they’re allowed to see. They can become more and more isolated from their family, friends, and any supports, and they have to ask, will they be able to face doing this on their own?

Then there is the most insidious of the control issues, a kind of ‘silent violence’; the person being abused experiences psychological and emotional abuse that drains their self-esteem and crushes their confidence. They may even feel that they don’t deserve any better, or that they are probably to blame. They are now completely traumatised.

So, we shouldn’t be surprised when the abuser stands up in court and declares “he/she started it; they provoked me!” Because technically, that’s often true; the victim may well provoke the abuser enough to evoke a physically violent response. But we need to ask why that happened. The clue is in one of my previous blogs about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, where I mention that PTSD can be caused by not just a traumatic event that occurred, but also by what might have occurred. Abuse victims can be living in constant fear of when the assault will happen and the simplest way to release that terrifying anticipation, is to make it happen – now. Get it over and done with… until the next time.

So you see, it’s not quite so simple to just walk away from an abusive situation. If you are on the receiving end of an abusive relationship, you need to know that people are learning more, and they do understand your predicament. What’s more, friends and family will be there to support you; in fact, they have probably known for a long time without you telling them. And if you have a friend who is in an abusive relationship, let them know you understand, reassure them that you will support them; you might even give them a ‘safe word’ that they can use in a coded phone call when they need to make the move.

Either way, it can be a scary world out there; look after one another, and I hope you’ll wear your white ribbon so people know where you stand.