Coercive Control

[Kizzie]

The term "coercive control" is relatively new but such an important shift in our justice/police understanding of more nuanced forms of relational trauma and emotional abuse.  This is a huge step forward in identifying abusers and holding them accountable.  Coercive control is a form of emotional abuse that seeks to take away a person's freedom and to strip away their sense of self. The person employing this type of emotional abuse creates a world in which the person experiencing coercive control is constantly monitored and criticized; their every move is checked against an unpredictable, ever-changing, unknowable rule book. Typically it is associated with emotional abuse in adulthood.

The following types of behaviour are common examples of coercive control:

•  Isolating the individual from their friends or family
•  Depriving of them of their basic needs
•  Monitoring a person via online communication tools or using spyware
•  Controlling how much money they have and how they spend it
•  Monitoring their everyday activities and movements
•  Repeatedly putting them down, humiliating them, calling them names, or telling them that they are worthless
•  Threatening to harm or kill them or their children or their pets
•  Threatening to publish information about them or to report them to the police or the authorities
•  Damaging their property or household goods
•  Forcing them to take part in criminal activity or child abuse

This above list is not exhaustive. Physical violence may be used alongside these other tactics of isolation, mind-games and the micro-regulation of everyday life or it may never be present other than as a threat or perceived.

• Coercive Control UK
• So What Exactly is Coercive Control? by Laura Richards
• Coercive Control, Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, New York State, USA
• Coercive Control Checklist: 14 Signs Your Partner is Trying to Control You, by Rhalou Allerhand

[sky]

Having been through a marriage where my ex was quite abusive, I am familiar with what constitutes controlling behavior but I felt quite sad to read in the link above "Coercive Control Checklist:  14 signs your partner is trying to control you", that "less than one in six teenage girls were able to recognise the types of behaviours that are classed as controlling."

I appreciate that this information is out there - thank you for providing it and I hope others share with girls the types of behaviours to look out for.

[Kizzie]

I agree Sky, it is so important that the traumatic impact of coercive control is recognized by those exposed to it, and also by the police and judicial system. It's more nuanced than physical or sexual abuse, but it's just as toxic to our physical and mental health, perhaps even more so because it's not quite as obvious/overt. It's a lot like being around a narcissist, you know something's wrong but it can be difficult to understand what you're looking at as abuse. So yes, knowing the signs is crucial.

I do read about cases of coercive control going to court more and more these days so I think/hope that signals a change to holding offenders more accountable. 

[Matilda2]

That's a nice list of the relationship with my ex. With the exception of the last point, because that's when I told him to * off. And forced him to be tested by a forensic psychologist. And won.

In milder form, some of this is my family.

I wish they taught this in school.

[Kizzie]

And forced him to be tested by a forensic psychologist. And won.

Awesome, this is what we need to do more of IMO. 

Often when I drive by a schoolyard and the kids are out playing I look for the child who is alone and think why? IMO our teachers need to work with these kids or at least identify them to school psychologists so we (society) look out for kids who need help more. I know many of us tended to step into the background as kids so as not to be seen and that's as much a signal something might be wrong as acting out.   

[Matilda2]

I had to move heaven and earth for it. And withstand years of intimidation by cps and unbelief by family. But yeah. Good that worked out well.

And I agree. I mostly dissociated and withdrew. As I see kid do. No matter how well you explain, people do not understand this. "He does well". "I am his mum, I think there's more than he shows". "We do not do anything when he is well".

When the abuse got too bad and I acted out. Or well, I didn't dare visit people, which according to my parents was extreme acting out. They took me to a doc. Even then...when the family masks, it is near impossible to get help. People have hefty defenses against seeing a sweet person and believing they did horrid things.