🥕🥕🥕“Just when you think you can take no more, here they come dangling carrots and kindness in front of you”🥕🥕🥕
One of the most commonly asked questions (and most frustrating) is, “Why do victims stay when they are being abused?” I get it, if you take things at face value it seems like a perfectly reasonable question because the solution seems simple, right? You’re being abused by a person so you remove yourself from them and their “vortex of negativity”… Problem solved…..right? IF ONLY!!! It’s usually never that cut and dry, especially in longer relationships where everything is so deeply intertwined like emotions, belief systems, children, mind sets, social circles, finances, property, etc..and where Cognitive Dissonance, Learned Helplessness and Stockholm Syndrome (Trauma Bond) have manifested and set it.
One of the obvious reasons we don’t leave is because we don’t want to leave the children alone with the abuser so we stay to act as the “buffer”. And I did, indeed, get “in between” he and the kids many, many times. My ex was physically (not severely), verbally and emotionally abusive to our children, unleashing yelling, screaming, verbal assaults like no other. This included F-Bombs literally every 4th or 5th word, calling them terrible names that I won’t mention here… This would basically tear at not only their self-esteem and worth, but their SPIRIT and SOUL as well – and that, my friend, is very dangerous and destructive territory. YOU NEVER EVER WANT TO SHAME AND BREAK A CHILD’S SPIRIT. VERY VERY BAD THINGS CAN HAPPEN WHEN YOU DO! Children will internalize that terrible stuff. The abuse began when the kids were about 4 or 5 yrs old. As they got older, it got worse. The ex has serious anger issues so when the children would commit an “offense” of maybe a ‘3’ on the Richter Scale, his reaction would be way out of proportion, at about a 7 and his punishment for them was rarely age appropriate either. I do want to stress, however, that there was never any punching, kicking or any other physical types of abuse that warranted an Emergency Room, Urgent Care or otherwise, doctor visits. There was a time or two where I was going to and had threatened to call 911 but ended up not following through. That is a very scary thing to do because once you dial those 3 numbers (911), you’ve committed yourself and your family to a big can of worms of law enforcement, court proceedings and the very real possibility of the courts taking the kids away, so if you feel the abusive behavior is “borderline”, that’s a huge risk to take. I found myself constantly having to intervene (verbally and sometimes physically) to de-escalate the situation. It was terrible.
Another reason victims don’t leave their abusers is lack of knowledge regarding what constitutes “abuse” under the law, especially when it’s not just physical. They may not even realize they are “victims of abuse” at all, as is the case with many victims. They might know that they are being treated very badly at times while not REALIZING that what they are enduring qualifies as abuse in the context of Laws and Rights. Criminal, Civil and Human Rights. This was my case. I knew my ex husband could be profoundly and unnecessarily wicked at times (not in the beginning of the relationship of course) and that I was being treated terribly pretty often, especially over the last decade, but never realized that it qualified as verbal, emotional, psychological, sexual, and financial abuse as well as severe oppression. The last few years were also filled with neglect. I was considered “disabled” by not just the state of Arizona, but also the Federal Government, because of my illnesses and was bedridden a majority of the time and my ex-husband would leave for days on end for his little flings and wouldn’t help me with even my basic needs of personal care or hygiene. I can remember a few times not being even being able to wash my hair for a few weeks because I couldn’t do it myself. When I finally made the realization that I was in fact a victim of some pretty severe abuse, and with the help of some golden hindsight and a crazy coincidence/divine intervention (???), I had already been divorced for several months.
He had me so far gone into the abyss of despair, with his abusive behavior and words, that I had no more to give and eventually became sick and bedridden. I just didn’t understand that it was his abuse that was making me sick, just as I didn’t understand that what I was enduring from his was considered “abuse”. I could not know one without knowing the other first. I hope that males sense!
He then “discarded” me, (as his kind do-the discard phase is the last phase of an abuser’s pathological love cycle) without ever making any real attempt to seek help for me from any kind of doctor, clinic, facility, etc., even though as a spouse, he had a legal “duty to act” (per the marriage contract) to try to get me help but he never did. I’ve since learned that he was out having SEVERAL affairs as he later admitted to me after the divorce. As it turns out, the abuse I endured was so bad that it caused me to have severe depression, anxiety and mental anguish to the point that it manifested physically. I developed Fibromyalgia and, shortly after, a serious life-threatening auto-immune disease~ Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and eventually also got diagnosed with PTSD. I also had a suicide attempt.,, YES, ABUSE CAN AND DOES MAKE YOUR MIND AND THEREFORE THE BODY SICK, DEATHLY SICK. What effects the mind, also effects the body because they are intrinsically and infinitely connected through our physiology. Oh, you didn’t know this??? Well neither did I…until I educated myself. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!💪 Welcome to the club!🎉✨🎉
A lack of financial independence, resources and support outside the home (or perceived lack of) are other big reasons victims don’t leave their abusers. I was in this position. I had become sick fairly early on in my marriage, and I was no longer able to work and had little to no financial resources. Many times the abuser is successful at isolating the victims not only from family and friends but from the outside world as well. Victims then feel trapped in general with nowhere to go and if they work, their paychecks may be hijacked by their abuser, like mine were.
Many times, the abuser oppresses the victim by monitoring phone calls and emails and by making finances off limits and/or unreachable. The abuser may control all outgoing and incoming mail as well. My ex controlled all of this.. Our mail was, literally, off limits to me. We had one mail key and the ex kept it on his key chain and took it everywhere he went…even out of town! If I asked for the mail key, I was always met with much resistance and questions like, “why, are you expecting something?”, “why do you need to get it now, I can get it later?” and statements like, “I was going to get it in a few minutes anyway so I’ll just get it”. He would always do that and be difficult about it so I would back off. To me, it wasn’t worth getting into a big fight just because I wanted to get the mail, not even really expecting anything for me in it anyway. You have to learn to “pick your battles” because you can’t fight them all! After going around and around with these same questions, I would just eventually give up and follow “the path of least resistance”, to avoid conflict and keep the peace, which is a common relationship survival tactic victims will use to avoid conflict and the resulting abusive behavior. Abusers may allow a victim to only leave the house when absolutely necessary. This is yet another suffocating tactic that makes the victim feel as though their abuser is “everywhere”.
Fear... can be paralyzing and is one of the biggest reasons victims don’t leave their abusers. They are afraid that if they try to, there will be retribution and the threat of harm or death against them, their children or their extended family. There is also the fear of them trying to sabotage your efforts and destroy or “lose” your things or important items along the way. I had to deal with some of this the first time I attempted to leave my ex-husband.
Now to truly understand some of the more deeply rooted psychological reasons victims don’t leave their abusers, we must first look at the skewed dynamics of an abusive relationship and the intricate dance of interpersonal and psychological interactions between abuser and victim. I’ll use my relationship as an example; My ex and I entered our relationship when I was barely a couple years out of college. I had little to no money or work experience. He, in contrast, was seven years older, employed as a manager of a retail chain store and had his own money. He also had a lot of experience with life in general, something that I did not. Right off the bat, there was a big power imbalance going into the relationship. He had a lot more power than me from the get go and he saw to it that it remained that way.
I was madly in love with the guy. He was like no one and nothing I had ever experienced. He was handsome, had a boyish charm and charisma and was funnier than anyone I’d ever known. He said all the right things at exactly the right time and he professed that he had love for me and made me believe it. It turns out I was being played by a smart, experienced and slithery 🐍Psychopath 👹who had already spent time in a maximum security jail for kidnapping an ex girlfriend (ya, that’s a FEDERAL OFFENSE) – all unbeknownst to me, until I was already too invested into the relationship and not to mention, he totally downplayed it. He had also been constantly in trouble with the law as a juvenile. I had no clue of the severity or gravity of what any of that really meant in regards to his personality or the destruction it could cause.
These abusive relationships often start out with various levels of love or adoration but this quickly all erodes over time due to the incessant need for assertion and exploitation of the abuser’s power over their victim. Abusers have an insatiable need to suck all that is good out of their victims. Power and control is how they feed and fuel their own empty souls. They murder ours to feed theirs. They are modern day VAMPIRES. I call them “SOULSPIRIT MURDERERS”, because that is what they do…and what it feels like...
Learned Helplessness is another big reason abuse victims don’t attempt to leave their partners. This phenomenon happens when an animal or person is subjected to negative and harmful stimulus that it cannot escape from or where they see no way out, they give up and just keep taking the negativity. They cannot imagine themselves in any other situation (better). This basically means that when we are in abusive situations that we feel we cannot control or leave, we resign ourselves to the fact that there’s nothing we can do about it so we give up and just keep taking it.
The survival tactic of Stockholm Syndrome is another big reason victims don’t leave their abusive relationships. This is a manifestation of the “trauma bond”, which is an attachment type bond that is created and cultivated by the process of repeated abusive behaviors and experiences, in which the victim also receives love, attention, kudos and positive reinforcement after the abusive act and during the cyclical times of peace in the relationship. It is a viscous cycle of “wound and sooth”, “love and pain” that the victim’s psyche is literally not able to handle because of the polar opposite conflicting emotions and realities. This creates Cognitive Dissonance and confuses the victim into believing that love and abuse go together and they still have feelings for the abuser. This becomes a relationship pattern and the bond becomes stronger over time. In my opinion, I also think that the “good and peaceful times” are also the ultimate distraction for the abuser to dangle in front of us. This pervasive pattern can be internalized as a belief system and sets the stage for victims to repeat this in future relationships… unless there is some intervention. This bond is a type of psychological alliance with their abuser where the victim feels empathy for the abuser. Stockholm Syndrome can also be seen as an act of “surrendering to win”, by the victim. Because us humans have that innate instinct and will to survive, we are pretty darn good at adapting to our immediate environments! Both our conscious and subconscious will find ways to avoid conflicts by using de-escalation, avoidance or by just by resolving the conflict by any means necessary, as well as developing coping mechanisms which are almost always detrimental to their personal growth and relationships. These mal-adaptive coping mechanisms are mainly Cognitive Dissonance, following the path of least resistance and by the victim giving up entirely and resign themselves to aligning with the abuser (Stockholm Syndrome). By aligning with their abuser, the victim can not only feel some emotional relief from their inequitable relationship but deescalate otherwise intense and vicious attacks and situations. This can also be seen as a tool of “empowerment” for the victim because it allows us to have some kind of a foothold in the abusive relationship where we may otherwise be completely annihilated by these power and control hungry “SOULSPIRIT MURDERERS”.
And lastly, another important reason we don’t leave is because WE AR NOT QUITTERS!!! Do you really think we are just going to up and leave when the going gets tough???? We didn’t think it was going to get THIS TOUGH but women are tough creatures and we don’t give up easy, on anything and it takes A LOT to break us. We suffer through child birth and adversity a lot more than most men ever could! Think about that for a moment.
As you can see and what I’ve learned is that the cycle of domestic abuse is very difficult to break, for many reasons on many levels and layers. There are some very serious psychological phenomena and mechanisms that take place within these relationships that literally change and or create a false belief system the victim internalizes about themselves and the world around them. In order to be successful at breaking the cycle, there needs to be an enormous pendulum shift in the collective belief systems that allow these abusive behaviors to happen in the first place! Thank you for reading!💞