WE ARE NOT WHAT HAPPENS TO US
Labels can feel bad, but they can also be freeing. On the one hand, using the term “victim” calls out victimization. On the other, no one likes to be labeled. We make a mistake when we believe that being victimized is an identity. Many times we use the term “survivor” to prevent that perception, although that doesn’t feel good to everyone either.
Defining Victimization
The term “victim” does not identify who anyone is, nor does it reflect on their worth. It denotes what happened to them. The choice to use coercive control reveals the beliefs and behavior of the controlling person. When they justify their behavior, it shows their sense of entitlement. Their behavior reveals nothing about their victims, who certainly don’t choose to be harmed.
In Coercive Relationships: Find the Answers You Seek, I used the phrase “victim to survivor to thriver” in referring to recovery from coercive control. This phrase captures the journey of healing from any trauma. Everyone wants to thrive in life, to feel like they matter, and know they are lovable. Coercive controllers limit victims’ freedom to be themselves.
Three other words also need to be reclaimed. “Abusers,” “perpetrators,” and “offenders” denote people who choose harmful behavior. Those individuals usually deny these terms and punish survivors for using them. However, survivors often shy away from using them as well, for much the same reason they do with the victim label. They don’t see them as their partners’ identity. Good memories may make them cringe at those terms. Recovery includes facing that they chose behavior that makes those labels accurate. That isn’t their total identity, but it is part of it until they choose to change.
Naming What Happened
This act of courage means you call it what it is. As much as it hurts. Identifying abuse enables us to expect accountability and change from partners. And to move on if we don’t receive it. Healing begins with naming.
Beth (not her real name) agreed to share her story in this blog. She gives us a picture of how abusive partners overwhelm survivors emotionally and act to suppress how good they feel about themselves.
“Almost from the beginning of my marriage I felt like I had made a mistake. It was like Jim turned into a different person right before my eyes. He started shouting at me and calling me names, always correcting me even in front of others. I would leave therapy sessions feeling good about myself and that I was a good person. But the minute I got home it didn’t take Jim long to shut me down. It took me a long time to realize that he might have problems as well.”
The healing journey takes time and effort. The emotional, mental, behavioral, physical, and spiritual injuries cited in Coercive Relationships limit survivors’ abilities to perceive what is happening. It is easier to see physical injuries and understand they take time to heal. The less tangible effects alter how they see themselves and what they feel capable of doing. Unless the abuse and how it affects them is named, it can continue to limit their freedom even when they leave the relationships. The beliefs that arise from the trauma of intimate partner abuse are what I call “instilled beliefs.”
Identifying coercive behavior lays responsibility onto the perpetrators. By doing so, survivors reject self-blame and expect accountability from their partners. That doesn’t mean they will get it, but expecting it represents a mind shift away from shame and over-responsibility.
Uncovering Instilled Beliefs
The abuse literature indicates that traumas change what people believe about themselves and the world. This includes learning to distrust themselves. The corrosive effect of intimate partner abuse on self-esteem comes from what the offender relentlessly says. It overwhelms survivors’ perceptions and sense of reality. The intimacy of the relationship makes them vulnerable because there is a tendency to assume that relationships are always 50/50. This often is bolstered by feedback from others who don’t see the coercive control. Beth says,
“The name calling was demeaning and very hurtful and very controlling. Tears were shed and I learned to just tune him out. It felt like he was the commander in charge and if I followed his rules things would be quiet and livable for a while, but he was always changing the rules.”
Common beliefs that survivors like Beth struggle with:
- I am bad
- I am not enough
- I am incompetent
- I am crazy
- I cannot make it on my own
- I am unlovable
Sometimes survivors begin relationships with damaged beliefs about who they are. If so, relationship abuse always makes it worse. However, no one can endure coercive control for years and not be burned, no matter what their background.
From Victimization to Recovery
Besides naming and working to change instilled beliefs, recovery includes survivors embracing their emotions, thoughts, and opinions. Something that isn’t allowed by coercive controllers. Survivors may lose touch with these elements of self. Recovering means they have to reject what abusers say about them. Repetition carves neural pathways, so it often takes time for survivors to get their partners’ “voices”—what they’ve said—out of their heads.
Recovery means becoming the “driver” of their lives, as Dr. Edith Eger calls it in The Choice. This takes courage and work, since they experienced someone else being the driver and questioning their abilities. Beth gives us an example of behavior that results in feeling like they’ve lost themselves.
“I was always criticized for every little thing. If I was driving and he was in the car, I never went the right way; his routes were the best. Being embarrassed in front of my friends and family was the most disturbing. I was very anxious at holidays because I never knew what would be coming.”
Leaving can be very frightening for survivors in the beginning. That’s why recognizing those false beliefs is so important. Developing trust in themselves and their ability to decide what they want means going upstream against the current of denial and abuse offenders spew. Partners don’t want to lose control; their identity is based on having it.
Recovery also means reclaiming lost parts of the self, such as interests, family, and friends. Sometimes it involves discovering the goldmine that lies within for the first time. It often includes seeing things anew, by recognizing what partners’ behaviors show them they value most. Survivors feel pain when partners’ actions show the absence of love, respect, sharing, and appreciating them for who they are. Abusers often treat their loved ones as extensions of themselves rather than separate human beings.
During recovery, survivors experience many emotions. Disappointment, frustration, hurt, sadness, and betrayal, to name a few. Anger, as well. That may be the most uncomfortable to feel. See my “Anger as a Super Power” blog post for help in understanding and becoming more comfortable with it. Distinguish between emotions and behavior. We feel angry; we choose how to express it.
Beth expresses what her life is like since her recovery work began and she left her husband.
“I started a journey and I’m working on changing my life and becoming independent. I am breathing and living in peace. I am learning how to live life better. I have a long road ahead of me but I am encouraged at what I have accomplished in this short time and the best thing is that I like me. My confidence is spreading every day.”
Reclaiming Identity
Survivors’ paths to rediscovering who they are includes naming what happened, holding offenders accountable, correcting abuse-instilled beliefs, and reclaiming parts of themselves they lost. During that work, some abusive partners choose to change. Survivors should be wary of promises until they see actions that match them. Words need to be backed up by changed behavior.
Sometimes survivors have to walk away, just as Beth did.
“I have wanted to leave him for many years but didn’t know how to and where to start. . . If it weren’t for my therapist, supportive family members and friends, I wouldn’t be where I am today. . . Over the years I suggested counseling many times but he always said, ‘I don’t have any problems. You do!’”
Survivors feel broken-hearted when partners refuse to change. They grieve. On the other side of that grief lies their freedom to be themselves. Remember what Beth said: “I like me.”
We all have the right to be who we are and to choose our behavior. I celebrate Beth’s and every survivor’s journey into claiming these birthrights.
