The truth about sexual assault…
is that it usually starts out as psychological abuse.
Here’s how:
When there is high intensity and that is mistaken for intimacy
When exploitation endures over time
When there is a history of violation of trust—physically threatening, financially manipulative, controlling or limiting freedoms
When victims and victimizers switch roles of rescue and abuse
When there is confusion about love
When it’s repetitive and compulsive even though there is some acknowledgment of violation occurring
When the victim and victimizer believe in the uniqueness of their violating pattern
When friends and family react in extremes wanting to rescue, defend or abandon the victim or victimize
When patterns of surviving abuse in childhood re-emerge in compulsive relational patterns that keep the victim stuck in numbing coping strategies
When there is an increasing amount of fear
When children are faced with terror
When there is insistence on keeping the abuse a secret
When the roles each person plays in the relationship are fixed and rigid
(partially taken from Patrick Carnes, Ph.D. Betrayal Bond)
More concretely there is a standard of making a person in the relationship feel crazy either in tandem or simultaneously by using the following methods of power and control:
Forerunners in the abuse behavior are as follows:
Putting her down
Making her feel bad about herself
Calling her names
Making her think she’s crazy
Playing mind games
Humiliating her
Making her feel guilty
Making light of the abuse and not taking her concerns about it seriously
Saying the abuse didn’t happen
Shifting responsibility for abusive behavior
Saying she caused it
From here there are categories involved such as:
Money—preventing her from getting or keeping a job, making her ask for money, taking her money, not letting her know about or have access to family income, giving her an allowance
Male privilege—treating her like a servant, making all the big decisions, acting like the “master of the castle,” being the one to define men’s and women’s roles
Coercion or threats—making and/or carrying out threats to do something to hurt her, threatening to leave her, to commit suicide, to report her to social services, making her drop charges, making her do illegal things
Destruction of property and other acts of intimidation—such as ruining or destroying property, smashing things, throwing things, slamming doors, abusing pets, displaying weapons, threatening her with blackmail
Social isolation—controlling what she does, who she sees and talks to, limiting her outside involvement, using jealousy to justify actions, like controlling clothing, use of cosmetics, social outings with family and friends
Children—using the children to destroy reputation of the other parent, using visitation to harass her, threatening with legal action related to nefarious issues that she can’t afford to defend through hiring an attorney, threatening to take the children away, making her feel guilty about the children.
Nearly all abuse victims tell me that the psychological bondage to the abuser was the most difficult part of the recovery. That explains why reports consistently convey that sexual assault from a person known to the sexual assault survivor is so much more difficult to recover from than sexual assault from someone you don’t know. The shame and silence is stronger and more imprisoning.