If you wander about the Internet, you’ll find many places where people discuss a definition for abuse. Some of those are strictly outlined lists of behaviors and some of them are more detailed discussions of various related aspects. I’m going to try to draw on a variety of sources in order to give you a better view of what abuse is. Hopefully, this will prepare you to recognize maladaptive behaviors and decide when it is important to take action.

Firstly, I’m going to address lists of abusive behaviors. You’ll find an example here. One thing to remember with these lists is that just because you see a particular behavior in someone doesn’t mean that they are abusive. You’ll find that some parts of the linked list are very serious. Non-consensual harm to another person is never acceptable. Other things on the list may seem more trivial. Sometimes, couples will decide on one person to manage finances and sometimes people have to cancel appointments and sometimes people express fondness through teasing, each of which are behaviors listed on that link. Because of this confusing problem, when you see an abuse checklist like the one linked, you must consider not just the action, but the harm done by the action.

Here is an excellent article that discusses abuse as an issue of control or domination. Again, context is important, but if an individual doesn’t want to surrender control of an aspect of their life to someone, they shouldn’t have to.

Many Domestic Violence Service organizations use various versions of what they call the cycle of abuse. These descriptions are usually general outlines of behavior, so most abusers don’t fit the descriptions. Most, though, will display behaviors that can easily be recognized within the cycle. I’ve created my own graphic, combining the aspects of each that have been supported by behavioral and case studies. It isn’t drawn up as a cycle, because the cycle isn’t always followed. Most behavioral studies have shown particular traits associated with abuse, but few support a perfect cyclical model. Instead, there are multiple abuse patterns that can better be represented by a flow chart, showing common directions the behavior might go.

I’m assuming that this looks confusing. Abuse victims often feel their world is chaotic because of the behaviors of their abuser. It seems pretty unfair to minimize their experience by showing abuse as a predictable cycle. I think the above represents their experience more fairly and it may help people to understand what the world of a victim looks and feels like. A single abuser doesn’t always have the same pattern between each abuse event, and so you can find any number of variations between each behavioral type.

The behaviors:

The Honeymoon phase is where I want to start. Most relationships start here, so it is a place of familiarity, even for those who have not experienced abuse. It is a time when each person in the relationship is content, feelings of love and security are developing or reinforced. Often times, it is a moment where the partners treat each other with extra special care and affection. It is a happy time.

For victims who have already seen their partner become abusive at least once or twice, this period of time may make it seem like their partner is getting better. It often seems like the abuse won’t happen again and the couple can build a ‘normal life.’ The couple may make or renew promises to each other. An abuser may commit to counseling, be extra affectionate, apologetic and loving. The abuser and/or the victim may deny that abuse ever occurred or the abuser may ask for forgiveness.

It is common for this phase to mislead a victim into thinking everything is suddenly better and so if they have left the situation, this may lead to them returning to it.

Normalcy, often referred to by counselors as the “routine phase” or “normal behavior,” happens when the couple is neither in the extreme high of a newly formed relationship and no tension or abuse is happening. This phase can vary tremendously in length of time and, as you can see by the flow chart, is sometimes non existent.

Sometimes honeymooning or normalcy will bring about reminders of the abuse and while there may still be denial surrounding the abuse, the victim may feel manipulated or they may blame themself for what happened. Oftentimes, even when the victim feels used or manipulated, they may also still feel hopeful.

Tension can begin to build in the relationship right after an abusive episode, but many times the couple ignores it or it is not noticeable until later. After the honeymoon or normalcy phases, though, the tension building often becomes more apparent. The victim, during this time, may notice changes in their abuser’s behavior, where they react more dramatically to things that upset them or their body language is, itself, tense or aggressive.

Fantasy is something that may or may not happen with the abuser and the victim may or may not know about it. Some abusers report that they fantasize about abusing their victims before they actually do so. This isn’t always the case, though. Abusers who do this often feel the need to punish their victim and will even invent reasons to do so, then make a plan and act on it. Some abusers don’t plan their behavior, but simply lose control.

Abuse is the intentional harm or unwanted control of another.

Abuse may actually overlap any of the phases to some degree. If an individual does something to control or dominate another, to intentionally frighten them, punish them or hurt them, then it is considered abuse. Some abusive episodes may include many elements of minor disruptive behaviors that, themselves, don’t seem like abuse but are abusive when added up.

In most cases, the abuser feels regret after harming the victim. Sometimes this regret is because the abuser feels guilty about what they have done and sometimes it is because they’re concerned about consequences that they might face as a result of their behavior.

Excuses frequently litter the entirety of an abusive relationship, but they will happen more frequently during and after an abuser feels guilty for what they have done. Excuses, themselves, may often be abusive, especially when they blame the victim for the behavior of the abuser.

Tips for if you encounter someone who is the victim of abuse or if you, yourself, are being abused:

1) Understand that everyone deserves respect. Being a victim of someone else’s maladaptive behavior does not mean that person is less respectable, even if they decide not to leave.

2) Do not tolerate abuse happening around yourself or others. Don’t confront an abuser, but offer the victim help, if you can.

3) Individuals are responsible for their own actions. A victim is not responsible for the bad behavior of their abuser.

4) Victims have the right to either leave an abusive relationship or stay. Giving a victim the tools to escape the situation is a just and noble goal, but it is not the place of another to decide if the victim’s choice to stay or go is right or wrong.

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This post, What is abuse?, originally appeared on She Thought on December 26, 2010.
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Instead, the subject I want to address began around six months later and the beginning of the end was on December 15, 2004. My marriage that I had thought was what the world expected of me, the thing that was to bring me hope and happiness, had become its own crash course on what love wasn’t supposed to be. Ultimately, I found myself locked in a room with my husband pounding on the door, cycling through amorous lamentations and personal threats. One moment, he wanted to hurt me and the next he was apologetic and wanted nothing more than to make it better. I was familiar with that behavior already. When I was just a teenager, my mother volunteered for Domestic Violence services and I helped, sometimes, to translate for her when she had Spanish-speaking callers. But this wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I wasn’t supposed to be one of those women. I was supposed to have a fairytale ending, right?

After spending hours trapped in that bedroom, with my husband throwing periodic tantrums outside, he finally wore out and decided to go someplace to let off steam. That was my one chance. I was so scared, even today, I can’t possibly describe it. It was like I suddenly noticed that there was a gigantic chasm in my life that existed between my own happiness, peace and where I was currently standing. It was a giant, rumbling barrier between myself, where I stood amidst violence, and another world, where everything was uncertain, but where there was at least some chance for me to find something better. I had to be quick. I called the only person I knew to call, my dad. My dad lived about an hour and fifteen minutes away and he was busy. It just so happens my decision came at a bad time, my grandmother was dying that night. My dad isn’t one to let me down, though, so he sent my younger brother.

Some time during my time locked in the bedroom, it had started snowing. By the time my brother got there, with his wife and my younger sister, there was a blanket of snow on the ground. In the time it took my brother to get there, I had packed three rubbermaid bins with all the belongings that I would take with me. It wasn’t very much, but I was determined to make it work. My brother had made the trip in my dad’s pick up truck and there was no room for me in the cab. I had to sit between the rubbermaid bins and my siblings covered me in several layers of blankets. Just as we were heading out in the quietly falling snow, my husband showed up. He made a loud and dramatic scene and blamed me for everything. My education, my appearance, my poor skills as a wife were all to blame for his behavior. He was justified, in his mind, because I was a bad person. My brother kept him from me, though, and did the best he could to leave quickly.

I don’t remember much about the trip to my dad’s house except that it snowed the whole way and the snow that got caught in my hair stung my face as my hair whipped around my head in the breeze. Even with the layers of blankets, it was cold. I remember how much it hurt to go. My husband was mean, but I still loved him and the mixture of those realizations is nearly unbearable.

There is an odd process that abuse victims go through after they leave abuse. The abuser’s behavior often goes through dramatic swings where they beg for their loved one to return and then suffer large behavioral explosions where they might stalk them or hurt them. My ex husband was no different. His behavior became so disturbing that I had to file a restraining order, which he contested, so I had to face him in court. His behavior was so disruptive, I eventually had to drop out of college.

It took me five years to leave my ex husband. Five years was a long time to live in that mess. I was punished for things I did, I was treated like a child. I was lied to, yelled at, bossed around, controlled and even struck. Still, I stayed.

It wasn’t like I didn’t seek help, I did. I went to church authorities and they told me to be a better wife. I turned to friends, but they offered me nothing. I reached out, but there was nothing to grasp. And I tried. I tried so hard to be the perfect wife. I kept the house up, I cooked and when something displeased my ex husband, I saw to it that it wasn’t there for him to be displeased by it. When he was jealous of my schoolbooks, I hid them. When he accused me of flirting with my neighbors, I stopped talking to them. Whenever he complained, I tried to have a fix for it; for him. But I failed. It wasn’t really my flaw, though. I had to learn that. It took a while, but I finally realized that I couldn’t exist like that any longer.

Surly Amy’s Ask Amy series addressed a question in abuse that most people who have been abused or who have worked with abuse victims see all the time: “Why does she stay? Why does she go back?” I highly suggest checking out the advice she gives and reading through my response in the comments section.

Abuse is a very serious subject that doesn’t really get enough attention. So, Amy’s question inspired me to start on a new project. There are so many things to be said about the issue of abuse, that people’s questions can’t be answered in one article, here. I’m going to start a new series here on shethought addressing issues of abuse. I hope to cover a wide range of information that I think will be helpful. I think that my training with Domestic Violence Services will help me help others understand abuse and might, perhaps, share information with those who need help.

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This post, One snowy night …, originally appeared on She Thought on December 22, 2010.
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Like a wide variety of other creatures, touch is one of our means of communication. When a friend needs comfort, I don’t just talk to them. Instead, if they’re comfortable with it, I hold them and try to help calm them that way. But the language of touch has a broad range of messages that it can send and the range of ways to interpret it is just as broad.

Today, I ran across this article by ‘Chloe’ on feministing.com. Like me, Chloe doesn’t like to be touched, so she describes an instance about when she was touched and it bothered her. Sadly, she took what was really about one person’s misunderstanding about appropriate social behavior and equated it to simply something that men do because they think men should be allowed. I have to say, this isn’t true. This isn’t a man vs women kind of issue. Women are just as guilty of unwanted touch as men are, and this issue is really one about people being unable to look beyond our either conditioned or programmed tendencies to see where we might be crossing a personal line.

I’m going to address some of what Chloe says, because I think it is important to examine this issue so that people can learn from it:

Why do strange men think they’re allowed to touch me? I wondered to myself.

The truth is, most people think touch is a natural, normal way to communicate. Women do this, as well, and I find that women violate my own boundaries as much as men do, but I mind more when it is a man. This is not because men are somehow evil or more guilty for their actions, this is because I simply have trouble dealing with men in situations that I don’t control.

It isn’t that men think they’re allowed to touch someone, it is that most people think they’re allowed to touch everyone. Most people don’t consider that what they’ve been taught, that touch is a key element in their communication, is somehow wrong. The reality is, touching without permission is often wrong and it is often important. A good rule is to assess how well you know someone and if the touch is important, somehow, in what you’re saying or doing. Situations in which there is a safety concern or when someone is hearing impaired often make touch an important part of communication. Also, in situations where two people are very intimate, touch also can be a key element in their communication between each other and asking permission is likely to be unnecessary.

Why do strange men think I care about their opinion of my appearance?

This is a whole other issue, entirely.  Sometimes, I care what people think about my appearance, sometimes I don’t. I like a variety of compliments and that includes compliments about my appearance, about my intelligence, about my skills. Would it still have been a problem if this person complimented her on something else? What if he complimented a book she was holding, a sticker on her car or her taste in coffee? Would that still be offensive?  When we get a compliment that we don’t want, why don’t we treat it like we do input about other things that we don’t want?

You know, like when you go through the checkout at the store and the clerk mentions that they’re raising money for the elite baby vampire robot olympics and would you like to donate? Unless we have a special interest in elite baby vampire robots, we’re likely to just pass that one over and the incident is forgotten as quickly as it happened. The clerk is free to mention it and we are free to dismiss it. It doesn’t matter if the clerk thinks that we care about it. This is one of those situations where it is our own reaction that matters, not that someone else did something. As long as they haven’t harmed us, they’re not responsible for how we take it.

Do they think I’ll be flattered if they approach me out of the blue and offer their unsolicited opinion as I stand in line, listening to my iPod and minding my own business?

Why was the writer listening to an iPod while ordering a drink? If I were the barista, I’d feel like I was less important if someone was doing that to me. This doesn’t matter in the context of the whole article, but I thought I’d make the observation, anyway.

Being touched by a stranger and told that I was beautiful didn’t make me feel more beautiful; it made me feel unimportant. It made me feel like what I wanted – to go from home to work with a quick stop at Starbucks on the way, without being harassed – didn’t matter. What mattered most was that this man had an opinion about me, so I had to hear it whether I wanted to or not. He wanted to touch me, so I was going to be touched, by a stranger, whether I wanted it or not.

Being touched and being talked to are two different things. It is true that a stranger has no right to touch anyone. However, it isn’t true that the person has no right to say something to someone, especially a compliment. Why should it be this man’s responsibility of the girl is offended at him saying something? I can understand the offense at being touched, I would have likely told him not to touch me, but I’m just not on the same page when it comes to the compliment. I would have appreciated the compliment!

What he wanted was more important than what I wanted, because he is a man, and I am a woman.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that this is true. More likely, this man offered a compliment because he valued the girl, somehow. People don’t compliment each other in order to establish control or dominion, usually.

Did he consider that his words and his gesture, perhaps intended to compliment, might mean something totally different to me?

Why would he? Why would one person assume that another person thinks something means something completely different than what most people he encounters would? He’s not psychic and, in his mind, he was offering something positive to someone’s day. Yeah, he was wrong to touch when it wasn’t welcome, but that doesn’t mean he needs to relearn English to offer a compliment.

What he wanted was more important than what I wanted, perhaps because we live in a world where what men want is more important than what women want. That is why strange men think they’re allowed to touch me – and any other women they feel like touching. It’s that simple.

No, it isn’t that simple.

Yes, we live in a world where men and women are still in very different social realms. We haven’t managed to even the playing field, but we’re working on it. That doesn’t mean, though, that all guy/girl interactions have to be about men being somehow a priority in a situation. This isn’t a man-woman issue, this is an everybody issue.

It is everyone’s problem that we can’t decide when touch is an appropriate action. Watch situations where individuals are put in control of an interaction, watch professors in college monitor a classroom where tests are being taken or schoolwork is being done and see what they do as they roam around the room. What happens when a student raises their hand? What are the differences between the men and women who are helping their students? The female instructors touch their students without permission and so do the male instructors. If touch is inappropriate in situations in which we’re around strangers or mere acquaintances, then we should work on changing that behavior in everyone and not pinning the blame on one gender. Blaming the incident on men just excuses women from the problem.

Alongside working on this issue, we should also work on communication skills that we can use to convey when touch is appropriate. I don’t want to have to tell my close friends when they’re alowed to touch me all the time. It is really best if I let them know when it is or is not ok to touch and then they can simply respect the boundaries we’ve set in our relationships, regardless of if they are men or women.

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This post, No Touchy!, originally appeared on She Thought on October 19, 2010.
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reposted from The Token Skeptic

Episode Thirty-Two – On Infidels And Nomads – An Interview With Ayaan Hirsi Ali Conducted By Reverend Canon Frank Sheehan

by TokenSkeptic on August 4, 2010

Mp3 Download Here – or via Token Skeptic iTunes.

This episode would not be possible if it were not for the opportunity given to me by Christ Church Grammar School – particularly the Centre for Ethics and Reverend Canon Frank Sheehan and Teresa Scott – and St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls.

This is an interview conducted on August 2nd, 2010 at Christ Church Grammar School, of Ayaan Hirsi Ali by Reverend Cannon Frank Sheehan.

Somali-born writer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, sees her journey from tribal community to membership of modern democratic society in terms of enlightenment.

After spending time as a parliamentarian in the Netherlands, Ayaan moved to a conservative Washington think tank. As both an activist and an academic, she writes and speaks about the problematic relationship between some forms of Islam and freedom of thought and expression as it has come to be accepted and treasured in the West. This has naturally led to hurt and bewilderment on both sides of the discussion.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali continues to pay a high price for her readiness to embrace liberty of thought as is evidenced by her need for protection. She gained enormous fame for her book Infidel (2007) and her most recent work Nomad. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and has been named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people.

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Visit www.tokenskeptic.org – I’d love to hear your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com. Theme songs are ‘P&P’ by Derek K Miller at www.penmachine.com and ‘365′ by Milton Mermikides, at www.miltonmermikides.com.

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This post, Episode 32 of The Token Skeptic: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, originally appeared on She Thought on August 10, 2010.
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However, when the disagreements are between women, certain people like to paint them as “catfights”, which lessens the seriousness of ALL involved (full disclosure – I, Heidi Anderson, am certain people). Women are not a monolithic group, and although many of us call ourselves skeptics AND feminists, we often can not agree on whether skepticism needs feminism, or feminism needs skepticism. Others shun the term feminist completely.

Some disagree with sexy behavior at cons, and others think it is good light-hearted fun that brings in people who may normally think skeptics are stodgy old white dudes.  Or ONLY stodgy old white dudes. We have disagreements on sexuality, pornography, prostitution, and even things that do not specifically involve women at all (imagine that!) We are labeled too confrontational or too gentle depending on our methods of outreach.

And you know what? None of that matters. While we are busy using our freedom to prove ourselves different from our allies on the side of reason, a 42 year old mother of two in Iran is facing a death sentence resulting from a forced confession of adultery. She will be buried up to her chest, and stoned to death. Small stones will be used, so as to slow down her death and cause her more pain. And her “confession”? According to a human rights attorney, it was only gained after 99 lashes.

So, as TAM8 approaches, and friends gather, and we have panels on women in skepticism, and skepticism and feminism, and all sorts of things that we as Westerners have the luxury of thinking about, is it too much to ask the skeptical community and blogosphere to investigate this story, and see what REAL DIFFERENCES we can make? Can we step outside, as my friend Will Phillips said, “our tiny little mind boxes” and remember that as we wage these petty wars on each other, a war against reason continues to rage across the globe, with a 42 year old mother of two poised to become the next victim.

Stop Stoning Now

Letter from Sakine’s Children

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This post, (S)He Without Sin by Heidi Anderson, originally appeared on She Thought on July 23, 2010.
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