On July 8, 1982, the House of Commons unanimously
adopted a motion that “Parliament
encourages all Canadian police forces to establish
a practice of having the police regularly lay charges in instances of wife
beating, as they are inclined to do with any other case of common assault.”1
This motion was initially greeted with “laughter and jeers.”2
- Excerpt from A Domestic
Violence Handbook1
I
am troubled by these thoughts.
In
2013 the World Health Organization (WHO) determined that 1 in 3 women worldwide
will be subjected to physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of their
partner.2 In Canada alone, 51% of women aged 16 and older have
experienced at least one incidence of physical or sexual violence, with family
violence accounting for almost 30% of all violent crimes reported to the
police.3
The
statistics are terrifying. As a woman and a survivor of domestic abuse I am
included in those statistics. Somewhere, on a graph is a line, a bar, or a
slice of pie that represents me. Somewhere, someone with a computer pushed a
button and I became a number. And while numbers are very valuable and can tell
a story, numbers can’t tell my story,
or
your story,
or
the story of the person sitting next to you.
Numbers
can tell us that most victims of domestic violence are women.4 They
can tell us that women are:
- 3 -times more likely to report being sexually assaulted, beaten, choked or threatened with a gun or a knife
- nearly 2.5 times more likely to report higher rates of injury caused by abuse
- 1.5 times more likely to report multiple experiences of abuse3
Numbers
can tell us that if you are an Aboriginal, First Nations woman, the likelihood
of you experiencing domestic violence doubles.
DOUBLES.
If
you are an Aboriginal, First Nations woman, you also have a higher percentage
of physical injuries and consistently experience the most severe forms of
violence.4
Numbers
can also tell us that the highest rates of intimate partner violence involve
young women, age 24-34, who are dating.4 And that if you are
self-identified as lesbian or bi-sexual, then you report significantly higher
rates (20.8%) of violence by a partner than if you identify as heterosexual
(6.1%).4
Men
have numbers too, and while most victims of domestic violence are women that
doesn’t mean that men are immune to intimate partner abuse or that their
stories any less significant. In fact, 20% of victims of domestic violence
in Canada are men.5
So
you see, numbers can tell us a lot of things but they’re only a part of the
story. The rest of the story is what lies on the other side of silence.
In
1982, the other side of silence was laughter and jeers. It was also an epic win
for women’s rights, for human rights. Someone, somewhere was brave enough to say,
“this is not acceptable”, and somebody else agreed, and a dialogue was started,
and then a revolution. In 1982 I was 5 years old and in Grade 1. Mrs. Smith was
my teacher and a boy named Aaron gave me a valentine that read “I Love You”.
As
the years passed and I progressed from elementary school to high school, and
even into University, domestic violence wasn’t really talked about. We had
presentations about the perils of drinking and driving, and about accepting
people with disabilities. We had awkward conversations in Sex Ed classes that
focused on the actual mechanics behind sex, and it was mentioned that No means
No, but intimate partner abuse wasn’t even discussed. My education surrounding
domestic violence was solely gained through conversations with my mother, my
friends, or what I gleaned from the 6 o’clock news or movies. My
understanding was that if you were abused, you had bruises; you had broken
bones. I thought you wore makeup and dark glasses to cover the bruises. I
thought you were most likely to be abused by your husband and when that
happened, he would be drunk. I never knew that, while all of that is possible
and happens, other things are possible too. I learned that the hard way.
I
think the most difficult part of intimate partner abuse is the psychological
component. Bruises and bones heal. Sometimes they heal in a way that they leave a physical
scar. They are visible. People can see them, and know that they’re real, that
the abuse is real, that something is wrong. Other people can see them. You can
see them. The sexual, psychological and verbal components of abuse are different. The
scars they leave are marked with invisible ink. They don’t leave physical
scars, the leave soul scars.
When
I first started group therapy through Victim Services I heard many, many
stories about the physical trauma others had experienced. Some of it I could
relate to and some of it I couldn’t. We would watch videos on different types
of abusers (who knew there were so many variations?) as part of our discussions,
and I would sit back and quietly marvel at the strength of these women who
suffered under their wrath. I would silently wonder where I fit in and actually
started to consider that maybe my situation wasn’t so bad. One day one of our
leaders, a man, (which is a rarity in women’s groups I’m told) put a video on
for us to watch. He premised it by saying that “out of all the types of
abusers, if he had to pick one that disturbed him the most, it would be this
one”. I steeled myself in preparation, and as he pressed play I watched my life
unfold in a screenplay. I sat there stunned. He looked at me and said, “Does
that look familiar?”
He knew.
He knew.
He understood about the psychological hell I had been living and what surprised me the most, the absolute most, is that the other women in the group looked at me with shock and horror, with pain and empathy, and for that moment my experience was the worst in that room.
I’ve
since learned that there is a term for the manipulation, the verbal abuse, the
psychological warfare that can play out in domestic violence. It’s called “Crazy-making
Behaviour”
and having been subjected to it is likened to being a prisoner of war.
“Crazy-making Behaviour” is labeled such because it leaves the victim feeling
as though they are crazy, something I can personally attest to. It’s also known
as “Gas-lighting”.
This term comes from the
1938 stage play Gas
Light, in which a husband
attempts to drive his wife crazy by dimming the lights (which were powered by
gas) in their home, and then he denies that the light changed when his wife
points it out.6There are many techniques an abuser can use to “gaslight” their partner, but the ultimate goal is to make what was once thought to be real, unreal, and the unreal, real. Methodically and strategically a strong, independent, intelligent, person can be broken down, piece-by-piece, and reassembled into someone who only vaguely resembles his or her former self. The fact that a “sincere person is willing to contemplate being in the error”7 only makes this form of emotional abuse more insidious.
In my case it started out with small things: comments and questions disguised as sarcasm, even humour. Little things that hurt, a bit, but I didn’t take them seriously. Over time those small things grew into big things until, one day, I couldn’t remember who I was, or what I believed. If I said the sky was blue, he would say no it’s not it’s pink. If I mentioned that I liked a song on the radio he would turn the station. If something he did or said upset me and hurt me, or made me angry, then my expression of that emotion was “cute”. I was told I was over-reacting, over-thinking or over-analyzing things. I was too sensitive. Nothing I wore was “right”, nothing I said was “right” and certainly nothing I did was “right”. If I changed to try to appease him then he changed the rules. I felt like I was constantly trying to play catch-up. It was a game I could never win. I had never been so confused in my entire life. I felt crazy. And that’s exactly what he wanted. Bit by bit he broke me down until it was next to impossible to make my own decisions. I had become a prisoner of war and I was fighting for my life. My soul was dying. I was dying. And while this part, and/or type, of abuse, has been sometimes labeled the silent killer, there’s nothing silent about it. The silence is in the not talking about it.
So
how do we start a revolution?
One
of the first things people often ask a survivor when he/she is sharing their
story of intimate partner abuse is “Why did you stay?” I understand why they
ask this question, and it’s important to understand the reasons for staying,
but it’s the wrong question.
The
right question is “How did you get out?”
Which
was the first question my therapist asked me after I shared my story.
“How
on earth did you ever get out?”
Each of us has our own story, our own journey, through hell and back. The reasons why we stayed and how we got out are different, but we are united by the scars that mark our souls. And it's time we started showing our battle wounds.
So how
do we start a revolution?
By
talking about it.
By sharing our stories.
By stepping into our power.
By sharing our stories.
By stepping into our power.
By
shining a light on the darkness.
By moving to the other side of silence.
All My Relations,
Mandy
References
1. A
Domestic Violence Handbook For Police Services and Crown Prosecutors in
Alberta, Prepared by: Alberta Justice and Solicitor General Alberta Crown Prosecution Service
Updated: February 2014
2. http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/9789241564625/en/
3. http://www.cawes.com/about-us/statistics
5. Component
of Statistics Canada catalogue no. 85-002-X Juristat Family violence in Canada:
A statistical profile, 2011 by Maire Sinha Canadian Centre for Justice
Statistics Re leased on June 25, 2013
7. http://www.abuseandrelationships.org/Content/The_Con/gaslighting.html
Verbal Abuse photo used with permission from AWARE Singapore www.aware.org.sg/
Verbal Abuse photo used with permission from AWARE Singapore www.aware.org.sg/
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