CCChat-Magazine_Issue-13

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So you are talking about psychological abuse? Yes, definitely. Nowadays of course, I know it to have been textbook psychological and economic abuse. So in 2013 you read ‘Not Too Posh to Punch’ and it brought it all to the fore for you? Yep, the article was (as, sadly, is still too often the case) about physical violence, hence the word ‘punch’ in the title, but it was tackling a taboo about who it happens to. More importantly, it made mention, even though this was still two years before the Coercive Control legislation was passed, of the, then, recent change in March 2013 to the non-statutory cross-government definition to include controlling behaviour. It was an ah-ha moment for me as it came to my attention exactly at time when I was seriously struggling with life. Tell me more. So, I entered into this relationship with this charming lawyer. He was older than me and because of his maturity and the profession you automatically assume integrity and honesty – especially if that’s what they are telling you. He was very clear he was only looking for something serious.. However, the way this relationship unfolded was so insidious - in fact almost sinister. I now look back and feel I was targeted. I can only describe it to people as like being caught up in in a spin drier. You know, one that spins you wildly then slowly turns everything this way, then that, then suddenly gives a final super-fast spin. It was like that. It was the gradual, yet seemingly random, wearing down of my sense of reality, my will and my spirit: the lies and gaslighting, the cognitive dissonance, the smears, the intermittent physical violence. It still makes me shudder to think how under his control I became. It was very different to my father’s abuse too as he was totally inconsistent. “I still have a great deal of disbelief about this” Still struggling with being a child of an abusive parent you mean? No. I still have a great deal of disbelief about this, but I was struggling with an abusive partner. Somehow, even though I had, by then, worked through all my parental issues, I had still managed to swop a childhood with an abusive father for a relationship with someone who gaslighted and controlled me, to the point that I didn’t recognise myself. It shook me to my core. In fact it collapsed my very foundations because he was my first partner after my long (and happy) marriage ended and it came out of left field. My marriage had ended really amicably by most people’s standards - and at my behest. Even so, I’d deliberately taken a few years out to ensure that I was healed from that and not on any rebound. Plus, I’d already completed years and years of therapy, psychology courses, residential courses like the Hoffman Process and been deep ‘down the rabbit hole’. Indeed, by the time I met this partner I had been coaching others for a living for a number of years and was pretty respected for my advice about the importance of good values and solid self-worth. So, if anyone was the very definition of ‘sorted and ‘self-aware’ at that stage, it was me. It was the never knowing which way was up or which way I was going to be ‘spun’ next (or why), that so destabilised me. This along with the fact that he had cleverly coerced me into a position where I lost my financial independence, while swearing that he had my back and asking me to trust him, destroyed my equilibrium. In fact it had followed an exact pattern. He put me way up on a pedestal and adored me, then started devaluing me in private so that I lost my confidence, coerced me to keep spending money, then triangulated and engineered me to cast him aside when I’d run out of money. I felt like I’d been in a war - totally shell-shocked. If it had just been violence, I may have easily recovered. The problem is with the economic abuse, it follows you into the future. I knew I’d never be able to recoup what I’d lost. By far the worst of it though was the post-separation control. That truly ‘did me in’. No one should be able to physically abuse, coerce and control a women with a young teenage child and then use the law to avoid accountability and to perpetrate further psychological abuse. He tried. He used legal letters to try and silence me and threats of huge cost sanctions if I spoke out. The coercive control law couldn’t be used as it only came on the books in late 2015. Making The Invisible Visible
I also struggled with the ‘Whys’: Why me? Why when I was so emotionally aware and settled? Why did my daughter have to suffer? Why did he want to do this to us? etc., etc. Even before the relationship ended I’d been referred to the crisis intervention unit, but with the post-separation tactics on top I ended up in the NHS (outpatients) trauma unit being diagnosed with C-PTSD. So you became a DA campaigner. Yes, absolutely. In the Tatler article one of the comments from the woman being interviewed was that she said she would never have gone to Refuge (the charity). I felt the same. As far as I was aware Women’s Aid, Refuge and all these charities were only there to help people who were being physically battered and certainly weren’t there for women with ‘affluent’ partners or backgrounds. At that time though in 2013, just as things were getting really, really bad with this guy, The end result is that just over five years on from reading that Tatler article I decided to put all I have learned about coercive and controlling behaviour throughout my life down in one place. I don’t really see it as my website, which is why I am not promoting it with my name. I see it as an information portal. This is not about me (although I have included my in-depth story on there) it’s to help other women, to raise awareness particularly about post- separation control and to point to information I wish I had known. I’ve seen your Post-Separation Control portal and it’s packed full of great information and resources. Well done. Thank you.I think it’s also around four years or more since we first met? I’m a huge admirer of your work in the coercive control arena. It’s great that we can amplify each other’s work in this way. I love being involved with so many strong, inspirational women. “I also struggled with the ‘Whys’: Why me?” I saw Sandra Horley’s comment in that Tatler article. She spoke about how abusers are just as likely to be Lawyers, Accountants or Judges. When I managed to pick myself up off the floor I decided to approach the, then, CEO of Women’s Aid, Polly Neate and ask if I could play an active role in raising more awareness about this demographic and help make it clear that all women suffer equally. I adored Polly from the moment I met her and there began an association with the charity which has lasted to this day – despite Polly (and now Katie Ghose and Sian Hawkins) moving on. It was as if there was some type of divine timing at work. Simultaneously one of my friends was about to become Chairman of a party political association so I also got involved in political activism and women in politics. I met Jess Phillips, Maria Miller and a host of other politicians prominent in the area of domestic abuse and really got stuck in. A short while later I also crossed paths with Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs just as she was looking for government funding to start up a charity dealing with Economic Abuse (SEA) so I was able to help in championing greater awareness of economic abuse from the start. I wanted to show my daughter that a woman can be like Phoenix, rise from the ashes of despair and take a stand and help change things for others. There’s still a way to go but I think we are both achieving that. The information portal can be found at: Coercive-control.com Making The Invisible Visible
Page 1: CCChat Magazine FREE The Magazine o
Page 5 and 6: Contents Interview with the Editor
Page 9 and 10: Freedom’s Flowers By Pat Craven C
Page 11 and 12: Before he moved in, when he met the
Page 13 and 14: Meet Ngozi Fulani founder of Sistah
Page 17 and 18: Dominic's Story A male victim of ab
Page 19 and 20: “We’ve been really worried abou
Page 21 and 22: “It may not be the life you had p
Page 23: the truth about domestic abuse and
Page 27: Like Andrew Wakefield’s infamous
Page 30 and 31: What made you stop? Ahh, well many
Page 32 and 33: The interview Liz Gibbons Liz Gibbo
Page 34: So is it totally secure? We are con
Page 37 and 38: “I believe he saw himself as a sm
Page 39 and 40: Theo told me that, if I was comfort
Page 41 and 42: Since meeting that woman, I have co
Page 44 and 45: Cath Kane Director Broad Cairn Asso
Page 46 and 47: “There is huge gap between what w

CCChat-Magazine_Issue-13

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