CCChat-Magazine_Issue-26-Trauma-Bonding

Having one perpetrator is more
manageable than having a whole
system perpetrate against you. Having
both at once is absolutely devastating.
I knew my perpetrators inside out. I
knew the things that would trigger
them, I knew the things that would
potentially set them off and I spent my
whole life trying to navigate the world
and keep the world calm for them,
which is a huge amount of stress and
pressure, because I didn’t want to set
them off. That takes a tremendous
amount of energy, is traumatizing and
I had no idea what would happen to
me if the police came into my home, in
fact I was terrified because I had
Police, family court and child
protection are the three systems which
are used with impunity by perpetrators
and they use them to threaten and
control their victims. They stalk us and
get us fired from our jobs to create
financial dependency & punish us for
leaving. Our systems fail to support us
and then when we return to the
perpetrator because they control our
homes, our money, and we want them
to stop harming us via our systems
professionals claim we are trauma
bonded. They say we are not capable of
handling parenting, have a mental
health disorder, an addiction so we’re
going to take the children away and,
guess what?
" Having one perpetrator is more manageable than
having a whole system perpetrate against you.
Having both at once is absolutely devastating."
witnessed police brutality as a child. I
had no idea what would happen to me
if I had gone to a refuge because I
didn’t have the evidence that the
refuge would want. They would want
to know that I had called the police,
they would want to know that it was
that bad. I didn’t avail myself to
services because I was fearful of how
the system would treat me, and I had
good reason to be. I had good evidence
of it and, in fact the evidence of many
victims and survivors support the
reality that our systems are more
traumatising, even violent, towards
victims and survivors than sometimes
their own perpetrator. This is
compounded by the current practice
context where systems give
perpetrators tools to torture us,
particularly in family court.
We’re going to give the children to the
perpetrator because we don’t believe
coercive control or domestic violence
are a threat to children despite the fact
that 61% of child deaths involve those
factors.
M: I don’t know how widely the term
trauma bonding is used in the UK. I
am not aware that a professional has
used the term towards a victim in a
court setting, but that is not to say it
doesn’t happen. I’ve only heard it in
terms of psychologists and counsellors
talking about understanding a victim’s
experiences, so I don’t know how
prevalent the term would be in a court
setting or in expert witness reports.
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