Sanctuary for the Abused
Monday, October 15, 2018
Power Patterns
Sharks, Impactors, Controllers, Dominators
The Impactor
The Impactor primarily wants to know that they have the ability to affect you in some way. They need to influence their environment, have an impact. Their greatest fear is that they are invisible and powerless. The impact doesn't have to be positive. In fact, they will most often resort to negative impact because the result is so much greater. If you do something good, you might get a few words of praise, a smile, or a hug, all of which are usually over in a minute or two. If you do something bad, the impact could last days! Just visit some of the forums and watch the impactors at work, creating pages and pages of responses with just one flaming message. What an impact they are having! And then you'll usually see them sitting calmly in the middle of the storm they've created. If they can make you lose control, they're ecstatic.
The worst thing you can do to the Impactor is ignore them.
At the bottom of this pattern is terror - fear of being nothing, having no self. This will be very difficult for the person to connect with, as their patterns help keep the feelings of terror far away from their consciousness.
The Controller
The Control pattern is similar to the Impactor, in that it needs to have an affect on others, but the difference is in the primary goal. The primary purpose of the Control pattern is to ... have control, to direct traffic, to be "the boss". This usually extends to all parts of the person's world - family, loved ones, bedroom, household, and job.
Consider the boss or parent who gives you detailed instructions about how to do something, and once you've done it, changes everything around and tells you to do it differently. Or never allows you to finish one task, but constantly switches you to another one. The child who demands something loudly, and then when it's given, changes his mind and wants something else from you. The lover who tells you one day they want more space, and then complains the next day that you've pulled back from them. This is common Controller activity.
The point of all this behavior is never to actually complete a task, or have the toy, or be happy in the relationship. The point is to control your behavior. To keep you jumping.
The Controller will use whatever means necessary to keep you jumping at their command. Guilt, fear, threat of loss of love, tantrums, rage, cowering and claiming to be the victim ... any tactic will work, as long as it keeps others under their control.
Again, this pattern is primarily run by terror. The pattern says that control is the antidote to helplessness and nothingness. There may be a well of untapped heartbreak and rage here too, that makes the Controller determined to never be the underdog. Even when they play the victim, they are never out of control.
The "Power Victim"
This type of pattern is primarily a power pattern, but it uses a victim stance as its primary tool. This is where you get people who use guilt to make you feel bad so you'll do what they want. They sometimes actually have poor-me victim feelings running undercurrent, but the primary goal in this case, is control and power. The poor-me stance is purely and solely in order to manipulate others. The best way to tell what pattern is running here is simply to say no to it, and then wait to see what happens. If it's a power-victim pattern, the person will often slide into one of the other power tactics. If it's truly a victim pattern, saying no will cause the person to slide into one of the other victim patterns.
Sharks
Also often known as The Guru, Sharks are a very particular kind of predator. The Shark pattern is the most dangerous of the power patterns. Sharks are willing to prey on anyone, but they especially like the vulnerable, those with big hearts and low guilt tolerance, those with large consciences and concern for others ... in other words, people that can be easily intimidated or overridden.
The behaviors the Shark displays may be similar to the other Power Patterns, but the biggest difference between this pattern and the others is its flexibility and ability to plan ahead. The Impactor cannot go very long without doing something to impact their environment. The Controller must have something or someone to control. But the Shark can go long periods without prey. They are able to wait and watch and will sometimes spend long periods looking for the weak spots in people before moving in. And their attack is usually so subtle at that point that most people wouldn't call it an "attack". Sharks can also move from the one-on-one arena into groups. And whereas the Impactor and Controller patterns will often sabotage themselves or go "over the top" and expose their own patterns, the Shark pattern is usually clever enough to hide behind a complex array of masks and blinds, unless combined with other more self-sabotaging patterns. In other words, Sharks are extremely clever and dangerous.
Because our tendency is to want to excuse and understand people, and we don't want to see ourselves as unloving, we are usually very willing to overlook the behaviors of the Shark and dismiss our own gut responses that say, "something doesn't feel right here".
The primary goal of the shark pattern is to "eat" others.
There are many ways to describe this -- stealing your essence, feeding off your emotions, sucking out your energy, leaving you feeling drained and tired, or buzzing with adrenalin overload. They dominate your will, and cause you to give up your power, essence, and energy to them. Many sharks become gurus or religious leaders, because submission to them, giving up your personal power to the them, is desire that drives the shark.
In order to do this, the Shark must first find the chink in your armor, and sadly, for most people this is pretty easy to do. We all have openings where we are missing Self or are simply unaware. Places where we have pain in denial, parts of ourselves that we don't want to look at, these are the places where the Shark can seep in. But the Shark has some very powerful tools to help confuse people and mess with their heads. The worst of these is boundary blurring.
Power-Over Tactics to Watch For: Boundary Blurring
Boundary blurring can be done in a variety of ways. There are the "negative" power-overing and bullying tactics, using insults and put-downs, and making you doubt your feelings and perceptions and intent. And there are (so-called) positive extreme of sexual (or emotional) seduction, promises of love or salvation, promises of power, flattery and false stroking of ego.
A shark may resort to personal manipulation. They may display hurt or need, they may say YOU are the answer to THEIR prayers, they may claim that you are withholding yourself and your love (and therefore hurting/rejecting them) by not opening up to them fully. This tactic is a lie, and - for the most part - is not real. That is, sometimes there is a real Soul within the Shark that really does feel hurt by you or love for you. But the true feeling is being used as a tool to manipulate you, to get you to drop your guard and blur your boundaries.
They may pressure you with soft words ... or hard. They may tell you that you are closing the door to God by not opening to them. They may give you sweet attention that makes you feel like you're special. And then they may withdraw that attention abruptly, or change tactics on you and become cold and aloof or "angry". You'd think this kind of emotional manipulation would make people angry. But usually what happens is our need for love and attention takes over and responds to the tactics, is drawn into the game of trying to please them and keep their "love".
How can you tell when you're being "sharked"? It's easy to say "just feel with your Soul", but many of us have parts that have been messed with, brainwashed, turned upside down, drugged, confused, made to doubt reality, made to doubt their own perceptions, and most of all, made to doubt their own feelings. I have cried parts that don't know who to believe. I have parts that are so starving for light and love, they're willing to follow almost anyone who might have a shred of light/love to give us, even when they KNOW it's a false promise. I have parts that want to believe someone "out there" will speak in the voice of the Mother or God and show us the way.
All these parts could willingly fall under the spell of a guru. And have done, many times in the past.
So I know how easy it is to get hypnotized and caught up in the rapture of someone with charisma (and humor) who wants to play the guru. Some of them are very good, some of them, not so clever. Some are easy to see through, if you're standing off to one side, or not in the path of their "voice". Like Saruman's voice, in his fading power, or a magic trick that only works from one angle. But they all do seem to have great life force and charisma and wit.
A shark is not necessarily evil. They may have some very good qualities, including the ability to love. A shark is simply someone who dominates and harvests others, someone whose good qualities are used for one aim - gaining power over others. Now, I have seen some sharks who appeared to me to be tightly intertwined with a denial spirit or two, and it did occur to me that the shark activity was being provoked from within. That is, the denial spirit may have been controlling and provoking the person's true emotions, perhaps a terrified Soul, and causing the person to believe they needed absolute control, and that they were acting rightly.
There is only one way to keep oneself from becoming victim to one of the power patterns, and that is to continue to cry the pain, to reclaim all of our lost parts until we have ourselves fully healed and whole and intact. Then we can live from within our core, and nobody will ever be able to invade us or dominate us or confuse us or manipulate us again. EVER.
http://www.cyquest.com/pathway/patterns_power.html
Labels: abuse, control, controller, emotional abuse, evil. predators, impactor, power, sharks, terrorist, vulnerable
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Emotional Terrorist
by Erin Pizzey
From her 1998 book "The Emotional Terrorist & The Violence Prone"
Those of us working in the field of domestic violence are confronted daily by the difficult task of working with women in problematical families. In my work with family violence, I have come to recognize that there are women involved in emotionally and/or physically violent relationships who express and enact disturbance beyond the expected (and acceptable) scope of distress. Such individuals, spurred on by deep feelings of vengefulness, vindictiveness, and animosity, behave in a manner that is singularly destructive; destructive to themselves as well as to some or all of the other family members, making an already bad family situation worse. These women I have found it useful to describe as "family terrorists."
In my experience, men also are capable of behaving as family terrorists but male violence tends to be more physical and explosive. We have had thousands of international studies about male violence but there is very little about why or how women are violent. There seems to be a blanket of silence over the huge figures of violence expressed by women. Because family terrorism is a tactic largely used by women and my work in the domestic violence field is largely with women, I address this problem discussing only my work with women.
The potential for family terrorism may rest dormant for many years, emerging in its full might only under certain circumstances. I found that in many cases it is the dissolution, or threatened dissolution, of the family that calls to the fore the terrorist's destructiveness. It is essential to understand that prior to dissolution, the potential terrorist plays a role in the family that is by no means passive. The terrorist is the family member whose moods reign supreme in the family, whose whims and actions determine the emotional climate of the household. In this setting, the terrorist could be described as the family tyrant, for within the family, this individual maintains the control and power over the other members' emotions.
The family of the emotional terrorist well may be characterized as violent, incestuous, dysfunctional, and unhappy, but it is the terrorist or tyrant who is primarily responsible for initiating conflict, imposing histrionic outbursts upon otherwise calm situations, or (more subtly and invisibly) quietly manipulating other family members into uproar through guilt, cunning taunts, and barely perceptive provocations. (The quiet manipulative terrorist usually is the most undetected terrorist. Through the subtle creation of perpetual turmoil, this terrorist may virtually drive other family members to alcoholism, to drug-addiction, to explosive behavior, to suicide. The other family members, therefore, are often misperceived as the 'family problem' and the hidden terrorist as the saintly woman who "puts up with it all." )
While the family remains together, however miserable that "togetherness" might be, the terrorist maintains her power. However, it is often the separation of the family that promises to rend the terrorist's domain and consequently to lessen her power. Family dissolution, therefore, often is the time when the terrorist feels most threatened and most alone, and, because of that, most dangerous.
In this position of fear, the family terrorist sets out to achieve a specific goal. There are many possible goals for the terrorist, including: reuniting the family once again, or ensuring that the children (if there are children in the relationship) remain under the terrorist's control, or actively destroying the terrorist's spouse (or ex-spouse) emotionally, physically, and financially.
To take an extreme parable, when it was evident to Adolph Hitler that winning the War was an absolute impossibility, he ordered his remaining troops to destroy Berlin: If he no longer could rule, then he felt it best for his empire to share in his own personal destruction. Similarly, the family terrorist, losing or having lost supremacy, may endeavor to bring about the ruin (and, in some extreme cases, the death) of other family members.
The family terrorist, like the political terrorist, is motivated by the pursuit of a goal. In attempting to "disarm" the family terrorist, it is vital that the practitioner begin intervention by trying to recognize and understand the terrorist's goal.
The source of the terrorist's goal as in the case of the political terrorist, usually can be understood to spring from some "legitimate" grievance. The grievance's legitimacy may be regarded in terms of justified feeling of outrage in response to an actual injustice or injury, or the legitimacy may exist solely in the mind of the terrorist. Whether this legitimacy be real or imagined, the grievance starts as the impetus for the terrorist's motivation. One hallmark of an emotional terrorist is that this motivation tends to be obsessional by nature.
Whence this obsession? Why this overwhelmingly powerful drive? In many cases, that which the terrorist believes to be the grievance against the spouse actually has very little to do with the spouse. Although the terrorist may be consciously aware only of the spouse's alleged offense, the pain of this offense (real or imagined) is invariably an echo of the past, a mirrored recreation of some painful situation in the terrorist's childhood.
I will not describe here in any detail the types of childhood that tend to create the subsequent terrorist. I will say, however, that invariably the terrorist's childhood, once understood, can be seen as violent (emotionally and/or physically). Also invariably, the terrorist can be regarded as a "violence prone" individual. I define a violence prone woman as a woman who, while complaining that she is the innocent victim of the malice and aggression of all other relationships in her life, is in fact a victim of her own violence and aggression. A violent and painful childhood tends to create in the child an addiction to violence and to pain (an addiction on all levels: the emotional, the physical, the intellectual, the neurochemical), an addiction that then compels the individual to recreate situations and relationships characterized by further violence, further danger, further suffering, further pain. Thus, it is primarily the residual pain from childhood — and only secondarily the pain of the terrorist's current familial situation — that serves as the terrorist's motivating impetus. There is something pathological about the terrorist's motivation, for it is based not so much on reality as on a twisting, a distortion, a reshaping of reality.
Because the emotional terrorist is a violence-prone individual, addicted to violence, the terrorist's actions must be understood as the actions of an addict. When the family was together, the terrorist found fulfillment for any number of unhealthy appetites and addictions. When that family then dissolves, the terrorist behaves with all the desperation, all the obsession, all the single-minded determination of any addict facing or suffering withdrawal.
The single-mindedness, the one-sidedness of feeling, is perhaps the most important shibboleth of the emotional terrorist. Furthermore, the extent of this one-sidedness is, for the practitioner, perhaps the greatest measure and indicator of how extreme the terrorist's actions are capable of becoming.
Any person suffering an unhappy family situation, or the dissolution of a marriage or relationship, will feel some pain and desperation. A relatively well-balanced person, however, will be not only aware of their own distress but also sensitive, in some degree, to the suffering of the other family members. For example, reasonably well-balanced parents, when facing divorce, will be most concerned with their children's emotional well-being, even beyond their own grief. Not so the emotional terrorist.
To the family terrorist, there is only one wronged, one sufferer, only one person in pain, and this person is the terrorist herself. The terrorist has no empathy and feels only her own pain. In this manner, the terrorist's capacity for feeling is narcissistic, solipsistic, and in fact pathological.
Again, I will not attempt here to detail the factors in childhood that lead to the creation of an emotional terrorist. What is evident, however, in the terrorist's limited or nonexistent ability to recognize other people's feelings, is that the terrorist's emotions and awareness, at crucial stages of childhood development, were stunted from reaching beyond the boundaries of self, due to a multiplicity of reasons. Later, the adult terrorist went on to make a relationship that was, on some level, no true relationship, but a reenactment of childhood pains, scenarios, situations, and "scripts." Throughout the relationship, the solipsistic terrorist did not behave genuinely in response to the emotions of other family members but self-servingly used them as props for the recreation of the terrorist's programme. And when that relationship finally faces dissolution, the terrorist is aware only of her own pain and outrage and, feeling no empathy for other family members, will proceed single-mindedly in pursuit of her goal, whether that goal is reunion, ruin, or revenge. The terrorist's perspective is tempered by little or no objectivity. Instead the terrorist lives in a self-contained world of purely subjective pain and anger.
Because conscience consists so largely of the awareness of other people's feelings as well as of one's own, the emotional terrorist's behavior often can be described to be virtually without conscience. In this lack of conscience lies the dangerous potential of the true terrorist, and again the degree of conscience in evidence is a useful measure in my work to anticipate the terrorist's destructiveness.
An additional factor, making the terrorist so dangerous, is the fact that the terrorist, while in positively monomaniacal pursuit of her goal, feels fueled by a sense of omnipotence. Perhaps it is true that one imagines oneself omnipotent when, in truth, one is in a position of impotence (as in the case of losing one's familial control through dissolution). Whatever the source of the sensation of omnipotence, the terrorist believes herself to be unstoppable, and unbound by the constraints or conscience or empathy, believes that no cost (cost, either to the terrorist or to other family members) is too great to pay toward the achievement of the goal.
The terrorist, and the terrorist's actions, know no bounds. (The estimation of the extent of the terrorist's "boundlessness" presents the greatest challenge to my work). Intent only to achieve the goal (perhaps "hell-bent" is the most accurate descriptive phrase) the terrorist will take such measures as: stalking a spouse or ex-spouse, physically assaulting the spouse or the spouse's new partners, telephoning all mutual friends and business associates of the spouse in an effort to ruin the spouse's reputation, pressing fabricated criminal charges against the spouse (including alleged battery and child molestation), staging intentionally unsuccessful suicide attempts for the purpose of manipulation, snatching children from the spouse's care and custody, vandalizing the spouse's property, murdering the spouse and/or the children as an act of revenge.
In my experience both men and women are equally guilty of the above behavior, but on the whole, because it is men's dysfunctional behavior that is studied and reported upon, people do not realize that to the same extent women are equally guilty of this type of violent behavior. My working definition, then, of a "family terrorist" or an "emotional terrorist" is: a woman or a man (but for the purposes of this work, I refer only to women) who, pathologically motivated (by unresolved tendencies from a problematical childhood), and pathologically insensitive to the feelings of other family members, obsessionally seeks through unbounded action to achieve a destructive (and, therefore, pathological) goal with regard to other family members.
Of course, this defining profile pertains to individuals in differing degrees. Many people, unhappy within a relationship or made unhappy by the dissolution of a relationship, may lapse into periods of "irrational" behavior. What characterizes the terrorist, however, is that the vindictive and destructive behaviors are consistent; the moments of calm and periods of lucidity are the lapses, temporary lulls in the storm.
There are also women who, suffering chagrin and misery during or after the life spans of a relationship, appear far more self-destructive than destructive to anyone else. For the other partner, contemplating leaving this kind of individual, the very thought of leaving such a person is made difficult and untenable by such frequently uttered protestations as "I cannot live without you," and "Without you, I might as well be dead." To be sure, many women exist, extremely dependent within their relationships, who, probably having suffered severe emotional betrayal during their childhood, genuinely feel that their life outside a relationship would be so lonely as to be unbearable.
It is difficult to leave such a woman, and the man attempting to leave may well feel that, by leaving, he would be responsible for delivering a mortal blow to an already pathetic wretch. Men also, are often kept in their relationships, which can only be likened to "personal concentration camps," by the fact that they feel a genuine feeling of "chivalry" towards their partner. Women tend to put so much more of themselves into their relationships and therefore suffer when these relationships fall apart.
There is a valid question as to whether or not this sort of suicidally-inclined individual may be deemed a terrorist. (To many minds, this kind of individual, no doubt, would seem to fall more within the category of "emotional black-mailer." ) I believe that, sadly, there are people, deeply damaged by their childhood, who genuinely cannot face life by themselves. When dealing with such potential cases, however, I try to make the leaving partner understand that the suicidal inclinations predate the relationship by many years, and that, however tragic the situation, one person simply cannot be held responsible for keeping another person alive.
In some individuals, the authentic (though unhealthy) longing for death is a longing planted within them since early childhood, and there is very little a partner can do to alter the apparently inevitable course of that longing.
Among true terrorists, however, threats of suicide can be seen to serve a largely manipulative role. In short, the terrorist says, "If you can't do as I tell you, I will kill myself." Whether suicide remains only a threat or is realized, the true terrorist uses suicide not so much as an expression of desperate grief but as a weapon to be wielded against others.
In working with clients struggling either in relationships or with the dissolution of a relationship, I am faced with many questions, all relevant to gauging the woman's terrorist potential:
• Will the woman persevere in her efforts to financially ruin her partner?
• Is she sincere when she promises to kill her partner, or have him killed, should he ever become involved in a new relationship?
• Are the threats of suicide genuine or manipulative?
• Will she carry out the promises of using the law to "kidnap" the children in order to hurt the ex-partner?
• Will she brain-wash the children to such an extent that her ex-partner dare not form a new relationship?
Emotional terrorism is by no means confined to the family context. I know an extremely successful woman in the world of fine arts. This woman has been haunted by a former assistant who, vicariously imagining herself to the writer herself, dresses like her, stalks her, and issues public statements that it was she, not the writer, who created the works of art for which the writer is internationally famous. If the writer is to ensure her own safety, then very definite steps must be taken.
In situations of emotional and family terrorism, there are two areas of work to be done: practical measures of protection ("strategies for survival") on the part of family members, and therapeutic work with the terrorist himself or herself. I must reiterate at this stage, that both men and women are capable of terrorist tactics but men tend to behave in a more physically violent manner within the family. Women, as I have shown, use far more subtle tactics, i.e., that of the terrorist as opposed to outright war.
The first step, on the part of other family members, toward limiting the terrorist's destructive potential is to understand the terrorist to be a terrorist. In a recent case, a Mr. Roberts described to me how, during his marriage, he and his children faced a daily onslaught of verbal abuse from his wife. Mrs. Roberts was also physically violent to the children. Now that he has asked for a divorce, she is making use of every weapon in her arsenal. In the children's presence, she has used drugs and drunk alcohol to the point of extreme intoxication. She has staged several unsuccessful suicide attempts in front of the children, threatened over the telephone to "do something stupid," promised to kill Mr. Roberts new partner, and assured Mr. Roberts that when she has finished with him he will not have a penny to his name. To Mr. Roberts, all of this behavior seemed perfectly usual.
After all, he had witnessed this sort of commotion for thirteen years of their marriage. When I suggested to him, "What you endured is emotional terrorism," he suddenly and for the first time was able to see his situation clearly. Now, he realized, his wife's behavior was neither appropriate nor acceptable. No, this was not the treatment that every man should expect from his wife, either in or out of marriage. No, he does not want his children to be subjected to such extreme behavior any longer.
The fact of recognizing a terrorist is the essential first step. Then, because a terrorist is fueled by a feeling of omnipotence and is prepared to behave without bounds, usually encouraged by feminist therapists who insist that their clients suffer from "low self esteem," pragmatic measures must be taken to define clearly the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
Unfortunately the legal situation which many divorce agreements mandate is open-ended. Certainly, when both parties to a divorce are reasonably well-balanced, it is entirely fitting for the settlement to be flexible enough to incorporate changing financial circumstances, child-care capabilities, and visitation rights. When, however, one party to the divorce is an emotional terrorist, then both the confrontational divorce procedure and the resultant open-ended divorce settlement provide infinite opportunity for the courts, lawyers, and the entire battery of psychologists called in for evaluations, to be used as the terrorist's weapons. In these cases, the court and the divorce procedure provide no boundaries for the terrorist; instead they allow the terrorist to continue to behave boundlessly.
For this reason, when dealing with a terrorist, it is best for the divorce procedure and final decree to be as swift, as final, as absolute, as unequivocal as possible. Every practitioner or attorney handling divorces is familiar with clients described as "litigious." [ "Tar baby" is a popular term among Colorado lawyers.] Only when "litigiousness" is seen as a manifestation of terrorism can the course to swift and precise legal settlement be steered.
To limit the terrorist's feelings of omnipotence, there are many effective measures. The guiding principle, as in the handling of political terrorists, must be: "There is no negotiating with terrorists." Endless telephone calls, conversations, confrontation, trial "get-back-togethers," correspondence, visitations, gestures of appeasement, and efforts to placate the terrorist's demands, all serve to reinforce the terrorist's belief that she is accomplishing something. Only determined resolution in the face of terrorism shows the terrorist that her power is limited.
Furthermore, for anyone dealing directly with the terrorist, reassurances, "ego boosts," and consolations are lamentably counterproductive. Mrs. Roberts soon found for herself a feminist therapist staunchly supporting the erroneous belief "All feelings (and therefore behaviors) are valid." Mrs. Roberts is told by this therapist that she has a right to feel and to behave in any manner she chooses, in callous disregard for the devastation inflicted upon the children. Such reassurances serve only to fortify the terrorist's already pathological, solipsistic, and eternally self-justifying perspective.
If wishing to undertake the second sphere of disarming a terrorist — personal intervention with the terrorist herself — the therapist must be prepared to be straight, honest and very direct. In my own dealings with women as terrorists, I have found on occasion that one quite simply can point out to the terrorist, "You are behaving like a terrorist. This is what you are doing. This is how you are being destructive. This is the destruction you are heading towards," and the terrorist, seeing themselves clearly for the first time, might be encouraged to reconsider their behavior. More commonly, however, extremely deep therapy is required. For the terrorist's behavior to change, there must first be a solid and fundamental change within the terrorist's physiological constitution.
Usually it is only by an in-depth excavation and resolution of early childhood pain that the terrorist can begin to gain a real, true, and level-headed perception of her own current situation. Direct intervention with a terrorist — like all forms of therapeutic intervention — can hope to achieve change only if the individual concerned wishes to change and possesses that vital yet ineffable quality: the will to health. When the will to health is lacking, there can be no change. If the terrorist cannot or will not change, one can only help the other family members to be resolute, be strong, and, whenever possible, be distant.
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As a result of their failure to acknowledge emotional terrorism or a propensity for violence in their clients, shelters are totally ineffective in dealing with such women. To recognize such behavior in females would violate deeply held convictions and defile feminist dogma.
A basic human response to such contradictions is an attempt to deny they exist.
Labels: abuser, control freak, emotional abuse, fear, power, terrorist
Friday, January 19, 2018
Abuser Tactics with Children
Tactics During the Relationship
Battering/abusing her in front of the children
Threatening to hurt or kill her in front of the children
Telling the children that the victim is to blame for the violence/abuse
Justifying the violence/abuse to the children
Telling the children that the victim is a bad parent
Using other relatives to speak badly about the victim to the children
Yelling at the victim when the children "misbehave"
Getting the children to take the batterer’s side
Telling them that the victim is crazy, stupid, and incompetent
Abusing or killing the family pets
Using children as confidants (see: covert incest)
Threatening to commit suicide
Withholding money for children’s needs
Physically abusing the children
Threatening to take children if she leaves
Driving recklessly with the children and/or the victim in the car
Abusing drugs/ alcohol in front of the children
Watching pornography in front of the children
Coming home intoxicated
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Tactics After Separation
Asking children what she is doing
Asking who she is seeing
Blaming her for the separation
Blaming the victim for the relationship ending
Telling the children that they cannot be a family because of the victim
Talking about what she did "wrong"
Calling constantly to talk to the children
Showing up unexpectedly to see the children
Criticizing her new partner
Assaulting her new partner
Forcing the children to interact with his new partner, without the mother's knowledge or consent
Withholding child support/ monies for living expenses
Blaming her that HE is not paying child support
Showering children with gifts during visitation
Undermining her rules for the children
Picking up the children at school without telling her
Keeping them longer than agreed on
Abducting the children
Threatening to take custody away from the victim if she does not reconcile with the abuser
Blaming her for their health/ emotional problems
Telling them she is an alcoholic, addict, or mentally ill
Making frequent court dates to change the parenting plan
Saying she didn’t want them
Physically abusing them and telling them not to tell their mother
Abusing his new partner in front of them
Changing visitation plans suddenly and/ or frequently
SOURCE
(feel free to print this out and show it to your lawyer and family)
Labels: abused, abuser, crazy-making, emotional, fear, lying, tactics, terrorist, violence
