in the relationship. The abuser comes on strong, quickly, and often threatens to leave if you don’t move in with them.
Jealousy - The abuser is constantly jealous. Prior to living with you, they call or visit often, usually without notice.
Controlling behaviours – These behaviours can take the form of interrogations such as constantly asking where you’ve been or who you’ve seen that day. You are required to get permission to go somewhere or do something. This often happens very early in a relationship.
Psychological abuse – This is a form of manipulation which leads to the victim losing their sense of reality and ability to discern unacceptable from acceptable behaviours. Very quickly this ability is diminished to the point where you accept abusive behaviour as something normal.
Unrealistic expectations - Abusers want perfection from you and expect you to meet their every need (even though it is often impossible to know what they expect or what their needs are as both continually change, often rapidly). You are expected to live your life for the sole purpose of fulfilling their needs, to obey, serve and wait on the abuser. Hypercriticism is a frequent component of this trait which leads to constant put-downs exemplified by phrases such as: ‘I love you, but …’
Isolation - You find yourself increasingly isolated from your friends and family. As this happens, the abuser also refuses to communicate with you unless on their own terms. They ignore or exclude you or they constantly speak to you using sarcasm or belittling tones.
Refusal to admit responsibility - Others are always to blame. The abuser never believes they are at fault. This is another form of mental abuse where the abuser convinces you that you are solely to blame for the abuse and that it is your responsibility alone to change. You are made responsible for their feelings: you must make them feel better, you make them angry. Comments such as: ‘I wouldn’t act this way if you didn’t …’ and similar ones are recurrent.
Emotional control - Guilt-trips are commonly used to control you. Abusers dictate the way you feel and withdraw their affection if you don’t act the way they want you to.
Hypersensitivity / Victimisation - Abusers are hypersensitive, ranting and raving about the injustices they experience that are actually just a part of living.
Mood swings - They have sudden mood swings, from anger to calm and vice versa in a matter of minutes. When calm, the abuser will usually deny that an abusive incident occurred or they will diminish its import.
Cruelty - They can be cruel to animals and/or children or those weaker than them.
Abusive sexual behaviours - When sex is forceful the abuser says it is ‘play’. You are forced to engage in unwanted sex.
History of violence - There is a past history of battery. They may admit it but will insist that the other person brought it on themselves.
Threats - Abusers often use threats of violence to obtain what they want from you. They might say: ‘I’ll shoot you if you don’t …’ then dismiss the threat or argue they didn’t mean it. Another commonly used threat is: ‘If you don’t …, I will …’
These crucial signs of abuse in the home were frequent in my relationship with Wayne. The first nine of the signs above dominated our relationship between 1985 and 1989 with intermittent physical violence defining the relationship. The latter years, as Wayne gained greater control and therefore an increased sense of security, became dominated by physical and sexual violence although the emotional and psychological abuse continued.
The warning signs above are shown throughout the book by the symbol # and linked to events which, by their nature, exemplify an abuser’s behaviour. This system will hopefully clarify the ways in which crucial warning signs are manifest in an abusive relationship. Perhaps by seeing specific examples, a victim of abuse will really understand just how precarious their safety is while they remain in the relationship. I also hope seeing those signs will make it harder for the victim to persist in the belief, even in their own mind, that they are not being abused, or that an abuser’s behaviour can be attributed to bad moods only. I have placed the symbol alongside only one or two examples that highlight each warning sign, rather than every example, to encourage free-flowing reading and to avoid cluttering the story itself.
As I write this, I am recovering from neurosurgery involving the clipping of two aneurysms (see photo above) that are highly likely to be the result of past head injuries from domestic violence incidents. The head wounds I got during the incidents—the first where my head was slammed into a brick wall thrice, the second where I was tackled, with my forehead hitting the bitumen road—coincided with the areas in my brain where the aneurysms sit, so one can reasonably conclude that domestic violence caused the aneurysms to develop. The surgeons are in agreement, concurring that aneurysms are most likely to result either from head injury or a genetic predisposition, which I do not have. Recovery is slow and painstaking. I was extremely ill during the first fortnight in hospital, hardly able to lift my head from the pillow and for many days managing to eat only three spoonsful of soup.
It has now been a further two weeks since returning home and I have to be assisted with everything as my right eyelid is still closed from the trauma of the operation. The inability to see properly is impacting on my mobility and my mental state. My dependence on others to care for me and the snail-like progress of my recovery compels me to implore persons in abusive relationships to leave early before something similar happens to them. If I had been made aware of the warning signs pointing to an abuser’s profile early in my relationship, I would have been far more likely to leave before sustaining the head injuries that caused this current nightmare.
Introduction
Names of people and places have been changed. With the exception of the Gold Coast and Sydney, all names are fictional to protect the innocent and not so innocent.
My partner drops a knife on the wooden floor just behind me. The loud noise causes me to jump high in my seat. It makes me wonder whether I’ll ever be entirely free of my reactions after the experience I have had with domestic violence prior to meeting Phillip.
Now, I am dogged by post-traumatic stress and the endless analysis of the choices that led me to stay with an extremely violent man for seventeen years. Then, I was being swept along by the need to survive; the hyper vigilance strangely coupled with an attitude of extreme indifference to the horror story unfolding. As a measure of my insanity (I can only think that I must have had a degree of insanity to stay with a man who, from the onset, was violent toward me) and regardless of the high level of abuse, I subjugated my true self in order to fit with Wayne’s idea of what being a real woman meant. Who I was quickly became superfluous. Staying alive and figuring out the key to stopping Wayne’s violence mattered more. It may seem odd to readers that at the onset of his abuse I could still leave relatively easily, but chose to remain. That I stayed will be incomprehensible to many. It was by virtue of Wayne’s skills of indoctrination that he gained complete control of my thoughts and actions. His conditioning resulted in my total acquiescence. Ultimately, having three daughters to this man, the financial security our marriage and business afforded me and the constant mental manipulation and physical intimidation on his part all stymied my leaving. It was easier to stay in isolation than to face the unknown outside the home. Such was my life when my grip on reality disappeared.
This book is an attempt to explain what is perhaps unexplainable: why the abuse to which I was subjected occurred. I also hope to shed some light on the reasons why I stayed, left and then returned, even after the violence, and particularly in the beginning when it should have been so much easier to leave. Yet, perhaps it can’t be explained to—or understood by—anyone other than those who’ve experienced mistreatment at the hands of their partner. I expect that most people, outside
