Don Hennessy - Steps to Freedom: Escaping Intimate Control

I would like to invite you into my office and allow me to address my thoughts directly to you.

The path to psychological freedom from abuse goes through phases. This process is very much one of two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes even one step forward, two steps back. The phases seem to follow each other in a roughly orderly fashion.

First, you learn about the common characteristics of the abusive behaviours. The underlying dynamics appear universal, and are repeated with almost mechanical precision, regardless of the various characteristics of the couple. You will recognise most or all the ways your partner acts, but you will learn more in depth, exactly how the abuse is so effective. You will then learn more about your reactions to this abuse: what you think, what you feel, what you do in response to these thoughts and feelings, and how you handle the abuse. Again, you will recognise most or all of the ways, but you will get a brand new framework of knowledge to understand your reactions.

At last, you will practise the new things you have learned, confirm your own wisdom and learn to take one small step at a time. The basics are easy to explain in theory, but you will have to try, and retry, several times so that you can use your learning for your benefit. Some clients do not meet the abuser physically but the person still haunts their minds. You will see that the same process of change takes place with your reoccurring thoughts about your abuser and the emotions you then feel.

Alongside this process, which will happen in your own mind, you will also find that you may start to reach out to the outside world in a new way. I know that the very thought of reaching out to family, friends or other people can make you feel helpless and numb. Dont worry about that now. Instead, be certain that I will address these feelings of hopelessness and alienation in a way that is aimed at building hope through developing solid knowledge. The hopelessness is a core feature of the abuse, and I will discuss it thoroughly. To give you a glimpse of whats coming up: I will not tell you in what ways you will make the practical changes in your life, because any such suggestions risk clashing with your personal situation, resources and desires. To use a metaphor: I cannot give each of you a detailed map of your life and relationship because I am not there to see it, and I can never understand exactly where you are, or where you want to go. Instead, I will offer you a way to draw your very own map, and I will give you several examples of how that can be done.

It may be that you have tried to change the way you handle the situation so many times, that you dont want more advice, or another way to change, because you think it wont work anyway. Youve picked up this book, so perhaps you dont feel as hopeless this very moment; but at some stage while considering your situation, you might have felt confused. Let me then give you an instant example of how this map-making will happen. Youll get new knowledge, and thus find ways to walk through your situation at your own pace, and with the resources that are available to you. Here is a fact about abuse dynamics that you may have learned, repeatedly: the constant struggle to either understand the abuser, or to change the abuser or yourself to avoid further abuse (or both) has not worked. The ongoing monologue in your head, or with your friends, or with other people, such as a counsellor or social worker, is exhausting, and too often leads nowhere. This is the case for every person who is a target of intimate abuse. When you heard about learning yet another way to change yourself, its likely that at some point you got hopeless thoughts, felt sad and angry, and put the book away temporarily. I believe that the very core of this exhaustion and hopelessness is that our everyday language lacks words to properly understand and explain coercive-controlling behaviour; this means that you have no possible way of either understanding it properly or explaining it to others. You may have sat through hours of counselling or friendly advice from others, biting back the feelings of hopelessness or anger, or even desperation, caused by not being able to make yourself understood. Neither can you understand, or explain, your abuser. You may have asked yourself how anyone can take charge over, and change, a situation that they are unable to explain.