Escaping Abuse

Abusers use many different mechanisms to con you into staying with them. Once you see through the cons, it is important to escape abuse, and in so doing, stay out. Then you need to learn how to avoid new abusers so that you can rebuild your life and reconnect to healthy people.

Content Warning: Relationship Abuse

1, Learn What They Look Like

Through their actions, you will know them

Perpeatrators of abuser and violence will try to look like regular people. You may not know why you want out of your relationship and feel trapped, because you are still trying to see the “good person” that you fell in love with. If they meet many of the common signs in this section, then you didn’t fall in love with that good person – you fell in love with an act. I know that Robert Downey Jnr isn’t Tony Stark or Iron Man, those were just roles he played. I can love those roles, but I shouldn’t mistaken them for the actor.

In the case of an abuser, they use the good person act to ensnare you. The one who is hurting you is the real them.

To understand who you are with, means taking a cold, hard look at their actions and through those, you will start to truly see them and know what you are dealing with.

• Abusive people will generally show themselves via some Red Flag Behaviours. They will generally refuse to admit to their behaviours, and if pinned, they will blame others, most often you. Common Red Flags are:
• Double standards: they hold you to a standard that they won’t meet themselves
• Hypocrisy: Claiming to have a higher standard of behaviour than they do
• Moving goal posts: moving the definition of “proof” or “good enough” when it looks like you are going to meet it
• Blame shifting: finding someone else to blame for their actions, always finding an excuse no matter how implausible
• Gas lighting: convincing you that you are the problem, that your pain is over the top or that you are making it all up
• Brandolini’s law, aka Lies and deception: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it”. You spend forever trying to explain yourself to them, or defending your actions, or trying to figure out what is real and true. It is exhausting
• False equivalence: claiming their abuse is similar to your minor mistake
• Promote isolation by:
  • Poisoning the Well (cast doubt on you to others)
  • Push for Isolation (“you can’t trust that person” / ”you like them more than me” / “you are betraying me”)
  • Unreasonably Jealous of a cohort (“you are trying to cheat on me”)
  • Cut you off from Reality Checking (“don’t bad mouth me to others” / “don’t tell people what you think I’ve done” / “people always lie about me, don’t be one of them”)
  • Discrediting Authority, such as a therapist, police, experts, text books and so forth

2, Charming is a skill

Abusive people are charmers

The skill that they fooled you into a relationship by pretending to be a nice, healthy person is the skill they will use to keep you confused and to con other people into thinking that the abuser is not an abuser, and also that you are crazy, abusive, or some other reason not to help you get away.

They are generally very cunning, but not very smart. They rely on hijacking your decency and assumptions, or by attacking your emotion to shut down your thinking.

• The amount of skill they have abusing you, confusing you and conning you… they have in convincing you and others that don’t know the flags that the abuser is lovely, perhaps just misunderstood
• The abuser has a Jekyll and Hyde switch, the public charming gentleperson and the private monster
  • Until they feel you won’t get away, then they’ll hurt you around witnessess, convincing them that they aren’t doing what they just saw, proving to you how powerful they are over you.
• Often their charm relies on people’s trained social assumption
  • that bad behaviours is either:
    • an accident,
    • a bad day or
    • a misunderstanding.
  • As others only see this bad behaviour a few times, they will mistake it as an anomaly and excuse it away.
  • This makes it hard for others to believe you and be supportive of the abuse you are experiencing
• Abusive people will try to seem like they are the target, and misrepresent their targets as the abuser.
  • They will accuse you of doing all of the misdeeds that they are actually committing.
  • They will try to convince other’s who become aware of relationship problems that this reversal is true.
    • The way you can tell who is who, is to look at who is trying to make changes to fix things, rather than claim that they are making changes and don’t.
    • Very few abusers will go to a therapist and continue to go, because they don’t really want risk being seen by a therapist and don’t really want to make change.
• The abuser will undermine your ability to talk to others:
  • Claiming that
    • You are betraying them,
    • That this isn’t fair, or
    • That your actions of asking for reasonable is hurting them.
  • They will try to convince others of this too.
    • All the while, breaking the very rules that you feel bound by
• The abuser needs to keep you, so their pursuit will take the form of:
  • False Promises – promises that never come to fruition:
    • “I’ll go to therapy”
      • See above
    • “I won’t do that again”
    • “I’ll go on a course”
  • Hollow Words – Trying to convince you that:
    • They are sorry,
    • that they didn’t mean it,
    • that they will do better.
  • Gifting – They may try to bribe you with gifts or services.
    • There is always a catch to these – gifts don’t have costs.
  • Crocodile Tears – They will try to trigger your rescuer by:
    • Claiming to be hurt,
    • Devastated and sorry.
• Their Hollow Words, False Promises, Gifting and Crocodile Tears will prove themselves false when they do the same harfmul actions, don’t do anything to change, and the cycle repeats again
  • They won’t break the cycle
  • You can break the cycle by leaving

3, Understanding isolation

Isolation is all about control. They need to control you, so that you won’t leave.

They need to convince you that you can’t leave.

If they have to convince you that this is true, then it is a lie. I don’t need to convince you that you can’t flap your arms and fly, I just let you try it and find out you can’t. The very need for them to convince you that you have no choice but to stay, their very need to isolate you from anyone who can help you leave, gives you two great clues.

You can get away, mostly by breaking your isolation.

• Divide and conquer:
  • Abusers often have more than one target.
    • By hijacking the social protocols of not “bad mouthing people” and “sinking to their level”; and the charmed other people undermining your experience, you are reluctant to talk to other people.
    • By attacking Authority and those who can give you a Reality Check
  • This leaves you vulnerable to:
    • Gas lighting,
    • Absent of any reality-checking mechanisms and
    • Makes it hard to get support to leave
  • The other targets of abuse are similarly isolated and unwilling to talk.
    • Once you start to communicate with each other, you’ll start working out the lies they tell each of you to feel more alone.
    • Be careful, some people are convinced that telling on you will get unlock the abuser’s care.
• The abuser who convinces you that you are trapped and unsupported will increase their abuse and you rarely see the ‘nice’ side (the pursuit and honeymoon phase).
• The abuser will try to foster dependency by undermining your ability to trust anyone else, and convincing you that only they can be trusted or relied upon.
• They may confuse you by random actually helpful acts:
  • These are rare, but due to how desperate you are for something positive, they seem so important to you.
  • They rely on you being love and affirmation starved for this to be so effective.
  • This is sometimes called love bombing
• You will often feel the need to return to the abuser due to a belief that only they can help, or you will utter the groomed “I love them” #, or go back because only in their groomed environment does your anxiety have a known cause.
  • Isolated, you are easier to control and fool.
  • They will punish you for questioning their authority.
  • They will make up random rules to excuse their abuse (Moving Goalposts, Kafka Trap).
  • There is no special “key” pattern of behaviour you can create to “unlock” the care from their abuse.
    • You shouldn’t have to unlock care from someone who loves you!

# but “I love them” – no you don’t.

You love the charming lie they sold you when you first met – YOU DON’T LOVE THIS ABUSE.

The charming lie isn’t real, it was con to get you close to them and put up with their abuse.

Trying to “get that charming version back” is a lie they use to keep you conned.

Stop chasing a fantasy!

4, Escaping the traps

This is all about getting away from them.

It is important to know that you cannot change them. You’ve been giving them requests and demands for improvement, you’ve tried to educate them, and you’ve given them more than enough chances to stop hurting you – they won’t change. Do not fall for the Hollow Words “once more chance”, or the False Promise “It will be different this time, I swear”. You need to get away. They won’t and can’t change while they have you under their control – Perpetrator Reformation.

It is important to see through the illusion of isolation and helplessness that they have groomed you in to.

• You can find support, you aren’t helpless, and you can get away.
• If you can, save up some money.
  • Open a separate bank account with a different bank and hide your bank card, or store cash somewhere well hidden.
  • Have your mail sent to a PO Box, if needed, tell the bank why – avoid the same bank as your abuser uses.
  • This can be impossible for some rigorously controlled people. For that, you need allies
• Filter your friends and family to find allies
  • If certain family members were against this relationship, then they likely are already aware that this is an abuser and these members are likely waiting for you to ask for help.
    • The abuser likely hates or fears these people the most
  • If certain family members continually excuse the behaviours of the abuser, then they are not allies
  • Sometimes all of the “family” and “friends” you currently have contact with are not allies.
    • Reach into your past to find positive others
  • Sometimes there is no “friend” or “family” you can trust
    • Call a domestic help line
      • If you are male, you need to specify that you are the “victim” as the assumption is still very biased towards “only males are perpetrators”. One in three perpetrators are female.
    • Women can frequently get in to a refuge.
      • Take advantage of the offered counselling there.
  • If your GP is not a friend of your abuser, and has not undermined your experience, then talk to your GP about what is going on and ask for help.
  • If your GP is not an ally, see a new GP.
  • A referral to a therapist versed in domestic violence can help you find a way out
    • Tell your abuser you are seeing the therapist “because you realise you need help to fix this”

5, Don’t go back

This is about Staying Away. It is very common for people who get away from an abuser to go back. Part of that is the isolation you find yourself in discussed above.

Following are other reasons why people go back, and how to avoid them.

• When you get away, don’t go back.
• This can be hard if you have children in common:
  • Sometimes it is important to deny visitation if you have concern for your children’s safety. If so, try to gather evidence of harm or threat.
  • You can insist on supervised visits as an in-between measure.
  • The children’s safety is more important than the abuser’s feelings.
• It always costs to get out of a relationship:
  • Sometimes it costs everything, and you have to start again.
  • Avoid letting the fear of loss of assets and friends keep you in violence.
  • Those can be replaced, your life and the children’s lives can’t
• Avoid phone calls from the abuser:
  • Ideally aim for email correspondence to “sort details out”, or begrudgingly SMS.
  • This gives you time to think and remain calm.
  • Try to have an trusted intermediary to be the passer of messages.
• Always be calm when you press “send”…

… And if you are not calm, then do not press “send”

• Avoid sending more than one response a day
  • Aim for no more than one per week.
  • They will try to engage you in lots of talking to confuse you and con you into returning.
  • They will avoid written forms to avoid you analysing what they do and showing it to others.
  • However, they need you to respond, so you actually have the power here.
• Keep your answers short and factual.
• If you must meet in person:
  • Bring a trusted support person with you.
  • Avoid making decisions on the spot, delay them with “I will consider this and let you know” or similar.
  • Only make agreements in writing that you have a copy of.
  • Meet in public places.
  • Debrief with your trusted support person afterwards and compare notes on the discussion.

Your goal is getting away, not being pulled back in. The abuser will try to find ways to bring you back, to make you doubt, to make you confused. Common tools are:

• provoking emotions (guilt, fear, false love, sympathy or anger). The abuser doesn’t want you thinking, provoking these feelings will dull your wits and caution. The abuser also doesn’t want you to feel disgust or pity, as this undoes them. If you have to feel for them, aim for this
• false promises and hollow words. Words are cheap, actions are useful. Abusers are cheap. It is through their actions that you will know them
• false allegations. Don’t defend yourself from farcical claims. You’ll spend all of your time trying to prove your innocence instead of focusing on their abuse. It is only a distraction and confusion technique
• Sea Lioning, aka “asking why”. Avoid trying to explain or justify why you left or do anything. You have already tried to explain plenty to them before you had to leave. Another explanation won’t work now, and if they do “change this time”, it is a con, and the next escape won’t be this easy
• They will try to invoke your rescuer and nurturer via pity or ineptitude. Don’t rescue , it isn’t your problem anymore

1. Use delays between meetings by “being busy” until your convenience.
   • They are more desperate to speed things up than you are, so you again have the power here.
2. Try to be distracted from thinking about them.
   • If you can’t distract, review memories of how they hurt you to fuel disgust, or if necessary pity.
   • Anger is less helpful, but better than sympathy or guilt.

Most importantly: Don’t go back

6, A new life is scary

A new life, away from your abuser, is scary. Sometimes that is because we don’t believe that we can heal, or we continue to bring the abuser into our new lives in our minds. Therapy helps you get past this.

Frequently the victim is someone who has an underlying anxiety disorder. Your brain constantly feels like something is wrong, and now that you are away from your abuser, you feel like you can’t figure out what is wrong. You want to go back to your abuser so you have an explanation for what is wrong. What is actually wrong is that you have an anxiety disorder, and that disorder is rarely about truama, its about a neurological problem, most often Noradrenaline imbalance. If caffeine is a friend of yours (you have 1 or 2 standard doses a day), then you are most likely low. If you avoid caffeine, then you are likely high in noradrenaline. Check out our section on Noradrenaline to learn what to do about this.

It is important to learn how to tell the difference between Healthy and Toxic people (Traffic Light System), and then reconnect to people again. It is very tempting to stay isolated to avoid getting hurt again. This is not healthy and will only increase the likelihood of you returning to your abuser.

Building positive relationships

• People who have been in an abusive relationship have been groomed to:
  • Excuse bad behaviour
  • Put others first
  • Avoid conflict at all costs
  • Sacrifice themselves, their assets, their friends and their time
  • Say “yes” before considering if they want to
  • Assume fault or blame for everything, by saying “sorry” when it isn’t needed, often repeating “sorry” for the same thing
• It is important to learn how to undo this grooming.
  • This kind of behaviour is a beacon to new abusers.
  • A DV therapist can help.
• Go back and look at the Red Flags above (panel 1) and check for those signs in new people and existing “friends” and “family”.
  • Most people have more than one parasitic abuser hanging off them, and it is time to clean house – get rid of them too
  • Use the Traffic Light System to help you separate Healthy from Toxic people.
• Most abusers can only maintain the charm in close proximity for 12 weeks
  • Watch for the Red Flags.
  • Try saying “No” to them.
    • Healthy people respect your “no”.
    • Toxic people force you to change your mind, often with argument or aggression.
• Abusers will try to test you at least 3 times in the first few weeks:
  • For excusing or ignoring their social faux pas / abusive attitudes and emotional & self esteem psychological abuse
    • Challenge their behaviour when you see it.
      • Ideally as soon as they have done it, but afterwards when you work it out is fine too.
      • If the person owns their error, discusses it like an adult and makes changes to address these stated problems, then they may be just ignorant and willing to learn/grow.
      • Let them know you expect some improvement and the watch what they do. Good people learn, abusive people repeat poor behaviour.
      • Keep an eye on them for a while and see if the “changes” return to the status quo of bad behaviour in a few weeks, or if real growth has happened. Abusers don’t change or grow, they only act changed for a while
      • Toxic People Mind Toolset.
  • Or by needing you to sacrifice yourself to rescue them.
    • Only offer to help people to help themselves, don’t do it for them.
    • Healthy people welcome the support, Toxic people don’t want to do the work of improvement.
• If the person ticks off 3 or more red flags, and being challenged on these behaviours leads to more bad behaviour, get rid of them.
  • There are over 8 billion people on this planet. Don’t waste your pressious life on these people.
• Abusers will often push for a strong financial or life commitment fast, such as an expensive investment, marriage, relocation and or children.
  • If you have left an abusive relationship recently, avoid any of these commitments for at least 2 years.
• Don’t try to reform an abuser
  • Perpetrator Reformation Myth