You Are Not Alone: Using Connections to Break Domestic Abuse Cycles | Chandra Moss | TEDxMSJC Studio
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc9Cai5kgBk Video ID: gc9Cai5kgBk ============================================================ Transcriber: Trúc Lê Reviewer: Vaia Katsarou Domestic abuse. I know what you’re thinking: I’m too strong. I could never be a victim. I’m raising three children and I’m the wife of a successful executive. I'm a highly educated therapist. I own and operate my own lucrative business. Domestic abuse knows no societal bounds. Domestic abuse is no discriminator of persons. Some statistics from the CDC, National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey of 2010 summary report: An average of 24 people per minute. Let me say that again: 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States. That’s more than 12 million women and men. Get that? And men. Over the course of a single year. Nearly 3 in 10 women and 1 in 10 men in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence or stalking by a partner and reported having a related impact on their functioning. Most domestic violence incidents, sadly, are not reported. Only about 20% of rapes and sexual assaults, 25% of physical assaults, and 50% of stalking incidents are ever reported to the police. Almost half of the people in the United States have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner, that has affected them in their lifetime. You don’t have to be in a marital relationship to be the victim of domestic abuse. You could be a cohabitant, a former cohabitant. You could have a dating or have had a dating relationship. You could have had an engagement relationship. You might be a person with whom the perpetrator has had a child. You might be related to another person by blood within the second degree. That’s your aunts, your uncles, parents, nieces, nephews, parents and sadly children. We need to know and to detail what is domestic abuse. What does that consist of? Although certainly physical and sexual assault is domestic violence, abuse goes far beyond just the physical. In fact, Family Code Section 6203, California Family Code that is, notes that abuse is not limited to the actual infliction of physical injury or assault. As a longtime family law attorney in Southern California have come to discover that many people do not realize that they have been a victim of domestic abuse, simply because they have no physical injuries. Finances might have been kept from them, holes punched in walls, they may have had objects thrown at them, property destroyed, they may have been subject to gaslighting, they could have been emotionally abused. California Family Code Section 6320 notes that domestic abuse includes disturbing the peace of the other party. Now, that sounds pretty broad, but the statute goes on to talk about how that kind of conduct could be indirectly or directly. When we say indirectly, it might be through a third party. It could be by any means, including but not limited to telephones, online accounts, text messages, internet connected devices or other electronic technologies. It could be coercive control, which is a pattern of behavior that, in purpose or effect, unreasonably interferes with the victim’s free will and personal liberty. Examples of coercive control include unreasonably engaging in any of the following: Isolating the party from their friends, relatives, or other sources of support. Believe it or not, depriving a party of basic necessities. We see that fairly frequently. Compelling, controlling, regulating or monitoring the other party's movements. Putting a tracker on their car so they know the victim has no privacy. It includes threats based on actual or suspected immigration status to engage in conduct from which the other party has a right to abstain, or to abstain from conduct in which the other party has a right to engage. It includes reproductive coercion. Keeping control of whether or not you can be pregnant, whether or not you can be on birth control and unreasonably pressuring the other party in any of those situations. Here are some real life examples. These are from actual court cases where the judge found, and the appellate court sustained, acts that consisted domestic violence: Trashing the family residence. Unauthorized access and dissemination, or threat of dissemination, of emails from an account where the victim stored personal and confidential information that could be considered inflammatory. It includes engaging in a course of conduct of contacting the victim by phone, email and text, messages that contained inappropriate sexual innuendos, arriving at a residence unannounced and uninvited, and then refusing to leave and making a scene for the purpose of causing that person, or forcing that person, to renew a relationship. Threatening to and disclosing private, intimate information. Hacking into social media, rerouting emails to the perpetrator’s account. Visiting uninvited, sending harassing text messages and emails, and sending threatening photos. In fact, I just finished a case where between the date of separation and the date that we ended the case, my client was sent between 3.000 and 4.000 harassing emails. This perpetrator also sent me probably between 100 and 200 emails. And these weren’t emails that were just: “Hey, how are you, let’s move the case along, I’ve got a reasonable settlement proposal.” They were degrading. They were demanding. They were harassing. They called both my client and myself names, and at the end of the emails to my client, his actions were summed up by: “I love you. Let’s get back together.” Making false police reports to request welfare checks, that could constitute abuse. Sending multiple emails. Making accusations of criminal actions, fraud, conspiracies and direct threats. Calling the victim a mob boss or Bernie Madoff. Domestic abuse is about power and control, where one partner uses control over the other. That’s coercive control, and that constitutes domestic abuse in California. In one of the first cases that was litigated under the new 2020 statute that included coercive control, a judge noted that the husband had given his wife pages of instructions and demands, detailing about how she had to behave. He made edicts and pronouncements to control her every move. This included right down to the way she was supposed to wash the dishes at the end of the day. These documents, these directives, literally controlled every aspect of the victim’s life, from how she cooked and kept the house, including how she arranged the kitchen, and to the times which things needed to be done. It kept her from engaging in any decision making in her own home. The husband required his wife to meet with him at 8:30 p.m. every evening to go through the day, and as they met, he would complain of the wife’s transgressions, including not waking up early enough to take care of things, not getting breakfast on the table at the appointed time. Every little aspect of this wife's life was controlled by her husband, and that was domestic abuse. Whether intended or not, the judge said, the use of the words punishment and violation have no place in spousal intimate relationships, and the use of these words have the effect of creating a circumstance where the victim spouse is emotionally battered, to the point where the lines are blurred between what the spouse really wants and what the victim spouse believes will please the other party. Now that you know what domestic violence is, a victim needs connections. Surviving abuse is traumatic. A victim might be your neighbor. It could be your best friend. It could be a colleague at work or a colleague at church. Your colleagues should be able to depend on you for support. These abuse victims need your support. They need that connection. The National Domestic Violence Hotline makes the following suggestions for that support: First, acknowledge that the situation is difficult. It's scary, and it's brave of that victim to try to want to regain control. Don’t judge the decision and refuse to criticize the victim, or guilt them over a choice that they made, even if that includes going back to their abuser. Remember that you cannot rescue them. The decisions about their lives are up to them to make. Be a listening ear. Interestingly enough, I had a professor in my undergraduate days that noted that God gave us two ears and one mouth. What do you think is the most important? Be that listening ear. Don’t speak poorly of the abusive partner as much as you want to berate that perpetrator. Don’t do it. It doesn’t do anything to help the victim escape that pattern of abuse. Help the victim to create a safety plan. Continue to be supportive. If they do end the relationship and are understandably lonely, upset, or return to their abusive partner. Offering to go with them to a service provider or get going with them to a legal office for support. Help them identify a support network to assist with physical needs like housing, food, health care and mobility. Help them by storing important information. Help document instances of domestic violence in their lives, including but not limited to, pictures of injuries, writing on a calendar, the dates abuse occurred. That evidence can become extremely important in a court hearing. If you are a victim of domestic violence, I know that you are not alone. Connections can help you break that cycle and start on the path toward a happy and healthy life. Connect with the law. In California, each county has a self-help center located at Family Law Courthouse that can assist in filing for domestic violence restraining orders. The state court website: “www.courts.ca.gov” offers online forms and guides for filing. Legal aid organizations may also be able to help. Connect with a domestic violence organization. There are support groups throughout California. Go to “www.cpdev.org” and click on: “Get Help”. Connect with a therapist. One resource to find a therapist is through “www.psychologytoday.com”. Connect with the National Domestic Violence Hotline. That hotline has a myriad of resources that can help you break that cycle. That’s at “www.thehotline.org” or call 1-800-799-SAFE. These are not all inclusive lists and there are many resources available. By knowing what constitutes domestic abuse and having connections, that cycle can be broken. To the victims of domestic abuse: You are not alone. Thank you.