October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Across the world, people of all income levels, religions, and sexual orientation experience abuse from partners, children, and parents. And it can be hard to leave these situations, as it can jeopardize victims’ safety and leave them financially vulnerable. I spoke with Melissa Kovelman, a counselor for Equinox, a domestic violence outreach service, about how domestic violence can be spotted and what victims can do to safely help themselves out of dangerous situations. And a warning to listeners that this interview contains a frank discussion of abuse.
Domestic Violence Awareness Month takes place in the month of October, and the purpose of it is to raise awareness of domestic violence and understand that it can be a lot more complicated and nuanced than people think it is. That it's not just physical abuse, that there are a lot of other aspects that survivors can experience, and we're trying to bring awareness to that, but also bringing awareness to the resources that we have out there. Such as shelter advocacy within the court system, within the family court system, individual counseling and group counseling. We have several housing programs for clients that may be experiencing homelessness due to domestic violence. For Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we kind of do things like this, where we get out in the community and we talk about, um, what the signs are, because prevention is key, understanding what it is what the red flags are. What it looks like when, if you're trying to gain support, and people can maybe minimize your problems, or, you know, say, ‘why don't you just leave?’ And so, we clear up a lot of those misconceptions about domestic violence and why survivors don't just leave, or why they may miss some of these red flags. So, we go out in the community and do a lot of stuff like that. We go out in the community to health fairs, colleges, and we just let people know what we're doing, and you know what our mission is, and how they can help us, and how they can reach us if they do need us.
You touched a little bit on it, but what is considered domestic violence, like you said, there's technicalities to it that people don't understand,
Well, I think a lot of the time, people assume that domestic violence is just violence. That if there is physical violence between two people who are in a relationship, that that's domestic violence. That is a piece of it, but there are a lot of types of domestic abuse that when they're not physical, victims can tend to minimize them or not realize that they're abusive, because the red flags can often kind of be a little ambiguous, where they may appear to be something else. So, what you really want to look for is domestic violence is essentially a pattern of power and control that is exhibited over time, and it generally always escalates. So, what it is, it's one partner or one person using tactics, verbal abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, toward the victim or their partner or their parent, and they're using that as a way to control them. So really what it is that the abusers using power and control as a way to make the victim's world smaller. To decrease their access to support and agency, things like that. So that's what you really want to look for, is that pattern of power and control. One person has more power than the other. One person is maybe possibly fearful of the other. It's going to be an uneven relationship, where one person is making all of the decisions and the other one is just trying to really make the right decisions to try to manage the violence or the abuse, but that often doesn't help because the abuse has nothing to do with what they're doing. It's just that the abuser doesn't know how to have a healthy relationship, and they only can love and be in a relationship exerting that power and control. And when the victim tries to pull back, often, the abuser will escalate their tactics.
You said it's not just a partner. It can be a child to their parent. What does that look like in families? What is that dynamic?
The dynamic of a child that's abusive of their parent, often there's either a caregiving relationship that may be present, where the parent is the child is the caregiver of the parent, and maybe through aspects of that caregiving is using tactics of abuse, like not giving medication, not allowing the parent to have access to adaptive devices, not helping them to do their activities of daily living, financially abusing them. Sometimes we see caregivers or children of elderly clients taking over their payee status of their pension or their social security. So, it's a little different, because, as I always say, you can get rid of your partner, but you can't divorce your kid.
And can it go the other way? Can a parent be abusive to their child in a way that's different than child abuse?
Absolutely. I call it hobbling, you know, they don't realize that they're being abusive or exerting control, power and control over their children, but not allowing them to have choices. Kind of teaching their child this learned helplessness, where they say, ‘you can't do this’ or ‘you can't do that.’ They're limiting them by using emotional abuse or when a child wants to do something, go to college or something like that, and they're trying to reach goals. Parents can very quickly use parenting as a way to control the child, as to kind of soothe their own emotions, instead of doing what's best for the child. I always say that attachment is it's, you know, it's good to be attached to your parent, but too much of anything is a bad thing. These parents, by not allowing a child to make their own choices, or being too emotionally enmeshed with the child. You know that really, even though it looks like love can be can be very limiting and isolating for a kid that has a parent that isn't willing to let them make their own choices, or, you know, have any sort of emotional or physical autonomy.
And you mentioned that you guys go to college campuses and kind of probably inform students about domestic violence and other situations they can find themselves. Kids that are in college, this is probably the first time they're on their own, they can make decisions for themselves. What do you hear from college students that maybe are looking to you for help?
A lot of the time, what I do here is ‘I'm on campus, and the person that has that I'm reporting has abused me is still on campus, and I'm scared.’ So those types of things where you're really feeling like the victim is not getting the support that they need at the college, or, as much as we want, everybody has rights, but it kind of it feels like the safety, often of victims is being compromised. And then also, you see a lot of confusion in terms of, is this really abuse? Because so often things that are red flags, if you look at the other side of them, clients all the time are saying, ‘well, they're texting me, 100 times a day,’ and, you know, and sometimes it'll say, well, it looks like they're just, they're in love with me, and we're so excited about being in love and but if you probe further, it's, it's kind of like, oh, that's a lot of times in a day, what is the content of those texts, right? And so instead of, you know, being flattered that you know they're this new partner that's so in love with them, when you kind of start digging into it, you realize that, you know, the volume of them is a little overwhelming. And then you're seeing that, you know, maybe things like that, even though you don't realize it, they can become isolating, because the partner is constantly texting and checking in, and those can be really confusing, because they're like, ‘well, they really just like me, right?’ Well, you got to look at that and say, are they respecting your boundaries? No. Have you ever asked them to stop texting you that much and they still do? Well, that's a red flag, right there, you know? So, it's really looking at it and understanding like that. It's not always what it looks like. Sometimes it can look like this love bombing can look like, it's just this person that's really excited about you, but you really have to look at the content of, you know, what they’re sending you, or what the questions that they're asking you, or the boundaries that they're not respecting, and then you can really see a clearer picture that, oh, this isn't really as healthy as it looks like it could be. Just because someone is sending me flowers or, you know, telling me that I'm wonderful doesn't mean you know that it's 100 percent healthy.
I like that you said it looks like love it's kind of like a love bombing thing. And then they, you know, don't treat you as any human should be treated.
Right. And then that's what often happens, is clients will say, ‘well, in the beginning it was, like, really wonderful. It was like a fairy tale,’ you know? And I'm like, Well, that's nice. But what it is it really kind of causes, it puts these rose-colored glasses on over your eyes, and it causes you to, sometimes really not look at things for what they are. We may minimize the negative behaviors, or we may look at the negative behavior, and again, we think like, ‘oh, well, he's concerned. They don't want me to talk to this friend because they think that she's, you know, doesn't like us and wants us to break up.’ And maybe you don't look at that the first time as isolation. You don't, you know, you think that's maybe my partner being concerned about me and thinking they want the best for me, right? You have to kind of play the tape out a little bit and look and see what's the, what's the purpose there? Why do they really not want me, you know, interacting with friends, or, why do they, why are they saying this or that about what I'm wearing when I didn't ask for, you know, how do I look? Or what do you think about this outfit? So, you really have to kind of parse out the, you know, the feeling of, like, what, what are they doing, and what are they saying, and are those things matching up and also being self-aware of when your partner is crossing your boundaries or saying something that makes you feel uncomfortable, what happens when you express that? Right? And that's kind of where you can start to see that things that the abusive tactics of a partner can start to come out. Because when you're agreeing, they're like, okay, okay, okay. But the first time that you try to take a little bit of that power and control back, they're really kind of not knowing what to do. It's like a car with its tires on the ice, and they're just spinning their wheels trying all kinds of new things to gain that control back. And that's often, you know, where somebody realizes this, you know, this is not a loving relationship. There's something that doesn't feel good here. But often, when people go to get support, they get told, ‘just leave.’ Or ‘how come you didn't see that?’ Or ‘oh, that's not a big deal.’ And they already are confused, because this is a person that is maybe saying that they love them. And also, in also alongside being nice to them. So, it's very the cognitive dissonance thereof they love me and they're being nice to me and say that they love me, but then there are things that they do that don't feel good, right, like so they it's that's hard to understand for some people. And if you don't have support that can say, yeah, that's not supposed to happen. What can we do about that? Then it’s really difficult to understand what's going on.
Is there a way to spot it? Maybe before you get in a relationship, or before you decide that your child is going to be the one who has the control over your care. And I guess, why don't people just leave too?
Number one is that leaving is the most dangerous time. Um, as I stated previously, domestic violence, it always escalates in some way, um, and not necessarily to the point where, you know, it always becomes violent, but it's just when an abuser is not getting what they've always got from the tactics that they've used before. They will employ different ones. You know, so often people think leaving is just going to make the situation change or end. Unfortunately, again, when we say leaving is the most dangerous time, that's because it opens you up to a whole new host of risks, which we call post separation risks. Which means that after you leave, often abusers, they kick up their stuff. So, they might start stalking you. Kids that may be abusing their parents, or parents that are abusing their adult children, it's you're trapped because you don't know where you can actually go right, like you have to think of, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where the most important thing, you know, on the bottom of your foundation is safety and security and shelter. And if you don't have safety, security and shelter, it can be really hard to see what your next step is and understand that if you're setting boundaries and somebody's not respecting them or encroaching upon them. Yeah, and you're having a conversation about that, you know that there's something that might be going on there where somebody's not respecting your boundaries, and you might just kind of have to look and say, ‘all right, how do we handle this?’ And when people think that leaving is going to solve everything, and it doesn't, that's when they often return because it's like, this is too hard. I can't do this on my own financially or I can't do this on my own emotionally. People within these relationships, whether their abuser is a parent or a child or an intimate partner, the emotional and verbal abuse tends to really just ruin their self-esteem and their self concept becomes dependent upon what other people think of them, or how other people are, you know, pleased with them. And unfortunately, that's not a really reliable source of self-esteem. That's why it's called self-esteem, right?
And how can people outside of these relationships spot this and maybe get these people some help without endangering themselves?
It's most important to gently approach it and say, ‘this is just something that I've noticed,” in a gentle, nonjudgmental manner. But the most important thing is just listening. You know, often I say with clients like they don't have to engage in services the day that they find out what we offer at Equinox. Planting the seed for them to understand that maybe this is something that's going on, and these are resources that I had, that that are in the community, that are free, that I can access when I'm ready. Each county has a domestic violence organization that is paid for by the state. So, we have free counseling, free advocacy, shelter. Here's, the hotline number, do with it, what you will, right like and just know that it's out there. Because sometimes just knowing that there's a place to go when you're finally ready.
I guess a lot of times we think about domestic violence situations as a man abusing a woman, but it goes the other way.
Absolutely, and that's a hard thing for a lot of men, because they're supposed to be seen as the stronger sex. Well, you know, that's actually not true, because there are a lot of men that grew up with the idea of never hitting a woman, and unfortunately, there are a lot of women who don't honor that. They use physical abuse as a way to control their partner, because they understand that the partner, no matter what, they won't do that, right? That's not a choice for them. So again, they're using, they're making choices to control their relationship, using something to intimidate their partner. It's the same thing you know, as even though, if a man is physically stronger, it's the same thing you know. And it can be very hard, because when they go to seek help, there are providers out there that will really minimize the problem or say that you're not a victim. I've had clients in rural areas where police have really just told them, laughed at them and said, ‘what's your problem? Getting a hold of your wife and control her.’ And that's really insulting, because, again, it's making the man responsible for the abuse of his wife, right, for her abusing him, and he's sitting there saying, ‘What did I do?’ Right there, it's like, you're missing. You're missing the whole point, you know, it isn't about sex or gender or anything. It's about who's dealing the power and control, whose world got smaller, right? Who's feeling the fear.