“What happened when the man opened the surprise door to the apartment of the woman and left her a bouquet of flowers, time passes, she tries to escape him anywhere, and he still opens the door, but now with the knife because he was used to that may come to her and do what he wants” which give future tyrant, could the victim just leave and why even psychologists do not understand the mechanism for the occurrence of violence.
Photo: Shannon Dermody (fragment)
- Where does “my fault”, or about not plugging his ears
- “Suffocating love”: Director of refuge for women about where I came from violence
- Domestic violence usually starts with small things: raised her voice, swung, pushed
- Shelters for victims are, and the word “violence” no – why is the Church silent when families beaten and humiliated
Tatiana Orlova is a family therapistfor many years specializiruetsya work with victims of violence, Anna Rivina – Director of the Centre for domestic violence “Violence.no”. Together they engaged in the training of psychologists working with victims of violence and aggressors, because, according to them, few know how to do it. And expert help to people who are in such relationships, it is very necessary, but they have often or no money, or next to no relevant organizations to provide it.
“Maybe something’s wrong?”
– Tatiana, how did the idea of volunteer psychologists working with the victims of violence?
– Anna and psychologists sent out a preliminary application form to find out how they understand this phenomenon, and found that few people know about how domestic violence that obscure the internal mechanisms and how this phenomenon develops. Everyone says, “Why didn’t she leave when he hit her?” Homo sapiens seems that the woman after the first episode of violence was to escape from these relations.
– And really, why wouldn’t she leave?
– People who continue to live in relations of violence can be divided into three parts. The first part is a those who in childhood was not a reliable adult who would take care of them. They have a great need for love, in relationships, in who is with them and will not abandon them. A person stays with a partner contrary to what happened – he hopes and believes that the partner will change.
The second part of the “remaining” victims – those who have never faced violence in the family, but who have powerful expectations, transferred to the parents that they will have a good family. They have an internal prohibition on the imposition of outside information, so they “keep face” and maintain inside feeling of “I’ll try a little bit, and I’ll be all right.”
There is a third group of people – those who were very traumatized by the incident, but they have nowhere to go, no house, no source of income.
Tatiana Orlova. Photo: suzunskiy.Russia
– What the victim goes?
– Go to the end, almost all, but not immediately.
– Who will leave soon?
– One who has not experienced violence in childhood, those who have who to go to, those who are not willing to defend the idea of a good marriage at any cost. The classic victim is a woman, which itself contains the entire family, a man living in her apartment, not working, they have kids, and she pulls it reasons that I should try, should try, “I have dealt with many situations, cope with this”. If she comes to the psychologist, says, “Maybe something’s wrong with me?”, and so I think until you open her eyes to what’s not wrong with her, and whatever she did, in fact, it’s not affected, it is an internal injury of the aggressor.
Is often the situation when the rapist still lives at the expense of the victim for her money and at her apartment?
Yes. I think the violence here can be explained by the fact that man cannot long exist at the expense of another person and feel an inner satisfaction, most likely, had problems with self esteem. But among aggressors, too, there are different types. Some of them have been abandoned children, that is, people who themselves are survivors of violence. What the aggressors are qualitatively different from the victims? The fact that the victim when aggression is directed at her, stops and gives resistance, and then blames himself. And the aggressor in that moment, when against him there is some kind of aggression, “forwards” it to other insecure and accuses him.
“Finally I met you!”
– Anna, what would you give the definition – what is violence?
Violence is the concept of the UN, gender discrimination. Women are beaten, not because they are good or bad, but because the society has permission to beat women. Speaking directly about the definition, it is necessarily systematic behavior that can be expressed in the form of physical aggression, sexual abuse, economic or psychological impact, aimed at loved ones against their will, and with the challenge of suppression of will and control.
The husband yelled at the wife’s violence?
– If she’s afraid if she is afraid to defend its interests if it perceives the situation not equal, and understands that there is a clear hierarchy, it is violence. If she can say, “Yes, I was guilty, I’m sorry,” and the conflict is settled, then it was just a conflict. The conflict there is always a reason, and you can always understand why people are swearing, shouting, but in General people have consent, there is a reason they are in this relationship, and each of them calmly and without fear can get out of them, you may say in conversation: “I’m do not want to discuss” – and he is heard. If its put on a chair like a guilty child, and say: “Look!”, it is, of course, violence.
Conflicts exist around the world, we’re not going anywhere, and this does not have anywhere to go. Each of the partners may flare up, may be wrong, but if a person is able to admit their mistakes and not repeat them systematically, if his partner has no fear and is not afraid to defend its borders and interests, when possible dialogue on an equal footing, is not violence.
Anna Rivina. Photo By Anna Danilova
– Time violence violence is not considered?
– Of course, it may be a one – off- if you will approach and you will start to beat on the head of the bottle, it is, of course, violence. But if we are talking about domestic violence, then this is the system for this cycle. And it starts immediately. No one on a first date you should hit me in the forehead – the aggressors in the beginning, on the contrary, the best men on earth.
– Tatiana, is it true? Why?
– Yes, this is an important point. Why the relationship with the abuser cause at first a surge of interest from women, and that seek a warm, supportive relationships? Because this is a relationship where you are on hand, where you are celebrated, where it is said: “Finally I met my half, finally I have you! You’re a real woman, nobody compares!”
But there is a small caveat: the aggressors are often a little “break” the borders: they don’t just care – they are obtrusive: calling a hundred times, under the door bring flowers, they write on the pavement – and it’s persistent invasion of life is often perceived by the woman wishing to be loved, as evidence that she finally met a man that actually loves her. However, she does not notice that no one is interested, if she wants someone to climb to her window with flowers – she is forced to accept it and justifies this great love. So when she begins to feel something with her lover not so, she by this time usually already taken, actually gave him credibility, already have invested in it.
The man is absolutely sincere – he sincerely climbs out the window a hundred times calling sincerely, sincerely indignant if she is not loved, because he finally met her his ideal, and that ideal may not match the reality that they may have different ideas about life, different principles – at this stage it’s not checked. He appointed her ideal, and she is obliged to follow it.
– What else makes women perceive as the norm “breakout” of their borders?
– Man cannot live in isolation from society, and books and movies accustom us to the fact that women sit in the corner and waiting for the princes and get them to the tower. This is the code that is inserted into our head since childhood. Therefore, it is not always easy to understand what is happening that violates your boundaries.
What happened when the man opened the surprise door and left the woman a bouquet of flowers, time passes, she tries to escape him anywhere, and now he still opens the door with a knife because he was used to that he can come back and do what he wants. But early on in the relationship that she can tell her friends: “can You imagine what an outrage – come and at home I have flowers!”, after all, she will say: “are You crazy? Finally a normal guy!”
– Tatiana, why is this happening?
The aggressor just doesn’t respect your “no” because for him “no” is not “no” and “Yes, but bad requests”. But some men who behave this way, then they are normal people.
– What are the signs, how to recognize the aggressor early on in the relationship?
The abuser is often one who is experienced in child abuse, the one who had bad relationships with previous partners. The abuser often holds some very radical views, sharply speaks of people of other nationalities and different political orientation, different religion – that is, it is something where spills his anger.
So if you met a radical categorical person, if you know about his difficulties in the family and if you feel that it “breaks through” your limits, a high probability that you will subsequently find themselves in a situation of violence.
But it may be that he dealt with them, bought some new strategy. Clearly, if you like it, you give him a chance, but it is important to understand that you give a chance, and do not subscribe to everything.
The other side is Prince charming
– Tatiana, what happens next? The aggressor impressed with it all, he made it, they become a couple…
– Relations with the domestic violence takes place very quickly. Period of building mutual understanding, clarification of borders, clarification of who and how that looks, there is no dialogue: both give each other credibility and yourself complete the image of the partner to the right, and on both sides. Everyone thinks that he met his soul mate.
“That’s a good father, a very reliable man who will earn and take care I’m not scared nowhere to go with him”, she thinks. And he thinks she is a great wife, mistress and the one he was looking for, in fact to many it could not stand, and this can.
Another important characteristic of those who survived the violence who did not have a trusted caring adult – this person does not Express their needs. He is often not aware of them, not the voice, and immediately assumes that these needs are not met.
– Give me an example.
For example, the man a child living in a family where very harshly punished for the mess and where the cleanliness was at the forefront. And the woman with whom he had the relationship, on the contrary, the “creative nature”, it is not followed. And for a long time, when I came home and saw the mess, did not say that he cares, but at the same time experienced extreme irritation. It was expressed in a separate nagging: “what’s this over here? Why is there something lying around?” – which immediately passed on the identity of the woman: “are you so, can’t make a clean house”. He could not say to her: “Listen, this is important to me, so I am ready to get out or we’ll hire a maid” – there are a lot of options.
When there is something that wants the aggressor, he takes it as disrespect on the part of the partner, his growing power, he feels that it is not like that what is important to him, he did not give, but he gives her a clear understanding of what he wants from her.
This internal tension is growing every day – until, until he will discover that the inner image which he created for himself, not the real. Since he was already rejecting or showed violence to him close, he immediately moves to the image of the aggressor, which he brought from his past, that is now before him a lovely woman, and the man who had once beaten and insulted, and he begins to fight against him.
– I thought it was such a typically female trait to pout and not say anything – say, he guessed what had happened.
– Men do the same thing, but their reactions are different. If a woman, after the partner can not guess what happened, closes the offense or takes the blame, the man is actively showing aggression – immediately mad at someone weaker and weaker woman by his side.
– What happens next?
– A woman who believes that before her Prince charming finds that she’s not trying hard enough, so she tries better and tends not to notice the signs of his irritation, she hides them, and makes it until then, when to smooth is impossible, while it is more smooths, and it is becoming more dissatisfied. In the end it comes to a peak, comes the aggression, and to deny that something is wrong, and pretend that all is well, impossible, and the woman sees a different side of her Prince charming. If she already had a traumatic experience and what she sees, the same as, for example, with the image of the mother or any other aggressor, with whom she lived, had a recognition of the situation, and she goes into all the wrongs that have been inflicted on her, and she becomes very ill.
– How is it manifested?
– Until then, until it happened, she is in a state of hope and strong effort. When does this “explosion”, she falls into a state rannaste, pain. If a person has experienced trauma, these conditions can exist in his mind in different places, how would lie in different boxes.
Those who live in relationships of violence, often say, “I very quickly forget insults, I don’t remember bad.” But this does not mean that they really forget the insults – they simply displace, lay in a certain box.
When there is a threat to our security, memory begins to work differently. To work connects hippocampus amygdala – the amygdala, which records information when compared to us there is violence, to respond quickly to survive. In a situation of violence, the memories are written in a different way, and the experience is deposited in a separate place. Therefore, man does not correlate the two experiences – the experience of violence and experience the hopes, connects one way.
– How does the aggressor in the loss of hope his partner?
– The aggressor at this point usually understands that he has committed some action which he may now lose this relationship. He becomes very scared that his life’s dream, somewhere to disappear. He has a fear to experience once again rejection and feel bad, so he goes and apologizes to women. He says that this will not happen again, and the woman too profitable to believe.
But the mechanism has not changed, and he still doesn’t say that he cares about, continues to have a suspicion that it can reject and don’t like, so the explosion is repeated again and again. Often the aggressors suffer pathological jealousy, and for good reason: jealousy is the fear that I don’t like and cast. And even if there is no reason to have him sitting in the head: “leave Me, I’m not good enough”. Therefore, aggressors, too, should be treated.
We usually help to victims and aggressors to therapy, we can not draw, because they have a very robust protection mechanisms: until they start to reject everything already, they think they’re fine. But I would not say that about all the aggressors as monsters: when you start working with the person understand how much he suffers.
– He never says that he is important? In your example he can’t say: “You know, I really want the house was always clean, I’m such a pedant”?
To say he can, but he’s not ready to hear the answer from the woman, if she says: “it’s important for Me to be my creative space”, is not ready to accept her real image with this “flaw”, because it is already inside yourself appointed her as our ideal.
The higher the status, the more hiding
– Anna, please tell me, in your experience, what are the explosions? How to spot a rapist?
– I think here we have to separate different types of violence. Someone really can never can’t touch, but psychologically to bring partner into the grave. For some, it can be expressed exclusively in sexual aggression – and our society still can not understand that marriage can be rape: a woman will tell her friends that she was hurt and scared, and it will convince you that it is her wifely duty.
There are also veiled and also not recognized in our society, economic violence, when the woman suggests that she’s to give birth to one after another, and all the material resources for man, and he translates she always thought: “I know better than you, what clothes you wear, what school to go and what you eat for Breakfast, for lunch and for dinner, I decide, because I earn the money, and you’re not.” Another option when you need to constantly report to him and feel guilty for every wrong penny spent.
– Which social groups for domestic violence?
This is a very important question. We all used to think that violence is a marginal problem when alcoholics running around the village with axes. But, of course, violence occurs in all segments of the population, just the higher the social status of the family, the more I try to hide it, because such families is much higher reputational risks.
Photo: Daryna Barykina
The saddest option – when a woman lives in such a situation, and the mother and everyone says she is guilty that it was her cross, because as it is well to be one?
Need to be with anyone, just not the same. And here we return to the feminist agenda, because that’s what feminists are trying to convey to women the idea that their key purpose is not only to be a wife, mother and beloved woman and they do not need to compete for male attention that women first need to be yourself and to be able to protect its borders.
And in fact it turns out that no matter what your services to the world which you opened the vaccine or rescued the whole of Africa, what matters is that you were marital status and children, because otherwise our Patriarchal society will put the mark on you loser, say that you are in demand, and the divorcee, and a normal guy you have, and so on. And in a situation of violence, the society in the face of mom, police, judges, and even psychologist will say: “Let’s see what she did wrong, why he did it, than she caused his reaction.”
– Psychologists believe that violence is to blame the victim?
Course – in television talk show dedicated to these cases, there is always the psychologists who say that it was not violence, and that women’s sexual fantasies to be conquered. So we are going to launch a very important project and collect the money: we have developed guidance for psychologists as they work with victims and aggressors.
Revenge of the aggressor
– Please tell us what the law provides for penalties for violence.
– With this we are all very bad because we still live without the relevant law, which would define, what is domestic violence. In addition, there was recently decriminalized domestic violence, where the beatings ceased to be a crime – now it’s only a misdemeanor. In most cases the court appoints for the violence penalty. The penalty is a measure that is not aimed at protecting the interests of victims – this is only the completion of the budget, and now even the representatives of law enforcement agencies say that it was a mistake.
Repeated beating or light injury is of a private prosecution case. This means that the injured party walks to the court, collects evidence and tries to explain that she was hurt, and most likely the aggressor state will provide protection, because he is accused. In such cases the aggressor in 70% of cases punishable by a fine of from 5 to 30 thousand, sometimes by compulsory works and imprisonment of up to three months, but this is rare.
If the health of the victim caused damage, you have to understand that due to the fact that society actually does not recognize this problem, we doctors can’t behave correctly, because they try to document every possible way to smooth out something that came to the victim. For example, her face is a mess, and the doctor writes that it is slightly deformed, can not write the color of a bruise, and her for this and then say: “You just hurt”.
In addition, there are absurd laws in the definition of what constitutes serious bodily harm.
It turns out that if you break a little finger, it is possible to speak about serious harm, but if human make a bruise, it’s just a beating.
I remember the story of the journalist Anna Generowicz, which plucked up courage and posted photos the next day after she beat her young man – it was a terrible picture, a solid blue face. It happened to the decriminalization of domestic violence, and her former partner was convicted, but he was amnestied in honor of the anniversary of victory in the great Patriotic war. But for this to happen, it was a lot of resistance, because it said that it was her fault that she not led the police didn’t want to initiate a criminal case, the judge to accept her guilty partner, and so on.
– Anna, how the measures applied to the rapist, is able to force him to stay in the future?
– Current measures are generally not effective. Why? For example, the efforts of our wonderful yuristkoy Mari Davtyan, Dmitry Grachev, who cut off his wife Margaret’s hands, sat for 14 years. But he promises that when he gets out, he life, she will not give. More than a hundred countries in the law have provided a very important measure – a protection order, which prohibits the aggressor from approaching the victim. The state says to her: “I take you under protection.”
But we are all not working and in the end, first, many women are in prison for alleged murder, when they saved themselves, and secondly, these men, either not planted or released from prison, then from region to region travel for women, burning houses, stealing children, beating his face and doing everything possible so that this hell has not stopped. Therefore, in such situation you not only have the courage to leave, but also to think about how to do so, so you do not Wake up every night in fear.
– Tatiana, why don’t they leave their victims in peace, they have in nature has a grudge?
– No, just the aggressor decided that this man had betrayed him. It was his love and his life’s dream, and that she rejected him, so he her revenge, revenge for all the aggressors that were in his past.
“Why your kids father is a criminal?”
– Anna, do I understand correctly that economic and psychological violence is practically unpunished?
– We have a non-progressive legislation, and yet, we have articles, which in theory fits these cases, but they are dead, they do not apply. For example, there is an article, which provides punishment for torture, and it says not only about the physical impacts but also about what torture you psychologically, but it is not applied at all, because even the Supreme court cannot decide: torment – this is when 2% or 222?
In addition, it happens that a woman comes, talks about some occasion, not recorded, not adopted, it eventually sank into Oblivion, and when she comes the second time, no one wants to track the consistency of this behavior. Again, in addition to legal mechanisms you need to have adequate people used these mechanisms.
How to live the civilized world? I’m not just talking about some very progressive Sweden, but also about our former Soviet neighbors. Police departments sits a female police officer who knows the specifics of domestic violence knows that this cycle of violence, knows why the woman will come and will attempt to take a statement, knows why a woman will then justify this aggressor, he knows what Stockholm syndrome. We police are people who either will immediately be shown the door, either to savor the details and the smirk.
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– Why the victim tries to pick up the statement?
– For many reasons. First, because they make peace, he promises, it will never happen, and they will have a “honeymoon”. Secondly, she does not want children to have a father in prison. Thirdly, he would threaten her – they’re still separated, they continue to live together, and no it will not protect.
– But really – who wants to have children, was the father a criminal?
– This is a very dangerous argument, because it covers child the many ways in which professional and social context. The woman thinks: “Well, I already removed the instance, but at least the kids won’t ruin life.” What? In the end, she constantly lives in fear, because he at any moment can turn around and try to do anything.
– It turns out that this choice is bad, and so bad, and in this situation to do?
– It turns out that our state system is totally ineffective as a defender of life and health of victims of domestic violence. Unfortunately, we are unable to say anything, but without a state to change something globally is impossible. I think to convince the woman that this is not her fault, not that she should be ashamed, and try to make the situation public as possible – not the most efficient way, but it’s better than nothing.
– Tatiana, what do you think?
The woman is still very important to understand that if her children live together with the aggressor, they are constantly watching these clashes, internalize the strategy, and they just have no chance to grow up healthy, that is they repeat the story. The aggressors infection, is a contagious disease. Many people are afraid and suffer. But in reality, if the victim is organizing a campaign to protect himself, the head of the aggressor is greatly reduced, it changes the strategy and tries to say: “You misunderstood me, I’m such a good father and a good husband, look how much I just do…”
When the man realizes that now all of your friends and family know what he was doing to her, he often changes like magic. However, it is also dangerous, because the woman begins to believe in this change.
When the aggressor is a woman
– Tatiana, and whether female violence against men?
– Yes, of course – of women’s economic and psychological violence quite a lot.
– As it is expressed, what, what are some typical situations?
– Emotional blackmail, reproaches, threats, and shouting. But the society believes that the man in such a situation it was improper to seek help. Men who suffer it, take the blame and try actually being in the same role as women victims.
Of folklore, which greets her husband with a rolling pin or with a frying pan is a joke or a real phenomenon?
– Of course, that is, there is his wife, who at the entrance were taken from their husbands pay, because they’re all hock and wives not to feed children. This suggests that the wife considers her husband a separate independent person, does not believe that he can handle it and not drink away the pay that he is fit for something. It’s such a culture of disrespect within the family, when all family members think you’re a freak. Usually a wife and out of respect, but contempt for him manifests in the form of verbal insults.
– But she stands with a rolling pin for a reason – apparently, there were multiple episodes when he was drunk pay.
– Not necessarily – often, these insults to the start of any drink, she takes revenge on him for unrealistic expectations, for non-conformity to its principles. They are exactly the same as a pair of “male-aggressor, female-victim” does not agree that each of them is important, not looking for dialogue, not trying to understand what a partner is, in reality, just here the man does not attack a woman, and closes itself. The woman rarely resorted to physical violence, and psychological – frequent: she is nagging, insults, humiliates, tramples man, and he suffers and humbles himself, often also for the children.
Tatiana, as a therapist works with a couple of “aggressor-victim”?
– First, we deal with mutual expectations and projections and are working on constructive ways to agree and accept that the partner of the other. If they are able to understand the relationship improve, and if you can work out a long-standing injury which made the aggressor – the aggressor and the victim – the victim, too. Such technology is now. If earlier it was impossible a couple of, which psychological violence, to take the treatment, now there is emotionally-focused therapy, which works with such situations and allows you to see behind these psychological defenses inner intention and desire of great love and be addressed to him. After this “ramping up” way to talk constructively, that is, not to see the partner throwing you a monster.
Ksenia Knorre Dmitrieva