while i agree whole heartedly with your article i do empathise with you as an officer but what you must try and think about is we are the victims! yes i do understand that DV victims can be draining. however the pattern in wich you describe is typical DV victim behaviour. Have you ever heard the saying "keep your friends close but your enimies closer" well that is the case for most DV suffereres, it really is better the devil you know! plus the added effect of feelings and family ties (ie your kids). i left my ex 4 times in total (this being the 4th and final time ... free for 1 year 1 month so far) and everytime had different reasons behind it! different methods of leaving, and therefore different success rates! but i do strongly believe there should be a way of helping DV victims. 2 years ago social services (welfare services) enforced (much against my will i might add) that i as a high risk DV victim attend a course for 12 weeks explaining DV its effects, the perpertator (the freak) his reasons and rationing behind his behaviour, our behaviour patterns as a victim, survival stratagies, ect ect ... it put a whole new spin on things for me. how it affected the children for example i was there thinking they were blissfully unaware of my plight but alas no (and i now know for 100% fact this is true) they knew, in fact a whole heap more than i even thought they was capable of knowing at their ages. i started to see things in a different light. i started to see him (the freak) in a different light. and that is a good thing believe me ... its the first step! i realized i wasn't the only one, the other people on the course gave me strength. i also realized that even though our lives were very different the abuse follows the same pattern .. over and over for each of us! i found out my options if i was to leave! emergency numbers, my best plan of action etc etc... and i knew what would happen step by step if i decided to go. i didn't feel pressured but i did feel informed and it was the first time in a long time i felt empowered! allowed to do something, well he didn't allow me it was secret, but that was just as empowering, doing something against the rules because i could!
i strongly think that these courses should be much more available,information about them offered to victims by the officers that attend all the draining call outs! and when a domestic violence victim falters before court action! i think the judge should impose that both parties attend courses the victim .. a course like i attended and the perpetrator .. some kind of anger management designed specifically towards domestic violence. because i truly believe this would help to lower the amount of call out you police officers would have because the victims would know in black and white how to handle and manage the situations and also their options if and when they want to leave.
thanks i enjoyed reading your story from the other side. xx
Dec 20, 2012
Continued by: Tom
You also have the option of getting a restraining order against him while he is in jail. They will serve him with it in jail for you. He is then kicked out of the home for a minimum of 2 weeks (Florida), must stay at least 500 feet away from you, the house, your work, your school, and your car. He cannot call, text, email, Facebook, write you a letter or even have his Uncle Bob give you a message on his behalf. No contact means no contact. After two weeks, you go to court and testify to all his terrible actions and the restraining order becomes permanent.
The key to helping him by having him arrested is by cooperating with the state attorney’s office. When you cooperate, you have input with regard to punishment. You can tell them to throw the book at him or that you strongly recommend anger management courses. When you don't cooperate, the state still proceeds with charges due to DV laws (Florida) and he may never get the help he needs.
I know I just about wrote an entire post about him; however, I assure you it is not. I have seen the abused take their abusers back so many times because they feel sorry for them, don't. Your most immediate goal is to make yourself safe. Women in Distress, a hotel room he doesn't know about, a friend's house or a family member is where you should go if not a police station. Reconcile with lost friends and family to rebuild that impenetrable fabric of trust and safety, otherwise known as a safety net. Seek counseling for your past issues with your parents and old abusive relationships. Do something to build your confidence like, Karate, mixed martial arts, exercising, take an NRA class and learn how to shoot, or start a charity for DV victims.
All of the above activities require you to be in control and would make you feel good, plus you can defend yourself much better against a potential abuser if you ever slip back into that situation. I have extensive professional and personal experience with DV and am always glad to help. I hope you can free yourself from this for good. I wish you the best of luck.
Dec 20, 2012
Symptom Solved, Cause Next by: Tom
I am so glad you worked up the courage to leave him, which was the first step. Though it was probably the hardest step to take, you are not out of the woods yet and need to keep working toward independence from abusive relationships.
Try thinking back from the day you left him all the way back to the day you met him. Retrace the steps he took to make your life miserable. When you get to the beginning, he was probably charming and he made you feel secure. Sometime after that, depending on how quickly you allowed him to take control; he made you alienate yourself from your friends and family.
Friends and family are your moral compass. They know you way better than you know yourself and are more perceptive than you are with regard to your potential love interests. They are on the outside looking in with no emotional influence to cloud their judgment. They are your most valuable asset and are the biggest threat to an abuser. You are forced to get rid of your friends and family so that you have nobody to turn to when the abuse starts.
With alienation usually come the threats. The abuser makes seemingly real threats to kill someone dear to you if you ever leave them. I have not ever seen a situation where this threat was actually carried out. It may seem believable because you can see how violent he gets, but he is actually terrified of anyone knowing his secret.
Think back to how nice he was when you first met him and how he made you push your support away before he really got abusive. If your abuser really had the guts to confront any of your friends and family, why would he have you push them away and not do it himself? The truth is that the abuser is afraid of anyone he has no control over. They fear other men, moms, dads, brothers, sisters and friends. Their fear is not confined to men only, but strong women as well.
It seems to me that the abuser commits these terrible acts as a form of co-dependency. They are sick and need help. I mentioned in my first post that there is nothing that you can ever do to help an abuser by staying with them. Leaving an abuser actually helps them because your mere presence makes them go insane. I must emphasize, it is not you, it really is them. Though your presence does this to them, they still need you around to "feed the monster", for a lack of better words.
This may sound odd to you but a good way to help your abuser is by sending him to jail and sticking with the court system. When you file a report of DV to the police, they will arrest him and put him in jail. The jail holds the abuser for a couple days for a "cooling off" period and then releases him. You get a warning from the jail prior to the release. This should give you ample time to re-connect with old friends and have them help you move your stuff out.
*Continued on the next post due to text limit:
Dec 18, 2012
DV victim by: Anonymous
I started reading articles about DV for about three weeks now. I admire people like you who are against DV and want to reach out to these victims.
I watched my mother being abused, I was abused by my sons father, and currently in a abusive relationship. No matter what I did to make this person feel happy, it still seemed that everything was my fault. I was always the blame. I was isolated from my friends and family. I was told what to do. I was hit on certain occasions. I was called all sorts of names you can think of. I'm not allowed to go anywhere without him. He threatens to harm my family. I know I do not deserve this kind of treatment from him. I finally got the courage to leave this person. I'm going to get the support that I need to get through this, I know one day I will.