Trauma Talk is a Q & A about all things trauma related. Professor Emily Healy answers your questions. The views communicated within the column do not necessarily reflect the views of the Observer staff.
Content Note
Trauma Talk addresses topics including sexual violence, domestic abuse, coercive control, and related mental health impacts. If any of the content in this column affects you personally, you are not alone and support is available.
What are the psychological impacts of long-term toxic relationships?
Have you ever been in a situation where no matter what you did, it seemed like the person you were with thought that your motivations were selfish or manipulative?
While coercive control is often not the first thing that comes to mind when we think about toxic romantic partnerships, trauma scholars are increasingly identifying it as being at the heart of why relationships can become abusive. Rather than mirroring the obvious dynamics of abusive relationships where physical violence leaves evidence others can see, coercive control is a set of strategies used to dominate and intimidate you, often in ways that are so subtle that individual examples of these behaviors are hard to even name.
Coercive control’s purpose is to dominate. Abusers make survivors begin to believe that you are actually the problem. They use language like “dramatic,” “crazy,” or “needy,” to describe you, claim you’re the one who is actually being controlling, and cause you to doubt yourself and wonder whether you’re actually the problem. And what’s worse, this abuse can actually imprint itself psychologically by creating the very conditions under which the abuser can more readily manipulate you further.
Over time, coercive controllers will isolate you from support, using shame and guilt about going out with friends or communicating with family members. While abusers may not directly forbid you from contacting people, they may punish you for doing it by constantly checking in or causing a fight afterward. They may withdraw, give you the silent treatment, or even disappear, until you learn to fear their reaction, even when you’ve done nothing wrong.
The reality is that the impacts of coercive control can cause damage that can last long after the relationship is over. Surviving a long-term toxic situation can contribute to the development of depression, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, or even post-traumatic stress disorders, including complex-PTSD. Even after you attempt to leave, a coercive controller often will lie about you to other people to destroy your credibility, threaten to hurt you or even themselves, or try to win you back by promising they’ll change. Leaving an abusive situation is often not just a matter of your safety, but also your mental health.
Man or bear?
A student in one of my sociology classes recently raised the question: “If you were alone in the woods, would you choose the man or the bear?” This is a question that has been popular in various social media circles in the past few years. It asks people to respond to a stark dilemma: If you had to choose between being attacked by a man or a bear, which would you choose? Surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly), most people choose the bear.
On these different platforms, as survivors began answering the question and sharing their stories, others responded, many saying “not all men.” Such responses are a diversion that intentionally miss the point. Rather than focusing on the exception to the rule, we need to focus on the fact that the rule has emerged from social conditions which have allowed for harm to continue. “Not all men” maintains the status quo, serves only those who already hold power, and endorses—rather than dismantles—the very systems which create violence in the first place.
Judith Herman, author of the book Trauma and Recovery once stated that perpetrators will often try to distract you from the truth, and will recruit others to do the same. They claim “it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on.” The phrase “not all men” does precisely this. It is a blanket statement that subtly allies itself with perpetrators of violence. It deflects from the core issue by requiring explanations to educate those who see no wrong in their own misunderstanding.
Not all men? I have another response: Listen to survivors.
And here is what survivors have to say: “The bear doesn’t get enjoyment out of it,” “No one will ask me what I was wearing while I was hiking,” “The bear didn’t buy me dinner and try to tell me that I owed him for it,” “No one will say that I liked the bear attack,” “The bear wouldn’t film it to send it to his friends,” “I won’t have to see the bear on campus tomorrow,” and perhaps most staggeringly, “The worst thing the bear could do to me is to kill me.”
Those who say “not all men” ally themselves with the very men who commit unspeakable acts, rather than doing the deeper work of understanding survivorship and uplifting survivors. And we need to speak the truth. The real tragedy is not failing to recognize whether it is or isn’t all men. It’s failing to recognize that in an impossible situation where violence is guaranteed, most people would choose the bear.
What society so often fails to see is that trauma actually imbues the traumatized with something important. Beyond what we already survived or are trying to survive, trauma provides us with protection through our discernment, when our pasts inform the choices we make about how and to whom we give our trust. As trauma survivors, we have unique abilities to sense safety, and in particular, when a situation feels unsafe for us. Trauma survivors often have an inherent knowing, a felt sense, about the people around them. We develop these skills because these very adaptations ultimately helped us to survive. Trauma is not proof of our brokenness. It is wisdom.
***
Emily K. Healy is a tenured instructor of sociology who brings both compassion and her expertise in trauma to the campus community. Healy holds multiple professional certifications, specializing in traumatic grief and advocacy for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. As a spiritual care provider and training chaplain, Healy’s philosophy is rooted in empathic witness for each individual’s story. Her approach to trauma-informed care believes that people are not pathologies, centering consent, harm reduction, and honoring that healing is among the hardest work we will ever be called to do.
