My Voice of Influence colleague, Rosanne Moore, is back on the show for part two of our series on breaking down destructive myths surrounding coercive control and abuse of power.

In part one, we went over the first seven myths and, in this episode, we’ll be going over the next seven.

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Free Resource Download and Lifeline Course Information (You can also text VOILIFELINE to 44222)

Find our Lifeline resources and information about the course here.

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Today, I have with me again, Rosanne Moore who is on the Voice of Influence team.  This is episode 2, part two of a two-part series around abuse of power and how coercive control, people who are trying to take coercive control, what the kind of myths are that people believe about that.

And so, we’re debunking some myths today and last week about this abuse of power and understanding situations like this is so important.  I’m so glad that we are doing it, Rosanne.  It is such an important thing for people to understand, not just people that are going through it, but even leaders, people who want to have a voice of influence.  Why does it matter to that person?  Why should they understand these myths?

Rosanne Moore:  Because you really can’t leave an abusive situation without help.  You need help on some level, something outside of yourself.  One of the dynamics of coercive control is to eliminate outside support systems.  And so, if we can get society to understand the myths and we challenge those so that people respond differently, we have a better chance of providing an outside support system for people who are trying to leave abusive situations.  Truth matters and wrong belief systems have terrible consequences.

Andrea:  Not only for that one person, but for the people that are around them for their work environment, for their church environment, or for their family. 

Rosanne Moore:  Yes, absolutely. 

Andrea:  All right.  And we want you to know on the outset, first of all, you need to go back.  If you haven’t listened to the last episode, please go back and listen to it.  You can listen to this one first.  That’s fine, but you do want to hear both episodes if you’re interested on this topic and if you really do want to be as somebody who is informed about this as a voice of influence, somebody who is informed about abusive relationships, coercive control, and how to really empower and bolden others that need it.

And we want you to know that there is a list of resources, a free download available for those who are seeking to get out of in particular an abusive marriage or intimate relationship.  And you can find that list of resources by texting to the number 44222 and text the letters VOI for Voice of Influence, VOILifeline all one word.  So, VOILifeline, text it to the number 44222.  You can also find information about that and a course that we are going to be offering and perhaps are already out depending on when you listen to this episode.  And you can find all that information at voiceofinfluence.net/lifeline.

OK, Rosanne, we’re going to tackle some more myths.  We’re going to debunk some more myths.  So number eight, this is something that the people say.  They hold it deeply.  They hold it deeply inside their heart, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard it or even like I remember thinking it and it’s almost embarrassing to say that but you think to yourself, “That can’t be true of so and so. They are such a good person.”

Rosanne Moore:  Right.

Andrea:  Why is this a myth?

Rosanne Moore:  OK.  Abusive people work very hard to present a persona that is trustworthy so that they can gain access and so they can be very generous.  They usually put on a very convincing, very charming, or very generous.  They are nice.  Niceness is not a character trait.  I think it was Boz Tchividjian who said it, “It’s not a character trait, it’s a personality presentation that you can choose.”  Niceness is a choice.  It’s not a character quality.

A person can choose nice behavior.  They can choose to do something that looks generous, all for the goal of gaining trust in order to betray.  People who work as spies in other countries do it all the time, you know.  We talk a lot about sleeper cells or whatever.  The whole idea of many horror movies is that the person that seems the most trustworthy is the one that turns out to be a serial killer or whatever, right?

And so the idea that we know, we just absolutely know that this person couldn’t be capable of what’s being accused, that that is a reason in and of itself not to investigate, not to seek further information, not to look at something as a possibility.  That’s what abusers count on.  That is what people count on.  I don’t know how many times that I have heard people say, “Well, you know, a person is innocent until proven guilty.”  No, that’s not true.  Legally, they are presumed innocent until proven guilty.  But if they did it, they did it whether they ever get proved or not.

People frequently say that “Well, a person is innocent until proven guilty.”  And the actual legal term is a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty.  In other words, you’re not supposed to face, like legal charges unless there’s evidence that you are guilty.  But the reality is if a person is guilty, they are guilty whether anybody else recognizes it or not.

And so the unintended effect of that, I will say this too, one of the hardest things for people who are in an abusive relationship is, although I’m not negating the need for there to be a presumption of innocence, the same presumption of innocence needs to be offered to the person who is coming forward with an allegation of abuse.

Andrea:  Wow.

Rosanne Moore:  Because what happens to them typically is they are treated as if they were a liar and a manipulator, and that they have ulterior motives.  The same presumption of good motives needs to be given to the person who’s coming forth with an allegation because statistically, it’s far more likely that they’re telling the truth and they’re paying a heavy price to do it.  And so that’s just something, I’m not saying that there’s not the need for investigation.  What I’m saying is there needs to be a willingness to be open-minded and to not assume we already know the facts because this person looks good on the surface.  Because we haven’t personally run into any treachery with this person does not automatically mean that somebody else hasn’t.

Andrea:  You know, Rosanne, as I’m thinking about this, I’m thinking in an abroad kind of way, people who have done really amazing things.  You look at the Harvey Weinstein’s case.  You look at a number of people.  We’ll just leave it at that, you know Bill Cosby. 

Rosanne Moore:  Bill Cosby.

Andrea:  Yes, exactly.  You look at these gentlemen and you think to yourself, “gentlemen,” you think to yourself “funny.”  You’re thinking to yourself “brilliant,” you know, because of the amazing work that they’ve done in the world, whatever they’ve produced or whatever.  And so it’s a great loss to actually say that they could actually be wrong.  Maybe they’re not such a good person.  Maybe they’ve done some amazing things, but people are complicated.  They’re not just evil or good.  They’re very often have done good things in the world but have done very bad things.  And unfortunately, those bad things have consequences that have to be dealt with; otherwise, they’re going to just keep going and going.

Rosanne Moore:  One of the most chilling things I’ve ever read is the account of a young German woman who talked about, she worked as a waitress at a hotel that Hitler frequented during the war.  And she talked about how kind he was and how he would ask after her mother and sisters and the things that he did that went out of his way to, you know, do nice things for her family.  It was just unbelievable the account that she gave of him and of his top generals said that the same people who are systematically torturing and murdering thousands of people, if you hear her account, were also capable of doing generous things, you know, for her and her family.  And it was chilling to read.

I mean, there was a level of denial even with all of the evidence to the contrary because she had had a good experience with them that she felt like they’re being made out to be worse than they are.  And as she said, “People are complicated and we are made in the image of God,” which means we are capable of great good, but we are capable of making terrible choices.  That image has been impacted by our separation from God and we’re capable of doing terrible things and justifying those to ourselves.  That’s something we have to grapple with deeply.

Andrea:  Hmm.  And then I know that another myth that we’d talked about has to do with when a victim comes forward you think to yourself, “The victims of abuse should be able to accurately account details.  They’re confused.  Why are they confused?  Well, they must be lying.”  Tell us why that’s not right.

Rosanne Moore:  Or yeah, they changed their timeline.  Their details changed or whatever.  Trauma impacts memory, memory is malleable to begin with but trauma impacts the brain.  And it doesn’t mean that you’re coming up, like you’re just creating things in your mind, but you can be piecing together things from different incidents and putting them together so that they’re not really accurate.  They happened, but maybe not at the time that you’re thinking they both happened, things like that.

So often, abuse victims are expected to behave in ways that they would only be capable of behaving if they had not actually been honest.  If you think simply about anybody who’s involved in law enforcement who’s been trained in taking witness statements.  If you have four witnesses to something and their story is exactly alike, that’s a sign that they’re lying.

They’ve planned a story because in reality, if you have four witnesses to the same crime or the same incident, they’re all going to be noticing different things.  Their perceptions are going to be different.  The core truth of what’s there may overlap, but they’re all going to be seeing something somewhat differently.  And so, often there’s this great burden of expectation that somebody who has been deeply traumatized should be able to give a very clear, cohesive, you know, organized account of what happened.  And in fact, that’s not true.  That would be an indication that they were making it up, not that they were telling the truth.

Andrea:  Very important to know.  All right, number 10, this is 10 of 14.  We did the first seven in the first episode.  Don’t forget to go back and listen to that.  All right, number 10; “She’s the one who is harming everyone.”

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah.

Andrea:  Now, wait a second.  In what context are we hearing this, Rosanne?

Rosanne Moore:  OK, so all right.  There’s a woman that I have walked closely with who she discovered her husband was having an affair and she made known that she was going to be taking legal steps to protect herself and her children and he didn’t pay child support and alimony when he was supposed to.  And so she followed through with court system and he ended up going to jail for not paying what he was supposed to be paying.  He withheld funds for the provision of children and he went to jail.

And her mother-in-law said, “You put him in jail.”  

No, he made all of those choices.  He chose to be unfaithful.  He chose to shack up with somebody else and to spend money on drugs and other things.  He chose not to provide for his children.  He put himself in jail.  She didn’t do that, she just asked the court to address the behavior that he chose.  And yet you see that happen constantly, you know that kind of thing.

The abused one who comes forward in a church setting and is told, “Well, you are harming not only him but his family and you’re harming the name of Christ.”  

No, he chose all of that by choosing to behave in unhealthy ways, in wrongful ways.  

In a situation where there’s a whistleblower in a corporation, “You’re harming our bottom line.  Our stock has dropped because of you, because you made this known.”  

No, whoever did the deceitful or unethical thing; they’re the ones who created that situation.  It’s not the whistle blower, it’s the one who did the wrong that created the situation and yet has fallout for other people.  Be mad at the right person, not at the one who calls the abuser on it but for the one who makes the bad choice.

Andrea:  Hmm, so important.  OK, number 11; this really shouldn’t impact you that bad “Why do you have to make such a big deal of this sort of thing?

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  I can tell you that when you live with somebody who is seeking to destroy you and who’s constantly playing mind games with you, who is constantly attempting to distort your perception of reality, one of the impacts of that is that it makes you distrust your own judgment.  Another reason, just to kind of go back a little bit, why is it difficult to the whole thing of accounting details in a timeline or whatever.  This plays into that as well.

Often an awareness of what’s happening dawns over time.  You see things that don’t add up, but then there’s a plausible explanation that gets given and so you accept that because you don’t want to be hard-nosed and so an awareness of what’s happening unfolds over time.  But then in retrospect, when you look back and you realize, “I saw signs of this, I should have figured it out sooner.  I should have known.  I should have somehow like recognized what was going on and protected myself and then I could have escaped being through all this pain or having my children go through this pain,” whatever.  All of that happens in your head.  It takes time to uncover that.

The reality is we’re built for trusting healthy relationships and when those are violated and violated at a deep level the way that they are in a domestic abuse situation; it’s not just your trust in other people, it’s trusting your own judgment that gets violated.  And that’s what keeps women in that or keeps going back for so long.

So this kind of goes back as well to the whole issue of that there should be a sequential account that can be given and a cohesive narrative and all of that.  The reality is a person who’s in an abusive situation, they see things, but then they’re given a plausible explanation for them and so they go on.  And the awareness of what’s actually happening takes place over time.  And so when the clarity about what has happened finally comes enough so that they start to take steps to get out of the abusive situation, they’re looking back and they’re thinking, “Oh, I should have seen this sooner.”  I mean, when and such and such happened, like, “Why didn’t I get out?”  Or “What didn’t I do something differently then?”  So they’re actually their own sense of being able to trust their perceptions have been undermined over time.

So, not only do they have to learn to trust other people after having their trust deeply violated, and that’s a big part of health is the ability to trust again, trust other people again.  But first they have to learn to trust their own perceptions again.  And when you have your own sense of your ability to know who is safe and who’s not and what’s right and what’s not right and all of that, when that gets taken from you, when that gets violated that takes time to recover that.  It’s like having the floor fall out from under you and just be in free fall for a long time.

And there are also physiological changes that take place.  A lot of times, women who are in abusive relationships get accused of being codependent and what they actually are is trauma bonded.  Codependency has to do with behavior patterns that try to manage somebody else’s addiction, unhealthy caretaking patterns that try to manage somebody else’s addiction.

A trauma bonding is actual changes in the brain of someone who’s being abused where they’re trying to figure out in the relationship what’s causing the person to behave badly sometimes and be kind other times.  It’s not necessarily a cycle, but there’s usually some reward delivery system that’s intermittent that takes place in an abusive relationship and the person is being told something that you did caused the punishment. 

And then the person will be nice, and so they’re trying to figure out,  “What was it that made the relationship work?” at that point where they’re regaining your trust.  And not only does it draw you back in emotionally, but there are actual physiological changes that take place in trauma bonding in the brain where it’s almost like an addictive chemical release in the brain, and it’s one of the most difficult things to overcome.  And so it takes time and it takes proper understanding with a therapist, working with therapist who understands trauma to be able to get through that.  You can’t just flip a switch.  Just because you’re out of the relationship doesn’t mean all of that goes away.  It takes time.  It takes safety.  It takes safe people to be able to recover from that.

Andrea:  Hmm.  OK, so, here we are at number 12.  This myth that “The victim must be exaggerating.” 

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  Usually, actually, in a domestic abuse situation and coercive control situation, the person is not exaggerating.  They’re minimizing.  They’re actually minimizing, and that’s because denial while it has its negatives, it also serves the function of only giving us as much information as we can deal with in a highly traumatic situation.

Andrea:  And you said that’s denial that does that.

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah.

Andrea:  So denial serves both purposes.

Rosanne Moore:  Right.

Andrea:  Denial for the person who is being abused is what you’re talking about right now. 

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  For the person who’s being abused, denial is both friend and foe.  When you’re living in that kind of intense trauma, there’s only so much reality that you can handle at a time without being completely destroyed by it.  And so when you take that little part that you can bear to talk about and you take it to another person and their response is to say, you’re exaggerating, that person’s actually being gaslighted by society in general.  Gaslighting comes from a movie, an old movie where there was a deliberate attempt by an abuser to drive his wife insane in order to get her money.

Andrea:  And to make her think that she was wrong all the time and that she wasn’t thinking correctly.

Rosanne Moore:  That she was losing her mind, where he would adjust the gaslights in the house to make the lights flicker and then tell her that that wasn’t happening.  So she would think she was losing her mind.  So when someone takes that piece of information that they’re able finally to address and they go to someone else and they’re being told, “You’re just exaggerating, it’s not that bad.  You should be able to cope.”  It’s incredibly damaging, incredibly damaging.  The reality is most of the time that’s the tip of the iceberg, and what’s happening underneath in the dynamics of the relationship is far, far worse.

And when someone in that situation takes that little piece of information and is finally heard and is brought to a safe place where they can start to unpack it, usually you’re looking at a huge process of having to look at what the depths of the reality that they were living with actually is.  And so it’s adding insult to injury to say, “Oh, you’re just exaggerating.”

Andrea:  Hmm.  So number 13, “I couldn’t possibly be deceived by this person.  Surely I know that this isn’t true.”

Rosanne Moore:  Well, the reality is all of us are vulnerable to deception if we’re given the right circumstances.  All you have to do, again, go back to Nazi Germany, you had an entire nation, there were a few people who stood out as being people who didn’t buy into the lie, who saw what was happening and spoke out against it.  But the vast majority of the country was not Nazi.  They didn’t agree with the ideology, but they were impacted by it.  They were party to it.  They helped make it happen because they didn’t see the dynamics of what was happening for what they were and they minimized, and all it took was being afraid to speak up or looking the other way or collaborating in various ways.  So, you didn’t have to be the spearhead that was doing the actual abuse, all you had to do is collaborate by not speaking out.

Andrea:  OK.  And just this idea of not speaking out, I think, it’s tough for people to know, Rosanne, when they should speak out and when they shouldn’t, especially on behalf of somebody else. 

Rosanne Moore:  Right.

Andrea:  It’s hard to know and yet when you see somebody being targeted for abuse or you see these negative behaviors to not stand up and say something…

Rosanne Moore:  Empowers the abuser.

Andrea:  It certainly does, it certainly empowers the abuser and so silence, unfortunately, is consent.

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  Yes, yes.  You know, part of this is when I say that everybody is vulnerable to deception given the right circumstances, part of the protection against this is being really honest about what motivates you. 

Andrea:  Oh, that’s so good.

Rosanne Moore:  You know, you’re going to be less likely to be open to hearing from someone about an abuse situation if the person that they’re accusing is someone that does something for you or you’re somehow a member of the tribe that they help lead. That can be political.  I mean, we see it all the time in both political parties where they’ll point to something in the other side that they are giving a blind eye too in their own camp.  That’s true in churches where they’ll criticize something that’s outside, but they won’t deal with it when it’s in their own myths.

So, there has to be an awareness of what am I getting out of choosing not to listen, not to see, and not to be willing to investigate.  That’s a big part of it is we’re most vulnerable to deception when we have our own motives that are being served, our own agenda that is being served.

Andrea:  And that’s a toughie because people want to believe that their tribe, that their people are good people and that anybody that would come and attack their people are bad people.  And so we do this dualistic kind of idea in our minds about good and evil and assume that we’re on the side of good and that those who are with us are on the side of good when we’re all very much more complicated than that.  And if we can’t recognize that, if we don’t humble ourselves to recognize that we could also be deceived – it’s humility.  It’s the honest humility that’s saying I might not be right.

Rosanne Moore: Right, right.

Andrea:  And if we can’t say that we’re going to end up inadvertently possibly, very sadly helping abusers.

Rosanne Moore:  I would say that’s the early stages of it, is that the humility to recognize that I could be deceived and be willing to humble myself and investigate.  But then the backside of that or the deeper implication is when we lack that and we’re challenged with evidence, then there’s a hardening that I’ve seen take place where that unwillingness because now I have something to defend.  Not only do I not want to admit that I’m not capable of being deceived, but I have decided that I have to be on the right side already.  Therefore, anything further challenges not just my perception, but my rightness.

Andrea:  Uh-hmm, my identity.

Rosanne Moore:  Yes, my identity, exactly.  And so then not only am I willing to look at the possibility of being deceived, but now once I’ve chosen not to go there and I’ve taken steps that have proven to be wrong then I have to face that I actually was the bad guy.  I was not the hero.  I empowered evil, and a lot of people are not willing to recognize that, I mean, all of us.  I will say this myself, I have journeyed with abuse survivors for over 30 years, and I did not do it well early on because I had a lot of these myths that I believed, and I was not good at listening appropriately early on.

And so part of my own journey has been having to humble myself and recognize I was at times part of the problem, not part of the solution.  The only way I can be a good guide now is to be willing to acknowledge when I’m wrong.

Andrea:  Yeah, absolutely.  And that’s really hard.  It’s really hard to do when you feel so strongly about a topic, and the person that you’re defending cares about that topic too.

Rosanne Moore:  Right, right.

Andrea:  But I think that’s just the idea of keeping in mind that everybody is complicated and that we’re not all just good or evil and that we could also be wrong about things.  This is being a mature person, and if you’re wanting to have a voice of influence in the world, you have to cultivate these things in yourself.  You have to be able to confront some of the really hard things in life and kind of take a really hard look at yourself in order to be able to move forward so that you can actually be an advocate, be a support, be a positive impact on the culture to minimize the power dynamics that are at play and be a part of good.  And I say good – it kind of sounds like we’re the good ones and they’re the bad ones – I guess, and I don’t really mean that, but you know, to be furthering good in the world.

Rosanne Moore:  Right, there is good and evil that is absolute.  And at times we join it and at times we don’t.  And so instead of trying to see ourselves in terms of us being good or evil, we need to acknowledge that we’re a mixture and that we need to be constantly looking at where we’re giving place to evil in our lives so that we can move away from that. 

Andrea:  So good.  OK, and this last one is a toughie.  It’s a hard one to swallow Rosanne, and so I hope that you can leave us on a positive note in some way.  But the last myth that we’re talking about is “If I tell the truth, the system will bring me justice.”

Rosanne Moore:  Yes.

Andrea:  And why is that not necessarily true?

Rosanne Moore:  And the social myth being that if what the woman is sharing is true, then the system will protect her.  It’s not true because the laws are written by fallible people, and they’re executed by fallible evil, and the same things that can be social myths in the greater society also play out in the court system.  I have frequently heard it said that the courts favor women.  If they accuse abuse, the courts automatically assume that that’s true.

A study was recently done that shows absolutely, that is not true.  Actually, if a woman comes forward with allegations of abuse, it doesn’t really matter how much evidence she has that her children are being abused; the court will actually punish her for trying to protect her kids.  And so you just have to understand that the court is flawed.  And while I do not advocate doing anything illegal – you definitely want to utilize the court system to the degree that you can.

One of the things I had to come to terms with, I went into a very naive thinking that I will just tell the truth, and I’ll present evidence of the truth, and the legal system will protect me.  And that was not the case, at least not to the degree that I expected that it would happen.  And so that was a bitter pill. That almost as bad as the whole situation I was facing, was the sense of betrayal that I felt by the legal system.  The courts tend to assume that women exaggerate the abuse to use it as a weapon to get back at somebody that they’re just fed up with for lesser reasons.

This isn’t true, but that’s the mindset.  That’s the myth that the court is operating under.  Often the boxes that the lawyers are ticking off basically in terms of building a case,  lawyers build a case looking at the laws and these are the parameters for how we build a case.  Those boxes often don’t fit the reality of what an abuse situation looks like. 

And so you may have a good attorney who’s able to take enough of your situation and put it in a box that they can protect you.  But if your situation is kind of outside those boxes, then your solution lies outside of those boxes.  That’s not suggesting that you should thumb your nose at the law, but one of the things that we’re going to address in the Lifeline system is what do you do, for instance, when you have a partner who is an abusive parent without engaging in criminal behavior.  So your children are having to deal with abuse, but it’s not the kind of abuse that the law views as criminal and therefore will take action on.

There are things you can do but your help is going to have to come outside the legal system.  It’s not going to be from the system itself.  Like I said, I had a very naive view of the justice system, but what I’ve come to realize is the legal system can restrain evil, but it cannot provide justice.  God has to do that.  And it doesn’t come on our timetable, unfortunately.  I mean, no, ultimately, fortunately, because He knows more about what we need than we do.  But the legal system can only restrain evil.  It can’t provide us ultimate justice, and that’s an awareness we have to come to the system with so that we’re not asking it to do something it’s not capable of doing.

Andrea:  Or expecting it to save us in a way, like, there’s a lot of responsibility that you still have to sort of understand how to make it work, how to navigate it.  And in hearing, Rosanne, the content of the Lifeline course and working with you on that, it has helped me to have a way better idea of the importance of so many different kinds of support that women need and how they can get that support and then how they can navigate all of the changes that they’re going through navigate the legal system.  Not that you’re a lawyer, we’re certainly not lawyers, though there some counseling background and spiritual direction background in Voice of Influence, we’re not claiming counseling or, you know, legal advice in this course; however it is a guide for someone to help gain clarity that they know how to proceed with the right people.

Rosanne Moore:  Yes, and how to choose the professionals that can help them in those areas.

Andrea:  So if you don’t have a friend that has been down this road before and can help you make those decisions then this course would certainly be a benefit to a woman that is going through that process. 

Rosanne Moore:  You asked about, how do we look at that last one with hope?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Rosanne Moore:  The system can’t bring me justice, but God is a God of justice.  God is a God of justice. He is always on the side of the oppressed.  He’s always against oppression.  And so when we feel trapped, I mean that was the point that I had to keep coming back to.  I’ve worked this past week with a woman who is in an extremely dangerous situation, and we are trying to get her all of the people on her team that can help her get out of that safely and preserve her life.  This is probably the most escalated violent situation that I’ve worked with to date, and we got some bad news earlier in the week.   That night, my prayer was, “God, evil cannot be stronger than you.  It just can’t be stronger than you, so we need you to step into this because evil cannot be stronger than you.”

And the next day, the resources that she needed came into place.  And so that I would say is while the system is flawed, like every other man-made thing, God is on the side of the oppressed.  And so there is hope.  There is hope, and if anybody hearing this feels absolutely trapped in your situation, there is a way of escape, and you want to proceed carefully, we want to help you get resources.  You don’t want to act precipitously, we want to help you put things in place to keep things as safe as possible for you.  That’s our goal.

But just know that there is hope.  You do not have to believe what you’re being told by your oppressor, which is that there is no way out.  That’s not true.  There are things that can be done to help rescue you.

Andrea:  Yeah, I mean it’s so complicated.  I just want to say too that there’s no promises, there’s no guarantees in life.  Even with prayer, there’s no guarantee that something will just come.

Rosanne Moore:  But I will say, I have seen again and again and again and again with the women that I’ve worked with – I’ve seen again and again and again because one of the lies that women believe that there is nothing that they can do, that they are completely helpless.  And they stay in that situation for a long time believing that there is no way out, but when they art to come to terms with the possibility of escape, I have seen things lined up that were not readily visible.

So are there bad things that happen?  Yes, there are.  But I would tell you that there are options that may not be immediately visible for you and we want to try to get you the resources that you need, get you plugged in locally or wherever, to things that can help make that path of escape for you.

Andrea:  Thank you so much for sharing this.  I don’t know your passion for this Rosanne, your wisdom that you have gained through walking very difficult path.  And I want to remind everyone that you can download the list of resources by texting, VOILifeline, Voice of Influence Lifeline, VOILifeline, all one word, no spaces to the number 44222.  And you can also find that information there as well as information about the course at voiceofinfluence.net/lifeline.  We hope that this is helpful for a lot of people.

Rosanne Moore:  Yes.

Andrea:  All right.  Thank you so much for spending your time with us today.  Rosanne and I are glad that you have stuck it out and listened and are so grateful that you’re open to learning and growing and, you know, finding even more humility within yourself to be able to recognize that some of these myths might even be things that you have thought in yourself.  So let’s go out and know that…

Rosanne Moore:  I was going to say just a word of challenge.  Next time you watch a crime drama, pay attention to how many of these myths are voiced in it because they’re very common in television.

Andrea:   Hmm.  Perfect.  OK, so just know that your voice matters and you can make it matter more.  Thanks, Rosanne!

My Voice of Influence colleague, Rosanne Moore, is back on the show to break down destructive myths surrounding coercive control and abuse of power.

We’ve broken fourteen myths into two groups that will be split between this episode and the next.

In this episode, Rosanne shares what the dynamics of abuse of power and coercive control, the importance of understanding the myths around abuse of power and coercive control, the truth behind the seven myths below.

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Free Resource Download and Lifeline Course Information (You can also text VOILIFELINE to 44222)
• Read Rachael Denhollander’s full victim impact statement about Larry Nassar

Find our Lifeline resources and information about the course here.

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Today, I have with me Rosanne Moore.  She is in the business with Voice of Influence.  She does a lot of incredible things, and we’ve had her on before where we’ve visited about your expertise, Rosanne.  We’re going to go a little bit deeper into that today.

And the reason why this particular topic is important is that the idea of having a voice is the foundation of what we do with Voice of Influence.  And when somebody comes across an abuse of power – in particular in their own lives – it takes their voice away.  It makes it very difficult for them to be able to have agency in their lives to make a difference and do the things that they want to do.

And so today, we’re going to start a two-episode series on the myths that are related to this abuse of power.

Andrea: So, Rosanne, thank you so much for being here again today on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Rosanne Moore:  That is my pleasure.  I’ve been looking forward to this.

Andrea:  So when we’re talking about this abuse of power, first of all, can you just sort of give us a summary overview of what the dynamics of abusive power would look like in a relationship or in any particular setting?

Rosanne Moore:  Well, my background is a domestic abuse situation.  I came into that with a lot of the common misconceptions about what was involved in domestic violence, domestic abuse.  And what I’ve learned is the dynamics of abuse and abusive power are not necessarily about violence, physical violence.  They’re about coercive control.  And that can take place in a church.  It can take place in a business.  It can take place in a marriage.  It can take place between parents and children, and it can happen in a totalitarian regime if you look at what happened in Nazi Germany, for instance, or other totalitarian governments, North Korea.

And so when you learn about the dynamics of coercive control, there are a lot of different applications for them. 

So I guess, when we’re talking about abuse in a home, there are broad applications for what coercive control can look like in relationships.

Andrea:  So, today, we’re going to be tackling it.  You and I worked really hard on… you kind of sharing with me a lot of information, and then we distilled this into a bunch of myths that people believe.  And why is it important that we understand the difference between myth and reality?

Rosanne Moore:  Because a big part of coercive control is able to take place because of people who are decent, good people who believe wrong things.   And so they reinforce the power of the abusive person without even realizing it just by believing things that are not true that make it very difficult for a person who is being abused to escape the power of the abuser.

Andrea:  So a voice of influence is somebody who cares about this.

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah.

Andrea:  If you are listening to this podcast, you’re somebody who cares, and you want the people that you lead, you want the people that you work with, you want the people that have any kind of influence on to have a voice.  You want them to feel empowered and be able to make a difference in their own lives and in the realms of their influence.

And so the reason why we’re tackling this today is because we believe that it is fundamental.  It is absolutely imperative that voices of influence have a very clear understanding of what is myth and what is reality when it comes to these dynamics of coercive control as Rosanne was saying.

Rosanne Moore:  Yes.  And in any business or any group, it’s just important to know that a large percentage of the people that you’re dealing with, people in society have experienced some level of abuse at some point in their lives.  They may be currently in it.  It may have happened to them earlier, and it has long-term impact for them.

So, being aware of that and understanding the dynamics and the things that you can do to help a person recover their voice and bring all of who they are, and all of their gifts, and all the things that they learned; because people who come out of abusive situations are survivors, and they have a lot of gifts to offer.  And so understanding that and being able to help utilize their gifts and help them in the process of recovery is really valuable.

Andrea:  All right.  Now, we also want you to know that Rosanne has compiled a list of resources that, in particular, would be beneficial to a woman who is leaving an abusive relationship.  Is that right, Rosanne?

Rosanne Moore:  It is.  And because my experience, and the domestic abuse situation, in general, tends to be disproportionately applicable to women, that’s what we’re going focus on.  I do want to acknowledge from the outset that there are relationships where the woman is the abuser, and the man is the one who’s being victimized.  The dynamics of that are slightly different, and so I want to acknowledge that and the reality of that and the pain of that.

But I do want to say that today, the pronouns that we’re going to use are, you know, female pronouns for the victim and male pronouns for the perpetrator simply because that’s the most common in a domestic violence situation between intimate partners.  That can be different when there are parents and children involved.

But that’s what we’re going to be looking at today.  And the list of resources that we have, while it is primarily targeted toward women in abusive situations, there are going to be really good resources that will be applicable to anybody who’s coming out of some form of abuse.

Andrea:  So if you would like to download that list of resources, please, we encourage you to do so.  If you know somebody that needs them or if you need them… and if you know somebody that needs to hear this podcast episode, we want this to be a resource that is available to you and this list of resources to be available for further help.  And so, you can get that list of resources by texting to the number 44222, text the letters VOI – that’s for Voice of Influence – VOILIFELINE.  So you’re texting VOILIFELINE to the number 44222, and you can download that list of resources.  And we will also have it available at voiceofinfluence.net/lifeline.

All right, and then I want to also mention too that Rosanne is working on a very helpful course that would be not just a list of resources, but it is something that we will talk about a little bit more here at the end.  But I wanna just let you know that there is a very affordable course that is coming that could really help women who are just coming out of an abusive relationship.

Okay, Rosanne, let’s start sharing these myths that have to do with coercive control and the way that people kind of look at it.  So, today, we’ll share seven of them and then we will share seven more in the next episode.  Okay, so, first of all, the first myth that we identified was that, “People get targeted for abuse because they are weak or gullible.”

Rosanne Moore:  Right.

Andrea:  Rosanne, why is this not true?

Rosanne Moore:  You have to understand that an abuser is looking to make themselves large by breaking down someone else.  There’s no great thrill in destroying someone who is already destroyed.  Actually, what researchers have found is that abusers target people who have strength that they admire.  They are looking to dominate and to break down someone who is strong, who is independent.  For women in particular, the qualities that they look for is somebody who is kind, empathetic, and interesting.

So, essentially, it’s the very strength that a person has that makes them a target.  It’s not weakness; it’s strength.  And that’s true for cults.  I’ve done some research around cults because while there are people who just take pleasure in doing evil, period, you know – so they don’t really care who the target is, they just enjoy doing evil – most abusers get something out of the fight, out of destroying someone who is resistant to their domination, which means they have to have the strength to resist.

Andrea:  All right, so don’t believe the myth that people get targeted for abuse just because they’re weak or gullible.  So whether you’re the person that is in the situation where you’re being taken advantage of or abused, or if you are just society at large thinking about people, hearing stories, just don’t believe that myth.

Okay, so, number two; “If you are impacted by trauma, you are weak.”  First of all, what do you mean by that, Rosanne, and then explain why that’s not true.

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  So when people are impacted by trauma, often those who are seeing them afterward are thinking, “Well, why did they respond that way?  Why didn’t they just do x, y, z?”  They should have just been able to see that the person was lying.”  They should have just been able to fight back in this particular way that the healthy person sees as a rational response.  What people fail to understand is trauma changes the brain.

A domestic abuse victim responds very much the way a POW does.  And now you stop and think about that.  A military prisoner of war has been trained for battle.  They’ve been trained to prepare for the possibility of being captured.  And yet the impact of trauma on the brain, on the body means that they typically respond in some very predictable ways.  The trauma is designed to break down the brain of the other person, the rational thought processes of another person.

We are made for healthy relationships.  We are not made to live closely with people who are trying to do us constant harm.  And so women who are in abusive relationships are basically in a hostage situation.  Whereas in a prisoner of war situation, you went into it knowing who the enemy was; in an intimate abuse situation, you went into it believing this was a person who loved you most and was going to be most for you in your life, and yet they’re actually out to destroy you.

And so it’s very common for people to misunderstand the response of somebody who has been injured by trauma and say, “Why don’t they just…” and you can fill in that blank many, many ways, when in fact the person is behaving in ways that are typical of someone who has been deeply traumatized.

Andrea:  Hmm.  Okay, and we talk about trauma again, I think, later and maybe even in the next episode, Rosanne.  But I think just the understanding that trauma changes you and it makes it difficult for you to think and rationally is so important, especially around anything that’s triggering.

Rosanne Moore:  Yes.  And you can’t just muscle your way out of it, and you can’t just rise above it in the midst of it.  There’s a level at which healing can’t really come until you’re outside of the thing that is harming you.  You can survive it.  There are many, many people who survive horrifically traumatic situations and they managed to, you know, pull out the strength that they need to survive that situation.  But for them to really be restored to health, they need to get outside of the traumatic situation – not still be under assault – to begin the healing process.

Andrea:  All right, number three; “If it’s really that bad then you could just leave, right?”  Rosanne, why is that not necessarily true?  And we’re not just talking about, you know, intimate partner relationships right now.  This definitely applies in many different situations.  So why is it not so easy to leave?

Rosanne Moore:  Well, in a marriage, you have legal things holding you into the marriage, for one thing.  It doesn’t usually become apparent what’s happening.  One of the things about abuse that people misunderstand is when you’re in a coercive control relationship, the abused person frequently doesn’t know they’re being abused.  They just know that something’s not right.  And so their go-to usually is, “What is it about me that I need to change for this situation to change?”  Which in general, if you think about it, is a healthy thing, you know.  The thing that you have the most control over usually is yourself.

And so it’s a healthy reality for a person to want to look at their own part and their own ability to change.  The problem in a coercive control situation, the victim is not the problem, and so no amount of change on their part is going to change the dynamic of the situation.  In general, though, there are many things; there are financial concerns, there are legal things that bind a person into a relationship, there are practical things like housing if you’re in a marriage. And a person who is abusing through coercive control systematically undermines the support system of their target.  And so they are removing options at every turn, so just leaving isn’t simple.

In an employment situation, a person can’t just leave.  I mean, they have to live, they have to have a job.  When we look at what happened with Larry Nassar in targeting elite athletes, in order for them to compete for the Olympics or for these top things for which they were training, they were in the midst of a system that was in itself abusive.  And it wasn’t just Nassar; it was the whole way that the Olympic committee was set up the way that they protected abusive coaches, et cetera.  And so just leaving is not simple.

For women who have children, just leaving doesn’t get their children out.   When you have a person who is physically violent, just leaving can escalate the violence and can end up getting you killed.  And so there has to be a recognition that leaving is a complicated process, and there are a lot of pieces to it.  It doesn’t mean that you can’t, but it means that instead of just assuming, “If it’s really bad, you could just leave…”  That’s not reality.

Again, back to the POW thing, “Why don’t POWs just leave?”  There are a lot of answers to that question and none of them are simply within the power of the person being victimized.  There’s need for outside help.

Andrea:  All right, so myth number four; “You really need to stick with it.  Be loyal.  You need to stick with it because for the greater good.”

Rosanne Moore:  For the greater good, yeah.  In the context of marriage, people are told, you know, “Our society is breaking down because of divorce and you made a promise,” and in some cases it’s, you know, “You made a promise before God, and you need to stick with it.”  If you are dealing with a coercive control situation, you are dealing with someone who is systematically seeking to do harm.  There is no greater good that is being served by protecting an abusive person.

People say that… you know, they try to silence a victim because they don’t want to have to deal with the discomfort.  They don’t know what to do with it.  And they don’t want to have to deal with the discomfort of finding out the truth and finding out that the world isn’t as neat and tidy as they’d like to believe it is, and it’s wrong.  What they’re essentially saying when they say that for the greater good is they’re saying, “My comfort in avoiding this is more important than the fact that you are at risk and you are being sacrificed.”

Andrea:  And how do you see that playing out?  I know that sometimes it has to do with maybe parents who feel shame about the fact that maybe their child is now getting a divorce, or people in a church or a religious environment where they don’t like the fact that somebody is actually thinking that they need to leave. “No, you need to stay.”  And why is that so important to people?  I mean, it’s comfort on one hand, but what else?  What else is that?

Rosanne Moore:  Well, I think we have to go back to what is true.  Does truth matter?  If the truth of the relationship is you’ve got somebody who is seeking to do harm, then to try to silence the person who is asking for help is enabling evil.  And I think part of the time, what happens is people don’t understand the dynamics of what’s taking place.  There are things, in a church setting that are said like, “You know, you’re harming the name or the reputation of Christ,” for instance, if a victim of sexual abuse comes forward and names a leader in the church or even just somebody who’s prominent in the church.  People don’t want to hear that, and they’ll frequently say, “You’re hurting the church.  You’re hurting the name of Christ.”

So there’s this idea that if the victim is silent, it’s going to serve the greater good of the community.  But the whistleblower is actually serving the greater good because they’re exposing what will be detrimental to the health of the whole.  And that’s true whether it’s domestic violence or whether it’s in a corporate setting, somebody who discloses wrongful practices, whatever.  We need to honor the whistleblowers instead of being so invested in our own desire for the boat not to be rocked that we’re willing to go along with things that are ultimately going to be damaging to the whole of the group, the wellbeing of the group in the long term.

Andrea:  And I think too, it’s easy to think that this could be about one person.  If you do have a situation where maybe it is a leader of a group of people, that leader might be abusive and there might be people in the group that see all the good that that person does and they say, “But look at all the good that they’re doing.  Yes, there’s maybe a few things that aren’t great, but we need, you know, to move past that and whatever, and stay loyal, and look at all the good,” and that sort of thing.  And I think that also is a part of what this means to be loyal, what people think that they need to be loyal to the leader.

Rosanne Moore:  And so my question for that person was, “If it were your child that had been harmed by that leader, would you feel the same way?  If you were the one who had been assaulted by that leader, would that still be your position?”  No, probably not; very likely not.  Now that does happen sometimes where a parent will silence a child because they don’t want to upset things.  But you’re essentially saying that one person is the sacrificial lamb because this other person has done good things.

What people need to realize is abusive people often do good things in order to allow them the credibility to continue to harm others.  That’s very common.  That’s part of the lie that is being presented.  And so, that’s not an anomaly.  That’s part of the dynamic that takes place.

Andrea:  All right.  So I’m going to move to the next thing then.

Rosanne Moore:  Okay.

Andrea:   All right.  So for five, six, and seven here we’re going to talk about some of the myths that are around forgiveness in particular.  As we’re looking at forgiveness, it became really evident that we needed to separate these three because there’s a lot of confusion around forgiveness.  So, Rosanne, we’re going to start with number five that, “Forgiveness equals reconciliation.”  So, forgiveness means that I need to bring this person back into my life.  Why is this not right?

Rosanne Moore:  There’s no basis for that.  Reconciliation requires that the person be safe, be healthy, that there be change.  You can forgive someone.  You can release them to God.  You can determine you are no longer going to carry the weight of their offense and the bitterness toward them anymore.  But that is not the same, and often people who push forgiveness do so in the name of God.  There is no biblical basis for forgiveness without repentance and even if there’s repentance…

Andrea:  And repentance is essentially change, right?  It’s an actual change.

Rosanne Moore:  Exactly.  It’s actual change.  And so what often happens is there’s a demand for immediate forgiveness and immediate reconciliation.  Abusers use this in a big way.  You will often see abusive people who make a quick confession.  When they’re actually caught and they can’t deny it anymore, they make a quick confession and then they immediately push for reinstatement of relationship.  And what they’re really after is number one, no consequences and number two, the opportunity to re-offend.

And so, it’s very important not to push reconciliation that is premature.  When a person has had their trust deeply violated, they need to be the one who determines if and when reconciliation is ever possible or appropriate.  That’s not to say that they can’t forgive.  They can, but that doesn’t mean that reconciliation is necessarily a good thing.  It could actually be a harmful thing.

Andrea:  So, essentially even if they forgive, they still don’t have to be in a relationship with somebody who’s not safe.

Rosanne Moore:  Right, and to pressure that… especially since the person who has been wronged has more intimate knowledge than outsiders do of exactly how that wrong took place.  If a person is resistant to being reconciled, other people should not press for that because instead of just assuming that they’re just hard and bitter and unforgiving, there needs to be a recognition, “No, this person intimately knows what went into drawing in their trust in the past, and so they’re going to be the first to know whether or not that dynamic is still at play.”

Andrea:  Hmm exactly.  Okay, number six; “Forgiveness can happen instantly.”

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah, that’s not real.  In order to genuinely forgive, you have to grapple deeply with what was lost.  You know, if the offense is small, then you can forgive relatively quickly.  But when you’re talking about coercive control, you’re talking about systematic breaking down of another person and there’s an ongoing assault; it’s not a onetime offense.  And so for forgiveness to be real, a person has to grieve what has been taken from them, and they have to look at the implications for their life of what was lost and the long-term impact of what was lost.  You can make an immediate choice to commit to the process of forgiveness, but forgiveness is a process.

I know there were times when people would ask how we were doing, and I would talk about things that my children were going through on an ongoing basis, in terms of the impact of the abuse that we suffered.  And it didn’t take very long; people would get start to get uncomfortable, particularly if I showed any heat at all over what was happening to my kids.

Andrea:  You mean your personal anger, or what do you mean by “heat”?

Rosanne Moore:  Yes.  That if there was any kind of emotional reaction or anger expressed over what was happening to my children, people would shift into, “Well, you know, you gotta forgive.”  And my response to that was, “I am committed to the process of forgiving.  I am also committed to justice for my children.”  And anger is part of that.  There are things that people do that we should be angered by.  They’re just wrong.  They’re harmful.  They do tremendous damage, and if you’re not outraged when you hear about somebody’s voice being taken away in injustice, somebody being harmed, an innocent person being harmed, there’s something wrong.  Anger should be a part of our response.

Now, it should not be the controlling response that we have.  Committing to the process of forgiveness recognizes that this is an ongoing thing.  And if you’re in a relationship with an abusive person, there’s ongoing assault.  So even after I left, because my children still had contact, there was ongoing injury that was happening.  And so, there in particular, forgiveness had to be a process that I committed to, but it was not a switch that I could flip.

Andrea:  Mhmm, I think that that is super important, super important for people to understand that it’s not instantaneous and it’s not simple.  Okay, and finally for today, Rosanne, number seven; “Forgiveness negates any need for consequences.”  “Hey, I’ve forgiven them.”  “So you need to just move on.  You’ve forgiven them, so just move on.”  Why is this not true?

Rosanne Moore:  Because if the person is dangerous, the rest of society needs to be protected from them, honestly.  I mean, that’s the bottom line.  And there are consequences to our choices.   Forgiveness says, “I am not going to carry the bitterness of your action with me any longer.”  It does not mean that there aren’t consequences for your choices.

Rachel Denhollander gave a beautiful victim impact statement speech in which she addressed both the need for forgiveness – she offered forgiveness to her abuser at the same time she was calling for justice and that she had made great personal sacrifice to seek legal justice and to make sure that he couldn’t harm other people and that he faced the consequences for what he had done.

Andrea:  He being Larry Nassar?

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah.  And so the idea that if someone physically assaults me that pressing charges is unforgiving is wrong.  If somebody crosses that line, they need to face the consequences for that.  If someone embezzles from a company, they need to face the consequences for that.  There needs to be accountability that’s given because it’s not just a wrong against the individual.  There’s also a social wrong that has to be addressed as well and protection for the innocent in the future.

Andrea:  I think that another way to look at that too is that when we don’t have consequences for behavior like this, this behavior becomes normalized.

Rosanne Moore:  Yes.

Andrea:  We’re saying in effect, “This is okay, this is normal.  We should just move on.”  And then it just escalates.  It continues to become part of the culture, and it escalates.

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah.  A good picture of that is the fact that most sexual assault crimes are not ever prosecuted.  Very few sexual offenders ever face any kind of consequence for the behavior.  And if you look at our culture, it’s rampant.  I mean, there are all kinds of sexual abuse that’s just rampant.  Sex trafficking in our country, there’s so many ways in which it’s just exploded.  And part of the reason for that is there are no consequences.  The consequences are for the victim who seeks justice rather than for the perpetrator.

Andrea:  And why do you say that?

Rosanne Moore:  I’ve walked closely with several friends who have sought justice through the legal system.  And what they were put through in order to bring it to light where they had to be retraumatized again and again in the process of telling their story, and proving it, and being treated as if they were lying… and they were just revictimized on so many levels, only to have the person come to a hearing where they simply got a slap on the wrist, where they had no significant sentencing.  It was just unbelievable to watch.

So, they paid the price of the original wrong.  I mean, they carried the wrong.  They still carry the impact of the wrong that was done against them.  They courageously tried to stop evil at the sacrifice of themselves only to have the system do nothing in response, which emboldens, of course, the abuser.  Yeah, it’s a terrible thing when you watch something like that happen.

Andrea:  It certainly is.  And I think that that is why it is so important that more and more voices rise up to help embolden the ones that need to be heard.  And Rosanne, I know that that is your heart here today.  It is our heart, collectively, at Voice of Influence as we have been working on this Lifeline course.  Can you tell the listener just a little bit about that so that they have an idea of what is coming… or perhaps by the time they listen to this, it may already be out.  But tell us a little bit about that Lifeline course that you’ve been working on.

Rosanne Moore:  In order for a woman to leave an abusive relationship, she has to leave in her mind first and there has to be a pathway for her to leave.  Again, you know, it’s not as simple as, “If it’s really that bad, you’d just leave.”  There have to be things in place; otherwise, she can actually escalate the danger.  I’ve walked closely with a number of women who have been through this process.  I’ve been through it myself, and so one of the hardest parts is trying to do something like that while you’re unraveling the impact of trauma yourself.

And so I wanted to provide a resource that would help women to make decisions step by step.  Not tell them what to do, but help give them parameters to think through their specific situation, understand some of the situation they’re stepping into as they go into the court system.  There are some really good resources, and they will be on the resource list about how to deal with the psychological impact of things.  Our course is going to focus more on the very practical things.  How do you get out?  On a practical level, what steps do you have to take?  What pieces need to be in place to get out and to minimize the risk as much as possible?  And that’s what our course is going to be.

Andrea:  Okay, so, again, if you are interested in either/or, the download… it’s just a free download.  It’s a list of resources that you can use right away, or you can offer to somebody else right away.  You can get that by texting the letters VOILIFELINE to the number 4422 and at voiceofinfluence.net/lifeline.  That is where you can find that as well, and it’s also where you can find out some more information about the Lifeline course.

For the price of a book, you can purchase this course and be able to have what you need at least to get going, and to have a friend, a guide who has been there before and has guided others along this path.  We don’t claim to have all the answers.  We don’t claim to have all of the information.  What we do claim to do is to provide some guidance and help you come to some clarity for yourself so that you know how to move forward and how to proceed.

Rosanne, thank you so much for today, and I look forward to sharing more of these myths and debunking these myths again here in the next episode.

Rosanne Moore:  Thank you so much, Andrea.