How To Recognise The Signs of Coercive Control and Regain Your Sense of Self After Abuse
By Caoimhe Millar
Coercive control has long been seen as lesser than abuse. It can go undetected for a long time, and often for the victim it isn’t clear cut-enough to call it out as abuse. It isn’t a smack in the face. It leaves a trail of ambiguity in its wake – much to the perpetrator’s delight. Just enough ambiguity to gaslight you into believing that it isn’t that bad. You’re imagining things. No one will believe you.
Although awareness has increased in recent years around coercive control and there has been more education on what this level of abuse entails, there is a gap in the literature on how we can recover and reclaim our identity after escaping this trauma. The first step in recovering from coercive control is understanding the severity of it and recognising it as abuse. It should not be underestimated. Abuse is a trauma; this has lasting effects on the mind and body.
Some signs of coercive control include:
Surveillance
Is your phone monitored? Is your social media activity scrutinised? Are you questioned about how long you’re out of the house, or who you’re speaking to? Do you feel you need to account for every minute of your life?
Criticism, accusations and verbal abuse
Mocking, putting you down, diminishing your views, name calling and repeatedly accusing you of lying and cheating is abuse.
Using pressure-tactics
Examples of these include sulking if they don’t get their way (including when you say no to sex), threatening to withhold money, taking away or destroying your phone or other means of communication, threatening or attempting self-harm and suicide.
Sexual violence
This can be anything from using force, threats or intimidation to get you to perform sexual acts, pressure to have sex when you don’t want to, and even forcing you to have sex with other people.
Isolation
This is a key component in control. It can involve getting you to make excuses as to why you can’t attend family or social events, using guilt to get you to stay at home and often making fun of your interests to discourage you from going to anything related to them.
Once you have recognised the signs and have acknowledged that being isolated, belittled and monitored is abuse, it can feel like your entire identity has been stripped away. It may take some time to recover from this abusive relationship. As mentioned, acknowledging the severity of it is step number one. You can then implement other strategies to aid in reclaiming your identity.
Lean on people you know and trust
This is huge. Perpetrators often attempt to sever important connections, therefore a big part of reconnecting with yourself is reconnecting with your close circle of family and friends. These people will know you well; they will be a positive support and help aid your self-esteem.
Catch your negative narratives
Remember, just because someone says something about you, it does not make it true. Holding onto someone’s view of you will only serve to perpetuate the abuse. The abuser speaks from insecurity and a constant need to be validated and reassured – from a place of control. None of these components makes what they say about you true. Talk to yourself with love and compassion.
Start doing the things you love
Remember when you loved painting, writing, going running? You stopped because you were made to feel like these things weren’t important. But whatever your lost hobbies were, start them up again. They were once a joy to you and you should make space for them again in your life.
Work with your triggers
Triggers will show up. They will be unexpected – hence the name. Triggers are past experiences being stimulated by things like noises, smells, words and images, making themselves known in your present. You can work with your triggers by first recognising them. If something has made you feel uncomfortable, ask yourself why. What is this triggering and why? What has come up for you? Write it down or talk it out. Acknowledge that something has triggered an emotion.
Make a list of your beliefs and values
Often through manipulative relationships, your values are lost because your own voice is diminished. Remind yourself what is important to you, what you stand for and what you believe in. Remind yourself of your views and stand by them.
Feel your feelings
After any breakup, it isn’t uncommon to feel a wave of emotions. But after an abusive relationship some of these feelings may be more heightened than others. You may feel a sense of shame or guilt. Hindsight may be strong, and you may feel a sense of regret, a lack of self-awareness or even a lack of self-love. Feel these feelings, and learn from what they are communicating to you. But don’t dwell on them.
Therapy
In-depth therapy is strongly recommended for recovery after abuse. This will enable you to talk through your insecurities, fears and negative self-talk in a safe space with a qualified professional. This will be a catalyst for regaining your identity and getting back to your core self.
Any kind of abuse is massively challenging and can lead to a lot of uncertainty and fear. It can seem impossible to come back from. Coercive control has an unseen layer of complexity because it is often undetected and even justified by the victim, who doesn’t recognise it as abuse. This makes it even more difficult to recover and reclaim your identity, if it wasn’t clear that your identity was lost. Healing is made possible when abuse is acknowledged and the severity of it is understood. Only then can we begin to learn, connect and thrive having regained our sense of self.
Caoimhe Millar is from Derry in Ireland and is a personal development educator and writer. Caoimhe writes about mental health, relationships and self-care, advocating strongly for increased awareness around coercive control and its impact. She is also a single mum of two and works full-time in family support.