What is Coercive Control?
Coercive control is an insidious form of domestic family violence (DVF) because, unlike, physical violence that often leaves physical evidence, coercive control is harder to recognise. The Queensland legislation will be activated in 2025 and carries a maximum jail sentence of 14 years. In New South Wales the law only applies to abusive behaviour that happens after 1 July 2024. However, if you have been a victim of coercive control in the past, I can coach you to gain your confidence and get your life back.
It is my belief that if women attended monthly preventative counselling, they would be able to free themselves from these situations before they lost their autonomy and confidence.
Much like bullying, coercive control is a pattern of behaviour which over time creates fear and denies liberty and autonomy. It aims to demoralise and disempower the victim so the victim’s sense of reality is in question. They have you second guessing yourself and might aim to have you feeling like you are stupid, irrational, unlikeable, incompetent, ugly, worthless etc. The only “correct view” according to the perpetuator is their view. So the victim is likely going to be told they are wrong, most of the time. This causes the victim to question themselves, their recollection of events, and generally anything that the perpetrator wants them to believe that isn’t actually true. It can look like gaslighting. Often the perpetrator accuses the victim of doing the exact thing the perpetrator is doing. Such as “cheating” or “being controlling”. It quite literally is crazy making and can make the victim look crazy while the perpetrator looks sane. When you wake up to what is going on you might find that they move your things when you’re not aware. Tiny micro aggressions may be happening that you are not seeing.
The victim will be beaten down emotionally and psychologically over time to take the view of the perpetrator. When coercive control happens to mothers and children it is described as a trauma bond and can be likened to Stockholm syndrome.
Perpetrators of coercive control often choose strong, smart, successful, independent women to leech off of. Beautiful strong women such as Allison Baden-Clay and Hannah Clarke. Women like you and me. Predators see something amazing in these women and their sick, narcissistic and sadistic tendencies want to suck the energy out of them.
Charming and manipulative predators may commence the relationship by putting the victim on a pedestal only to start diminishing them slowly once they have made the victim fall in love, move in together, or get enmeshed in some other way through school, college, church, groups, work, friendship circle, gym, etc. Sometimes all it takes is a marriage certificate or pregnancy for the abuse to really ramp up. Sometimes it just takes moving in together or aligning themselves with your friends, family, coworkers, boss or other people of influence and ganging up on you. The start of the abuse can look like them trying to change your behaviour or make you feel stupid by confusing you. Perhaps they offer to drive you to the gym but the underlying motivation is to remove your autonomy and stop you from talking to anyone else. Perhaps they offer to buy you a mobile phone or other device which seems really generous but the motivation is control. Perhaps this is an opportunity for them to gain access to all your passwords so they can monitor your activity.
Over time, without even noticing, the perpetrator who is often charming, manipulates the victim by using a veneer of concern, undermining her confidence and taking away her autonomy and independence using any method available.
If you are a victim of coercive control, I am here to help you find your feet, get clarity, confidence, freedom. Find yourself again and create the life you were meant to live!