Evidence of domestic violence is usually counted in bruises, cuts and broken bones. But abuse can destroy its victims without leaving physical scars. Otago Daily Times Queenstown bureau chief Tracey Roxburgh looks at psychological abuse, one of the most common forms of abuse - and one of the most difficult to prove.
Within three weeks of meeting him, Kate (not her real name) knew there was something wrong with her relationship - but she was already trapped.
The bubbly, outgoing, intelligent and attractive 21-year-old met her man at a wedding - he was "charming", older than her and a father.
"I thought that meant stability.
"It was so very different ... I thought 'How could it possibly hurt as much as going out with someone my own age had hurt before?'.
"Three weeks into it, I knew it wasn't right."
The psychological abuse started quickly and quietly, beginning with Kate being made to feel guilty about things she'd always done, like spending time with friends instead of him.
"He just started to be really possessive ... With the boyfriend I'd had before, I realised friends needed time, I made that vow to myself.
"Then, I got made to feel guilty about the time I was putting into friendships, especially with guys.
"So, I started questioning myself - 'Is it not normal to be good friends with guys? Is it fair of me to expect to be allowed to?'.
"It started so quietly - it made me really conscious of my morals and he made me feel like the bad guy."
The couple were in a long-distance relationship and yet he managed to control Kate, waiting until he knew she was alone to bombard her with text messages, call her or visit.
Despite mounting evidence that the relationship was not working, Kate became skilled at pretending everything was "awesome", lying to her family and friends and trying to appear her old self, which was made easier by the distance.
"I was so good at hiding it because I hadn't changed - I think I definitely changed in relationships after that, but at the time I was still ... me.
"He was so far removed ... we didn't live in the same town ... so I was able to be myself a lot of the time, but the distance and things that were happening seemed so outrageous that when I put them in context and started to talk about it, it was like 'Whatever, that can't be right'."
For a year Kate says she did "horrible things" to try to force his hand and make him end the relationship.
"I knew all the things he liked about me and I played up on all the things he didn't like.
"He liked my hair long and blonde, so I cut it all off and dyed it black."
He was undeterred.
Towards the end of the relationship, he cheated on Kate - and told her she was to blame.
Shortly after, he began sending abusive text messages, attacking her character and threatening to hurt her family and friends.
"I recorded all of those and took them to the police - that ended the relationship, but the abuse kept going."
By that time, Kate had started trying to get help from those around her, but because she had been hiding the abuse for so long, it was "unbelievable" to those she told.
"I didn't say anything was wrong until it was really wrong.
"I would just say 'Everything's great' - I didn't talk about it, I covered it up ... to go from 'Everything's great' to 'It's really scary' ... It wasn't necessarily that people didn't believe me, it was that it just seemed unbelievable because I hadn't said anything for so long."
The abuse finally turned physical when he turned up at her family home drunk, knowing her parents were away.
After lecturing her about everything "I had done wrong in the relationship" he began to strangle her, she says.
Pushing her into the back of a chair with his hand in a fist and using his forearm to put pressure on her throat, he began to push her backwards, cutting off her air supply.
She managed to free herself, only to be told she was lucky he had not killed her.
The abusive messages began again and Kate returned to the police, seeking a protection order.
"I had to face him in court - it would be my word against his and he'd already taken all of my power."
Kate decided not to pursue the protection order or lay charges, which she says is her "biggest regret".
"He had done it before and I know he will have done it again.
"If he had something on his record ... it would have stopped him.
"He thought he was a very powerful man. He was actually very weak, but I ... gave him all the power."
For Kate, the worst abuse is what occurred "for years" after the relationship finally ended.
"I didn't trust anybody. I didn't have the same friendships with men - because I hadn't been allowed to for so long, I missed out on a lot of that.
"I didn't have a relationship for seven years.
"I went for a long time trying to get power, but in the end I lost more by not treating myself very well."
Supporting the victims
Preston Russell family lawyer and Queenstown crown prosecutor Michael Morris knows stories such as Kate's all too well.
For the past six years Mr Morris has been dealing with victims of abuse - the majority, if not all of them, exposed to psychological or emotional abuse.
Commonly those people are women, often mothers, and almost always unaware they are a victim.
"Most people don't pick it up at all.
"It's not until you sit there and talk to them you pick up they've been put down, run down, called names.
"[To one client] I said 'He's been abusing you for years' and she said 'No, no, he has not'.
"A year later ... we had to apply for a protection order because she left him.
"She said 'You were absolutely right, now I'm out of it, I can see it'. It took for me to say to her 'He's doing this to you, you have to find a way to leave it' and she said 'It's clear now, when I think back, but I was in the cycle'.
"She thought it was her fault, or it was just life and that's how it was supposed to be.
"I think often it's the first time they have taken steps and looked at it as an entire course of action they have been subjected to.
"When you see it down in writing, you can't deny it."
Often Mr Morris' clients are parents and their initial visit to him is because the relationship is not working and they want to find out what their rights are with children.
"Others come because there's been a defining moment where they say 'I can't take this anymore'; they might come to you with black eyes.
"It is as you start slowly getting their story out of them - and that can take a long time - you see the abuse.
"It's very confronting for them, sometimes you're one of the first people they have ever told."
Getting protection from the law for victims of physical abuse is a relatively simple process - protecting the victims of psychological abuse is "difficult, because there's no evidence of it".
"What you end up with is 'he said/she said' so you have, nine times out of 10, your lady saying 'He's done all these things to me' and the guy saying 'No, I haven't done any of that' or 'This is not what I meant'.
"The judge is left trying to find who's more credible.
"It's a hard position for the judge to be in.
"The test to get a protection order is the 'necessity test' - we have to show there's a need for the court's protection.
"That becomes quite difficult ... to get."
It is also a confronting process for the victim and, for people like Kate, sometimes a process they shy away from.
After the facts of the abuse have been established, the information is compiled into an affidavit, which is then sworn.
If the abuse is "serious enough", for example, if the alleged violent party has access to weapons, the protection order can go "without notice", meaning it can be filed without the knowledge of the accused.
"It's normally quite serious violence which goes without notice and the applications are normally successful."
However, for those who are not victims of physical violence, but have been broken psychologically and emotionally by their partners, the success rate of protection orders is "lower".
In those situations the accused is served with the affidavit and has a chance to respond, with a court required to hear the application and the judge left to determine whether the protection order is necessary.
Mr Morris firmly believes the law needs to change.
"As far as the Domestic Violence Act is concerned, I don't know how you're ever going to be able to prove psychological violence.
"I don't know how the Act can change to make it easier for the judge.
"Psychological stuff can be just as damaging, if not more so.
"That's one of the most tragic things, it can utterly destroy people."
The frustration comes when a client is clearly being subjected to psychological abuse and a protection order is declined.
"You explain to them the law and that the judge is required, number one, to determine whether what she said happened on the balance of probability and that's not an easy test to get over.
"If the judge determines what you're saying to be true, they have to determine whether there's a need - often that's where you stumble.
"Just because the judge has ruled against you doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
"They don't consider you need that protection order and [so] you go through the positive things they've done - 'You have left him', more often than not they've done a course through, for example, Jigsaw, 'You've moved on', 'You're looking after your kids really well'.
"Hopefully, the next time you see them it's for something good, like buying a house - sometimes it happens.
"Psychological abuse is horrific. It's really soul-destroying for the people in it.
"Some days it's quite soul-destroying [for me] but other days ... you see a client down the street, they come up to you and say thank you and tell you they've met somebody else and they're getting married.
"It does happen."
And for Kate, it has. She has confronted her demons through counselling, a process she describes as "life-changing" and met her "dreamboat". The couple are planning their wedding.
The woman says she no longer sees herself as a victim, but a survivor and hopes by telling her story she might change just one life.
"I'm not ashamed of it.
"I have learned so much about myself and I have learned what I don't deserve. Until you learn what you don't want, you don't know what you do want.
"I'm a better person for having gone through it and come out the other side.
"Don't be afraid to ask for help - keep knocking on doors until somebody listens, speak out and tell people - if you don't tell people, they don't know."
Definitions of abuse
The Domestic Violence Act 1995 deems psychological abuse to include, but not be limited to intimidation, harassment, damage to property, and threats of physical, sexual, or psychological abuse.
In relation to children, psychological abuse also includes a person causing or allowing the child to see or hear the physical, sexual, or psychological abuse of a person with whom the child has a domestic relationship; or putting the child, or allowing the child to be put, at real risk of seeing or hearing that abuse occurring.
Emotional abuse can be seen as a subcategory of psychological abuse.
Domestic violence is not only a fist in the face or a kick in the head; the law says that violence can be physical, sexual or psychological.
Psychological abuse includes intimidation, threats and mind-games.
The Family Court recognises many behaviours as psychological abuse, for example: damaging property as a way of hurting someone; making threats, such as "If you leave, I'll kill you", "Do that again and I'll give you a hiding", "Tell the police and I'll beat up the kids"; allowing a child to see or hear any family violence; trying to control someone's life by constantly humiliating them; controlling someone's money, time, car or contact with friends as a way of having power over them.
- New Zealand Police
EXAMPLES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OR EMOTIONAL ABUSE INCLUDE:
• Telling someone they are worthless or no-one else wants them, they are fat, ugly and useless or making them believe no-one else likes them.
• Forcing someone to do things at an exact time or in an exact way.
• Undermining a person's actions, thoughts and beliefs.
• Telling someone they are weak and could not manage to look after themselves on their own.
• Making someone believe they are mad.
• Telling someone the domestic violence and abuse is their fault.
• Not allowing someone to have visitors and/or controlling who a person is friends with.
• Not allowing them to go out, to see family and friends or be left alone with other people; accompanying someone everywhere they go in order to control what they do, who they see and what they say.
• Not allowing someone to use the phone, send letters or emails.
• Locking someone in a room or house and controlling what they do, for example, not allowing them to go to work, or college or evening classes.
• Telling someone they're a bad parent.
• Getting children to say and do things to upset someone or encouraging children to get involved in the abuse.
• Abusing children or pets or threatening to.
• Damaging possessions.
• Accusing someone of lying.
• Telling someone they will find and kill them if they leave.
GET HELP
If you or someone you know is a victim of abuse, whether it is psychological/emotional, physical, sexual, elder or child abuse, help is only a phone call away.
Te Whare Pounamu Dunedin Women's Refuge(03) 455-0782 It's Not OK0800 456-450 Jigsaw Central Lakes 0508 440-255
