The healing process for domestic violence victims is complex and painful. Like any other process of this nature, it takes time. Many times, the person who comes to me seeking help does not yet understand that part of the process consists of unlearning the lies that the abuser has sown, lies that keep a person tied and defenseless. This is not accomplished overnight. It takes perseverance and time.
The first thing we do is assess the level of safety the person has. Is the person or his/her children in danger from the abuser? Is the person in danger of hurting himself/herself because of the hopelessness he/she experiences? Many times, the emotional abuse these victims have experienced is so damaging that they succumb to severe depression.
Safety comes first
Before any stage of healing, safety comes first. If you are afraid of your partner, if you or your children have been hurt or threatened, or if the situation is getting worse, this is a safety matter and not something you have to fix or endure alone. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. The hotlines at the end of this article are free and confidential.
If you still live with the person who is hurting you, please do not try to confront, correct, or threaten him or her. That can make the danger greater. Instead, a domestic violence advocate or a professional can help you build a written safety plan. A plan like that can include telling at least one person you trust, keeping a small bag and important papers in a safe place outside the home, agreeing on a code word with someone who can call for help, varying your routines when possible, thinking about whether your phone or computer could be monitored, and knowing where you could go tonight if you had to leave. Leaving is often the most dangerous time, so it is better to plan it with an advocate before it happens.
The stages below describe the emotional process of recovery. They do not replace a safety plan.
The six stages of recovery
After this initial evaluation is completed, we begin to walk the person through the stages of the healing process. In this post, I will talk about the six stages that Shannon Thomas describes in her book Healing from Hidden Abuse (2016). This is the author’s clinical model, not the result of controlled research, and each person moves through it at his or her own pace, often going back and forth between stages.
Despair Stage
This stage’s name describes the experience the person who begins this process lives. The victim is confused and in despair. He/she wonders what he/she has done to deserve to be treated that way. “What do I have to do to make this relationship work? In which way do I have to improve? Why, if I am not such a bad person?” Questions that show the doubts the person has about himself/herself. Why is it so difficult for these people to understand what the real problem is?
It is because these survivors, who are hurting and hating themselves, are so busy wondering why they are failures that they ignore the source of the real problem and how they can get out of it. They continually believe they are the problem. They are hurt, broken, and do not consider themselves to be enough. They will have a hard time identifying the abuse they receive as the problem in their relationship. Let me say it clearly: abuse is never deserved, and it is never the victim’s fault.
What happens in this stage
Victims, at this stage, say “I can no longer fight this problem. It is too much for me.” It is an expression of despair. Many times, to get to this point and begin the healing journey, it is necessary to reach the extreme in which we give up and say that we can no longer fight, and that is when we seek external, professional, and spiritual help, which will allow us to get out of our despair. If that despair includes thoughts of ending your life, please do not wait: call or text 988.
Even though the victim is at this point, he/she is not always ready to leave the relationship, or does not believe that he/she is strong enough to make firm decisions. As therapists, we tell these patients that this is okay. This is all part of the process. If you or your children are in danger, safety comes first, and leaving safely may be necessary. Otherwise, the Despair Stage is not the time to make drastic changes, but it is the time to start taking small steps toward emotional healing.
Education Stage
One of the biggest problems with domestic violence is that psychological abuse is exceptionally insidious, and therefore misunderstood. This is one of the tactics abusers often use. They isolate their victims from reality and from those around them as a way of exercising control over them. This is why the Education stage is important. Unless the victims can describe what has happened to them, they will not be able to begin the healing process. Victims need to be able to recognize these forms of abuse when they occur.
Emotional blackmail
Emotional blackmail is a term popularized by the psychotherapist Susan Forward. It refers to a type of manipulation that uses fear, obligation, and guilt (FOG) to control another person.
Minimization
In the face of the victim’s achievements, whether they are professional or personal, the abuser will not praise the victim’s qualities. He/she will not recognize what the victim has accomplished.
The abuser will not do it abruptly, but subtly, using phrases such as: “That is fine for you” and “You are very lucky, now do not ruin it with nonsense and miss the opportunity.”
Control
This is one of the most detectable signs of this often invisible type of abuse. He/she will try to know where the victim is, who is with him/her, and what he/she is doing at all times.
The abuser will know the victim’s schedule, he/she will appear unexpectedly and more frequently wherever the victim is in a given moment, whether in the victim’s spare time or at work, using the excuse of “I wanted to surprise you.”
Gaslighting
Gaslighting normally occurs very gradually in a relationship. An abusive partner’s actions may seem harmless at first. However, over time, these abusive patterns continue, and the victim may feel confused, anxious, isolated, and depressed.
Also, he/she may lose all sense of what is happening. Then, he/she begins to depend on the abusive partner more and more to define reality, which creates a situation from which it is very difficult to escape.
Awakening Stage
After the person has discovered the manipulation system the abuser used to lead him/her to submission and abuse, he/she enters the Awakening stage. In this stage, a new awareness of the reality that has been lived is experienced, but despair is also experienced once more.
The combination of awareness and despair is because they feel empowered by the facts they discovered in the previous stage, but, on the other hand, they still cry because they miss the abuser. Do not judge them. Only someone who has been through a similar experience understands the damaging effects of psychological abuse.
The abuser has been a part of the victim’s life. The bonds that bind them are close and the victim longs to believe the abuser can change. I have seen how many victims look for excuses to justify the abuser’s behavior.
Common excuses to justify the abuser’s behavior
They say things like: “he/she was abused when he/she was a child,” “he/she has a personality disorder,” “God has put me in his/her way to help him/her,” “If I leave him/her, who is going to help him/her?” “I have to let myself be used by God.”
Although all of this may sound altruistic, the reality is something different. These thoughts are the product of how difficult it is to face the truth about what our loved ones are and mean to us. Your faith never asks you to remain in danger.
On the other hand, these victims also feel a certain peace. It happens because, in the second stage, they understood that they are not crazy as their abusers told them. I have seen these people remain in deep silence, meditating on the new reality that they are beginning to live and on what it could be tomorrow.
At this stage, victims who are deep in domestic violence need a lot of emotional support from family members and church members. Churches need to provide the place of safety that these people need, a shelter, a place where they are listened to, believed, and accepted unconditionally.
It is at this stage that victims of domestic violence begin to imagine a reality in which healing and restoration are possible.
Boundaries Stage
Healing needs clear boundaries. Therefore, the next stage in the healing process is learning to set them. But how do we set boundaries with a person of whom we are afraid or who is controlling? It is here, at this stage, that many victims give up and quit dreaming of their liberation. Learning to set boundaries in any relationship is a challenge since we often do not know where to start or how to do it.
No map or manual can guide us in this stage because each case has its peculiarities. That is why we recommend that professional help and a domestic violence advocate be involved to navigate this stage, especially when fear or danger is present.
When it comes to setting boundaries, Thomas talks about two types of contact: Detached Contact and No Contact. The decision is made person by person, and safety decides it first. If the person’s life is in danger, if the relationship has reached a level the person feels is unbearable, or if the children are in danger, safety comes before anything else.
No contact at all
In those situations, No Contact may be needed. It should be planned with a domestic violence advocate or a professional, including a safe place to go, such as a shelter or trusted friends or family.
It is when the victim decides to leave that the danger is often highest. It occurs because the abuser cannot accept that the person who was under his/her control is leaving. That is why a written safety plan should be in place before the person leaves.
Detached contact
Detached Contact is mostly determined by the environment in which the victim lives. For a person who still lives with the abuser, it can mean keeping conversations brief and calm. Do not try to confront or correct the abuser, because this can raise the danger; build a written safety plan first with a domestic violence advocate or a professional.
All of this can be accomplished by taking small steps. The idea is to find ways to keep the abuser from crossing the emotional limits that have caused so much damage and pain in the past. Detached Contact is about staying emotionally steady, not about provoking or confronting the person who has hurt you.
Restoration Stage
After the victim has passed the stages of Despair, Education, Awakening, and Boundaries, he/she may be ready for Restoration. You might be asking yourself, restoration of what? Restoration of your material things, life moments, financial stability, physical and mental health, or anything that you have lost as a victim of domestic violence.
How does a victim know that he/she has reached this stage? When he/she feels the need to have a hobby in his/her free time, an activity that has nothing to do with the educational process that he/she has been experiencing. This is the moment when the victim decides to live again and to bring hope to his/her life.
Maintenance Stage
This is the final stage, the stage in which the survivor looks back to the previous stages and continues to deepen his/her healing and restoration. In this stage, the person also learns to identify healthy relationships and to recognize warning signs of abuse sooner. Maintenance is when a survivor lives his/her recovery life fully, with growing confidence and skills to stay safe.
A key component in this stage is recognizing that you have grown and changed. It is important to see yourself in the new you. When we do not acknowledge that, uncertainty and the feeling that we do not deserve good things can lead us to keep away from kind people. Our internal dialogue and self-esteem influence the types of people we allow or reject in our lives.
Throughout this process, I want you to know that God cares deeply when He sees you being hurt. The abuse is never your fault, and you do not have to face it alone. I believe He can walk with you as you take each step toward safety and healing, at your own pace, and He often does it through people: an advocate, a counselor, a friend, a church that listens. I am not telling you that this is easy, but I believe healing is possible.
What is one small, safe step you could take this week, and who is one person you could trust with it?
Would you like to talk with a professional? Call (407) 559-7093 (Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern) or find professional help here. For general questions that are not an emergency, write to drduany@zodugroup.com. Please do not send health information by email.
If you are in crisis or thinking about hurting yourself, do not wait. Call or text 988 (988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24 hours a day, free and confidential). If there is immediate danger, call 911.
If there is violence in your home
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. These lines are free and confidential.
- National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. Available 24/7.
- If you are thinking of harming yourself: call or text 988 (press 2 for Spanish).
If you suspect child abuse
Florida Abuse Hotline (DCF): 1-800-962-2873, 24/7. You can also report online at reportabuse.myflfamilies.com/s/. It covers child abuse and abuse of vulnerable adults. If there is immediate danger, call 911.
This article is for education only. It does not offer diagnosis or personal advice, does not replace evaluation or treatment by a health professional, and reading it or writing to us through this site does not create a therapeutic or pastoral counseling relationship. This site is not an emergency service and is not monitored continuously: do not send health information through comments or public forms. The author is a licensed psychotherapist and pastor, and is part of ZODU.
Sources
- Shannon Thomas, Healing from Hidden Abuse (2016): the six-stage model described above is the author’s clinical model.
- Susan Forward: the term “emotional blackmail” and the fear, obligation, and guilt (FOG) description.
- Hotline information: National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org) and Florida Department of Children and Families Abuse Hotline (myflfamilies.com).
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