By Tracie Aylmer
There are wonderful benefits to the recent conversation about domestic violence. It’s now out in the open that it happens, and it is quite extensive within the community. While Rosie Batty’s experience has been unique, what she has done with it has been extraordinary. The conversation is now out in the open, not tucked away in hushed tones as if it never happens. Seeing Victoria act upon recommendations about domestic violence has made my heart sing. I have also noticed that the police force in Western Australia is trying, which is a relief, even though there is still a long way to go within the WA community.
Social media has also been a godsend when it comes to domestic violence. People are willing to talk about it, and become outraged over how prevalent it is. Those that haven’t been through it are now bonding with those that have. Survivors are now believed, rather than treated as if nothing had happened. Communities now understand that domestic violence isn’t just physical – it’s emotional, mental, and financial as well.
In addition, women aren’t the only victims. Men, children, the disabled, the elderly, refugees and the Indigenous can also become victims. The rich, as well as the poor, can become victims. In fact, domestic violence doesn’t distinguish between victims. Nor does it distinguish between perpetrators.
While it is now known that women go through domestic violence, what I like to say is that there is an uneven balance between the perpetrator and the victim. The perpetrator acts in a manner for which they are trusted within the community or hold down trusted positions. They can be seen as a type of guiding light to all who meet them. More often than not, a perpetrator can be known as someone others can depend upon.
This leaves the victim with the inability to go anywhere to seek help. People don’t believe the victim. The victim is left with very little, and they have to fight even to gain acknowledgement that they are being abused. This is particularly so if the acts are psychological rather than physical. For those being physically abused, the wounds can be seen by others. The psychological wounds are deeper, but aren’t noticeable to the wider community. Psychological wounds take much longer to heal than physical abuse. While the physical wounds have healed, the psychological wounds are left in the open for a much longer period of time. It’s even harder when one isn’t believed.
I have been through domestic violence – twice. I will now share my story, as I believe there is a pattern between my story and many others who have been through it. Whenever I speak to someone who has survived domestic violence, there are many similarities. By telling our stories, we can make the problem prevalent, and can hopefully find solutions to help others in need.
The first time I was with the guy for 5 years. He waited more than 12 months before he started psychologically abusing me. At first, he bought me flowers and acted as if I was the only one in the world. He made me breakfast every day. He waited upon me all the time.
When he knew he had me, he then started telling me that I couldn’t communicate with others, and I needed him to communicate for me. He then did other little things. He had to drive my car – I wasn’t allowed to drive, even though it was registered in my name and I was paying all the bills for it. I would give him my eftpos card to buy shopping while I worked, and he would spend money on the pokies rather than shopping. He would then do burnouts in his anger because more often than not, he would lose. At one stage, he lost all our rent money down a pokie. For the pokies, according to him I could never hit the button right. He would get angry and call me names. I knew all the swear words in Greek, because that’s what he would call me (he was Greek). I still swear in Greek!
He would then throw things around the room. He once put his hand through the windscreen of my car. I can’t even remember why! He would belittle me at every opportunity he could, but only within the residence we both lived in. Outside of the residence, I became quieter and quieter, but no one noticed any difference as the friends we had were all his friends.
Some work colleagues had noticed, and offered me sanctuary. I turned them down as I thought I wasn’t going through any level of domestic violence as I wasn’t being hit at all. That was how prevalent the thought of physical violence was within the media at the time, compared to psychological violence.
At the end, I couldn’t even buy a pizza with my own money. I had to ask him first. I couldn’t speak to anyone about it. He didn’t allow me to speak to anyone, other than who he told me I could be friends with (there weren’t many – only 2 people). I wasn’t allowed to speak to Lifeline – that was “telling our dirty laundry to strangers”.
He was addicted to marijuana. He needed 6 cones in the morning to wake up before he could wash his face. He told me repeatedly that if I went to the police he would make me an accomplice to his drug taking, even though I didn’t touch the stuff.
Even with all of these behaviours, he still didn’t hit me. There were no physical marks on me, until right at the end, when he smothered me with intent to kill. He did this because – in any matter possible – I wanted to leave him. I told him that, and he told me we would always be together forever. That was in December 2002.
Circumstances arrived shortly after that where I could leave him. I found the slimmest of windows, and took the opportunity and finally, thankfully left him.
For several months he stalked me and kept sending disgusting messages to my mobile. He had another girlfriend, but that didn’t matter. Ownership mattered more. To him, I was a possession that should never have gotten away. I then changed my number and moved around, but he still found me, so I moved interstate in early 2004.
I then spent a few years trying to recover. It wasn’t until 2007 that I finally found a psychologist who told me it wasn’t my fault. Imagine how many before this blamed me for being smothered! At the time, the community liked to blame the victim for the fact that they couldn’t stay in an abusive relationship.
It was around this time (late 2007) that I was embroiled in the second domestic violence relationship. It took me a much shorter period of time to get out of that one – only a year. The guy was a registered nurse. His abuse was financial and emotional. He told me repeatedly he had cancer, in order to make me feel sorry for him. He had debts, and when we started living with each other he left his job, leaving me to wonder how to pay the bills. At the time, I was studying, and receiving Austudy. He then started owing me money.
When I finally left him, he started stalking me. The perception was that I wasn’t a nice person, even though he was the manipulator. He kept making himself out to be a nice person, when in fact he was manipulative. He only became a registered nurse because he heard there were penalty rates. He had told me this during the relationship.
In these two relationships, I have noticed there are many similarities that others have also gone through. The perception the community has of these types of people is that they are wonderful people who can be treated badly by the victim. The victim is treated with suspicion, which makes it difficult to find help.
Post traumatic stress disorder is quite prevalent in the victim. Not being able to seek help makes life that much harder.
Recently I heard a speech about domestic violence from a survivor. She advised the crowd that survivors of domestic violence are extraordinary people that do extraordinary things. They are high achievers. Having been able to leave abusive situations makes them very strong people.
The International White Ribbon day is a godsend to someone like me. However, the conversation needs to widen. Women aren’t the only victims. We need to be aware that victims are the victims, not just women. Domestic violence is a complex issue that involves the whole community. It’s not just in relation to one group of people, even though noting the women have become victims and survivors is a good thing.
Funding is another crucial aspect. We need to find out who the victims actually are and give protection to them at all times while they go through recovery. We need to stop shaming the victims for what the perpetrators do. Lack of funding blames the victims and gives the perpetrators full throttle to do what they wish. Protection includes adequate safe refuges during the most crucial times when the victim is most vulnerable – the moment they leave.
For those that have children, enabling the child to have their rights in court is crucial too. The best interests of the child are considered in family law legislation. Acting appropriately on that could help the victim and the child. Allowing a perpetrator to have access to a child is more often than not damaging to the child, and those effects are long-term.
Courts need desperately to change. The rules of evidence are far too complex to deal with the complexities of domestic violence. The perpetrator understands what those rules are, and they can get away with what they do by their manipulations of the police force and the legal system. Enabling the victim to properly use the legal system for their own protection should be a given.
Judges and lawyers need to be trained in domestic violence. They need to know what a victim looks like, and stop accepting circumstances at face value. The apprehended violence orders need to be properly enforced. They shouldn’t be considered just a piece of paper. They need to be something that can protect the victim so they can recover to become survivors.
Enforcing psychological help on the perpetrator is something I am in full agreement with. Perhaps it will show the perpetrator that stalking is a big no-no. It could mean that the perpetrator starts looking at people as people, rather than objects of possession.
However, talking about the major issue of domestic violence, and comparing it to terrorism, has made great strides in everyone’s perception of domestic violence. Showing that domestic violence is much worse than Tony Abbott’s ‘war on terrorism’ has helped to open what really matters in today’s society.
Once we see the unequal balance of the perpetrator and the victim, and do something about this as a collective community with appropriate funding, then we can move forward. It is costing our economy billions, after all.
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Also by Tracie Aylmer:
Kenya: What Happened with the International Criminal Court
Is the Australian government linked to atrocities overseas?
A plea to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection
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My thanks Tracie for giving the gorgon a name. Many times I read these things and find myself wondering at the number of DV articles by women, knowing full well that Rosie Batty, whilst representing most DV survivors, doesn’t represent all.
A men’s organisation I am part of is hard pressed to even discuss DV at any level due to the imbalance in the cohort of victims, between men and women. Women are hugely more party to the blunt end of the DV stick, but men are there too, but I feel they are held silent in fear of exposure, since the DV issue has become a part of women’s stories. I can’t help but feel that there would be a community benefit in having the occasional man’s story out there, since as I understand it the impact of it is just as high, and even though in many instances it isn’t knives, guns, fists and physicality in a woman on man DV situation, the end product is the same or similar.
I accept within that organisation, many men have suffered in a DV relationship, but the organisation hasn’t found a path to give them a voice. The men themselves are afraid to speak out about their experience because they have no idea how the community will react.
PTSD has a place in the pantheon, for all victims of violence, no matter their gender, their life station or their financial situation. No matter the source of the violence, its longevity or anything else that allows it to be placed in a box and researched, it needs to be accepted as present, and then treated with the dignity and acceptance that any illness is, and then its base can be examined and treated.
Until we accept that the unseen, un-examinable, unfathomable can be treated as if it’s there, no matter our view, we won’t succeed in beheading the gorgon.
Excellent, thoughtful article thank you Tracie. Rosie Batty worked wonders in her Australian of the Year (what a woman!) and Daniel Andrews is leading the way by calling an RC and swiftly acting on its recommendations. Annastacia Palaszczuk has also started special courts on a trial basis, so things are moving along. The danger is that the rest of Australia jogs along without taking any action.
ahhhhhh, but to eliminate it or ameliorate it, the culture manufactures people. I know it’s no joke. I can remember the ominous atmosphere as a kid at home, although it was by no means the worse place in the street.
There MUST be some sort of body of knowledge accumulated over the years by scholars, yet it seems to defy remedy. Maybe money would help with programs, but its wasted on stuff that is useless re defence etc.
What rules of evidence do you see a problem with?
It doesn’t defy remedy. It defies naming and public shaming. It refuses treatment by those it covets, to save their face in the absence of proof and truth becomes its victim.
I shall write soon of a sad man I think.
My thanks for your ear.
What has not been mentioned here is the negative impact on services helping DV victims. Funding cuts made by Abbott when he first took office (oh how I wish that day had never happened!!!!) have led to many women’s refuges being closed and legal centres having to reduce their services. The unfortunate nfluence on this government of religious individuals and organisations (in contradiction of the intent of the Constitution that this should be a secular country) meant that the restoration of some funding for shelters was inappropriate as they were then designed for homeless people – and women escaping from violence with their children were not seen as being homeless because they had ‘voluntarily’ left home!
Hi Rosemary,
I decided only now to look again at this article. I believe there needs to be many more women’s refuges, and what Abbott did was disgraceful. The amount of cruelty that he holds for women is endless, it seems. The extra money put back into DV is meant to keep the problem in flux, rather than solve anything.
The thing is, when I stated that the victim needs protection, what I meant was refuges, as well as other modes of protection. There needs to be many more refuges, and the only way for victims to be protected is if the refuges are single sex.
I remember during the 5 years that I wasn’t believed after my ex tried to murder me. Not only was there no support whatsoever, but there was no refuge for me, nor any protection. I left the state, as I was stalked, in addition to not being believed. I then had to struggle living alone, as I couldn’t face living with anyone else at the time. I actually had difficulty for years living with anyone, as there was no trust whatsoever. Then, Centrelink decided to be a pain to me, as well, because they didn’t understand that one does whatever they can for survival. At the time, everything was difficult.
So the first thing is perception, along with physical safety.
I would posit that perhaps there need to be more refuges, including some for men.
Yes, including some for men. Also some refuges should be sensitive to other types of needs, for example one type for migrants, one type for Indigenous, one type for aged, one type for disabled, etc. That way, particular needs can be met, where specialisation is required.
At present, putting women into shelters with homeless men is not just insensitive, but shows complete uselessness of this particular government.
This government is definitely proving itself to be the perpetrator against Australian society!
At some point we need to accept, even if we don’t understand, that violence is perpetrated against all levels of society and all elements of society. At that same point we need to accept the human cost that is ignored by neocons. The essence of all of life carries with it the challenge to be better people, to be more caring of ourselves and others, not just those close to us.
If every person reached out, just once, to another “othered” person, othered through violence or difference or whatever and tried to walk not even a mile, just 100 yards, in their shoes, in that moment we would learn, as people that we are not actually representative of anything but ourselves. We don’t live in a space where we can speak for anyone but ourselves, and in that moment, remember the number of people who have no voice.
We can’t speak for them, we can’t represent their needs, but we can reach out and speak to them, and in that conversation, accept that their needs are real to them in that moment, and perhaps move forward in our lives, carrying a torch for them.
Namastè
Thank you. Agreed.
[Funding cuts made by Abbott when he first took office (oh how I wish that day had never happened!!!!) have led to many women’s refuges being closed and legal centres having to reduce their services]
Sadly, the ALP election promises in the area of shelters are minimal. I saw nothing for shelters – just 5m for home protection devices. 14m for Community Legal Centres and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services