The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) says "Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systemic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. In includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, and emotional abuse. The frequency and severity of domestic violence can vary dramatically."

When society asks a survivor of domestic violence the question "Why didn't you leave?" it can be hard to put everything into words. With something that is so massive and complex, it feels like words just fall flat and don't do it all justice. Thoughts can swirl around and around, leaving us with the answer "I don't know." NCADV helps to answer this though. The succinct name given to the patterns that are so complex and varied is "Coercive Control" and they describe it in this way: "Coercive control includes a combination of abusive tactics such as isolation, degradation, micromanaging, manipulation, stalking, physical abuse, sexual coercion, threats and punishment."

​​Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk also wrote about this in The Body Keeps the Score. In lab testing, it was found that dogs who were shocked when they tried to leave their kennel eventually adopted a form of learned helplessness. They stopped trying to escape, even when the door was open and they were able to leave. They feared the shock that they had previously received when they tried to escape, so they simply stopped trying.

NCADV also notes that "... a victimized person may not be able to get away from their abuser because the abuser will not let them do so."

Many victims of abuse stay because they share children with the abuser, may fear losing their children to the abuser, and may feel that they aren't able to provide for their children if they should leave the abuser.

When we go through a shock or trauma, we often feel isolated. Trauma feels isolating by itself, but when there has been a campaign against us that includes isolation, this can feel even more lonely. The reality is that everyone goes through some form of trauma and millions of Americans experience abuse every year. 1 in 4 women and 1 in 10 men.

​Anyone can be a victim of domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is a form of trauma. It can be both a Big T trauma and a Little T trauma. It can be the insidious drip, drip, drip of daily verbal insults or insults to our inner spirit. It can also be plans up-ended or the shock of an affair or violent outburst. In the midst of a shock, our nervous system goes into a fight/flight/freeze response. All of these responses put us outside our window of tolerance. Dr. Peter Levine describes this is his book Trauma and Memory.

We may all have different stories to tell and lessons we've learned, but we all have the same stress hormones rushing around in our brains, and we all have those same hormones getting stuck in our bodies that are ready to jump up at us when we begin to sense that our current situation is similar to the situation that we were traumatized in.

While each story is unique to the person, knowing that abuse and trauma is experienced by so many people allows for us to drop our own self-judgement regarding any abuse situations we may have experienced as well as the duration of that experience.

They lied to you. It wasn't your fault. You didn't make them do any of it, no matter how many times they said you did. They chose abuse when they didn't have to.

You did the best you could with a hard situation.

You are not alone.

​You can expand your window of tolerance and choose the path of more resilience and more peace. You've got this.

When we've experienced trauma, especially when there has been an imbalance in power, we can feel like it's not safe to make decisions, and so we begin to ask for permission. Often, asking permission is an unconscious adaptation to previous situations when it wasn't safe for us to make decisions or have our own opinion, as in cases where there has been abuse.

Notice when you are asking permission from others. When considering your options and seeking permission or validation, ask yourself if this is this something that you actually need the permission of the other person to do whatever it is, or if this is a hold-over from the abusive situation from the past. Consider the possibility that you can now ask your Self for permission, instead.

A good step with this would be to journal these thoughts and ideas, and work your way to trusting your own inner guidance again.

You can build up to this by asking your therapist or a trusted friend to just listen as you talk it out with yourself, going over the pros and cons until you find your conclusion, or even to give you the permission or validation that you are seeking to then go with the decision that you actually want, but you still hold fear around.

We know intuitively what we need... sometimes we need to get there with someone else and that's ok, too.

​We celebrate the progress, and don't judge ourselves for not being perfect.