Abusive Psychological patterns can you recognise them? Part 1

Part of my trauma work is supporting victims of domestic violence, sexual assault including supporting healing from Childhood sexual abuse and recovery from Narcissistic relationships.  Supporting victims to come to terms with and understand the abuse they have suffered without blame and shame.

In all abuse there is a familiar pattern to offenders behaviours, this psychological pattern enables the perpetrator to gain sympathy from others by endeavouring to switch the victim and abuser role around affecting the perception of others. So the offending abuser is seen as the victim and the victim is seen as the abuser in the eyes of others.

aaaaaand it works because the perpetrator has more confidence, more cunning, more deviance, is stronger in the way they voice their concerns shutting down the real victim, who comes across as chaotic telling stories of the offending abusers’ behaviours which other find hard to believe of the said person.

A recent example of this is seen in the Henry Novak case here in the UK when the offender convinced the police he was the victim and Henry was the offender. Even though Henry was the only person unable to function and laid on the floor injured.

We hear statements like "He/she attacked me", "I haven't done anything", "Look he/she punched me" or “Oh he’s not like that”, “she a wonderful friend, mother, sister” 

Behind closed doors or out of sight of the eyes of others who can witness their behaviours the mask drops, and the real person comes out baring teeth, fists or even knives. But to the outside he is the charmer, the gentleman and she is the lady quiet and demure.  

Along with betrayal trauma and other concepts the term DARVO was first coined by Jennifer Joy Freyd PHD.

The acronym stands for:

Deny – Perpetrators always deny their abusive behaviours e.g. remember Jimmy Savile, Gary Glitter and Rolf Harris all prominent figures, denied their behaviours and took their denials to their graves, whilst Gary Glitter still professes his innocence whilst locked up in prison. Behind closed doors or even in plain sight, between them they ruined hundreds if not thousands of young people’s lives by their sexually abusive behaviours.   Leaving them traumatized with a life sentence of recovery and healing.

They as all abusers remain firm in what they say and are consistent overall –“it just never “happened”, “this person is lying”, “did you see me do that?”, question, lie and deny all accusations against them. 

Attack – Their victims by questioning their mental states out loud, say they are lying or point out their odd behaviours or say they wanted it because they hung around them or wanted to bed a famous celebrity etc etc.

It’s easy to see the behaviours of a victim because they’ve nothing to hide and their mental states are only actively in a state with a dysregulated nervous system because of the trauma they have suffered at the hands of the offending abusers

The offender will do everything within their power to damage and assault the victim over and over and over again to attest the victim as the abuser.  But if we listen carefully, the abusers are talking about themselves and the behaviours they have deployed.

Reverse victim and offender – Attempting to switch the role they are accused of onto the victim, using any means they can  by attacking the victims openly and staying cool, calm and collected in most cases.

The victim having had no support from others who doubt what they are saying has long started to feel and thinks they are the cray one, they self-doubt and question if what they originally knew happened or said, happened at all now.

This is due in part to a concept known as the Bystander Effect, this concept happens when the others around a victim are encouraged not to act in an emergency and the more people present standing around Diffuses the Responsibility creating Evaluative Apprehension i.e. not sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing here and now. No one else is acting so perhaps its not happening as the victim is saying or as I'm actually seeing with my own eyes ... which is what happened in the Henry Novak incident and the poor lad lost his life in a very cruel and devastating manner.

By now rationality has gone out of the window for the victim, but the offender stays relational, lucid and coherent something which evade the real victim as they are struggling to see what is really happening.

Others ‘see’ the evidence is against the victim because they are ‘psycho’ ‘crazy’ ‘unhinged’ “they never said no”, “they were trying to trap me”, "they can see pound signs". The abuser labels the real victim, questions the victim’s behaviour pointing out any and every flaw as they see it in order to show the victim as the abuser. Whilst denying responsibility and accountability for their personal actions.  

Annnnnnd people believe the abusers because they can ‘see’ the victim’s behaviour loud and clear …..

BUT and this is important, but the others just don’t understand what is actually happening

The real victim questioning self “why didn’t I say no”, Why didn’t I tell someone”? why did I walk that way? Blaming themselves because it must be true because all these other people either say or project it back onto the victim. Or say they are to blame only adding to their trauma and misery.  Leaving the actual victim with no one and nowhere to turn which increases their negative mental states and consequently their behaviours become more intense. 

They may take drugs to numb the feelings or drink too much alcohol to escape their reality or withdraw from friends and family in a bid to survive.  Lets be clear these are all survival strategies the victim needs at the time to actually survive or they could die by their own hand or actually die by the offenders behaviours.

The switch is completed!

Let’s face it if the real perpetrator and abuser was all they say they are then what would they need to discredit the victim for? 

Wouldn’t they have more compassion or at least try to understand what brought the victim to say such stuff even if from afar?

OF course, if you are guilty and don’t want to appear so you’re going to deny everything the victim says even to the point I never met this person at all,  as some have used this in their defence e.g. the EX Prince-Andrew with Virginia Giuffre never even met this lady he said. Yet paid her a large sum of money … for what one might ask?

The real victim now doubting their own memory from all the gaslighting and the DAVRO affects - this in turn evokes shame, blame and guilt setting up a vicious cycle. 

The first thing to do is seek out safety in trusted relationships and then Counselling can support you to see the time and tested patterns of the abuser without  personalizing it to stay as shame, blame and guilt. You ae worth more and your voice matters you matter.

If you live in the British Isle and are in needs of counselling support for any of the above. I offer a free 30 mins video call so we can meet before our first session. Contact me at email: pendulumofpeace8@gmail.com text or WhatsApp message to 07867938630 and lets connect and realise your fullest potentials.