Shining a Light on Intimate Partner Abuse

On my first wedding anniversary, I founded Lotus Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide healing shelter and support for women who have experienced emotional, psychological, and financial abuse at the hands of their intimate partners.

Lotus Sanctuary was founded in memory of my aunt, Fatima Bryant, who lost her life and the life of her unborn child to domestic violence at the age of thirty-seven…and to honor my own experience with intimate partner violence, decades later at that very same age.

Emotional, psychological, and financial abuse is defined as any nonphysical behavior or attitude that is designed to punish, isolate, control, or subdue another person using fear, humiliation, deception, or manipulation. This is considered domestic violence, even in the absence of physical abuse. This form of abuse is almost always a precursor to physical violence.

Designed to align with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Lotus Sanctuary’s primary focus is to provide shelter to women who have experienced non-physical IPV, also known as?Narcissistic Abuse.

When I founded this organization, I was a newlywed living alone, thousands of miles away from my family, friends, and everything familiar to me. A friend’s vacant, furnished apartment on the other side of the country was the only safe space available to me because living at home was unsafe and I could not imagine going to a shelter during the Covid-19 pandemic. I had to continue to work, to smile on Zoom calls with clients, and to perform because, if I didn’t, I could not support myself outside of the business I had co-founded with my partner.

When the abuse started, I was an intelligent and confident woman whose profession was literally building buildings and developing multi-million-dollar institutions, yet I could not independently support myself because my partner controlled the finances, the business, and refused to negotiate in good faith towards a divorce. It took three years for us to divorce in a marriage that had less than a week of happiness.

At the time, I did not accept that I was a victim of anything; all I knew was that something was very wrong with my situation. Within a week of exchanging vows with my partner of five years, I was betrayed and cheated on, humiliated, disrespected, manipulated, and disparaged by my husband from that day forward. I didn’t understand what or why it was happening, but I knew I needed to get away. ?

Before I found myself in that affordable safe house across the country where I lived for a year, I had attempted to leave my husband twice, but had to return home because living in a friend’s spare room or on their sofa indefinitely during an unprecedented pandemic was not an option. Every time I left, my partner convinced me to come back, each time promising to change his harmful behavior. I was hopeful, I missed my home, and yearned for him to treat me like a person again. Each time I returned, the emotional and psychological abuse escalated, and the cycle from tolerable to unbearable grew shorter each time. Finally, seven months after my wedding day, I made the decision to move across the country, with a plan to never return.? On average, it takes victims seven attempts before they can leave the abuser for good.

For three years, I continued to work alongside my partner, pushing down my pain and humiliation, humbling myself until I had the ability to support myself independently. I still calculate if my efforts to be “the humble wife and supportive partner” was worth the cost of my truth because my silence undermined my integrity and protected the person whose abusive actions needed to be exposed.

It wasn’t until I joined a support group, that I developed the vocabulary to describe what I was experiencing. That support group, Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group, was both helpful and devastating. It showed me I was not alone even though I felt extremely lonely, and it also illuminated the number of women struggling with this invisible abuse. Women who suffered these abuses needed housing, financial support, therapy, and validation.

Narcissistic abuse is domestic violence. Despite the lack of physical violence, the effects of narcissistic abuse on victims are detrimental to their mental, emotional, financial, and physical wellbeing. Victims are often isolated, misunderstood, and emotionally battered such that they start to doubt their own reality. They can experience physiological symptoms, can develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and can feel hopeless and helpless - which may lead to clinical depression, and feeling suicidal.

The abuser’s currency is manipulation; they rarely reveal their negative character traits to even their closest friends and family. In many cases, the abuser will launch a smear campaign, painting the victim as the perpetrator, and the abuser as the victim (DARVO), well before the victim is even aware these things are being said about them. This creates a pattern of invalidation, causing the victim to lose the support of family and friends, advocates, and even their credibility once the abuse eventually comes to light.

The abuser is often well-liked, successful, charismatic, and highly manipulative – focusing the brunt of their abusive behavior on their intimate partner, behind closed doors, further contributing to the victim’s isolation. Because the nature of this abuse is often covert, some victims do not recognize they are being abused for years. In my case, I spent five years in my relationship before I realized I was experiencing abuse. Once the victim becomes aware they are in an unsafe environment or, in my case, discovers a betrayal, the abuser typically escalates their abusive and controlling behavior, making it more difficult for the victim to safely escape on their own due to their financial dependence, sustained psychological damage, loss of their support network, and harm to their reputations caused by their abuser’s machinations. To recover from the devastation, victims often must relocate and cut all contact with their abuser and anyone they had in common. Betrayal and abuse are traumatic, especially when perpetrated by someone you once loved and trusted; the additional losses and disenfranchisement victims experience in an abusive relationship is life-altering and can be fatal, as it was in my aunt’s case.

What You Can Do to Help

Get Educated. The more people know and share about emotional, psychological, and financial abuse, the more we can illuminate its damaging effects on people and society and the more we can support survivors.

Staying in an unsafe relationship, even at a distance, is dangerous. My Aunt Fatima lost her life trying to leave an abuser. I often wonder how much she suffered in the months and years leading up to her murder. Did she ask for help? Did she know what was she was experiencing was abuse? Did anyone try to help her?

I am grateful to those who believed and supported me throughout this process and to those who turned their backs on me, or stayed silent when my character was under attack. You inspired me to persevere and to do something meaningful with my trauma.

Domestic violence is not a “relationship issue.” It is abuse. Neutrality in the presence of abuse is complicity. ?No one deserves to be abused.

If you or someone you know is experiencing intimate partner abuse, help is available. In the United States, you can reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline 24/7 at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), text “START” to 88788, or visit thehotline.orgfor confidential support and resources.

#survivor #trauma #financialabuse #stopdomesticviolence #supportwomen

#lotussanctuary #DVAwareness ?#misogynoir #Accountability #IPV

#freedom #catharsis

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