10 minutes read time.

Hello, I hope you’re well. For psychological abuse – I totally skipped coercive control. However, coercive control takes up all types of abuse cause it just expands to every area.

It’s like setting of the bomb. If you don’t move – you’re safe. Once you move – it explodes. Same with abusers.

What is Coercive control?

Coercive control is hard to spot as it happens slowly and overtime you realise that you have no control at all. Like over nothing. Abuser takes all the power away from you and erases your personality to the point, where you don’t recognise yourself anymore.

It is a slow death of you.

Coercive control – worldwide scale

I will talk about my experience with my ex-partner; however, a lot of parents coercively control their children. Parenting and control can go hand in hand, because one way you need to help for a child to grow, but at the same time you as a parent need to be able to take control. A lot of parents become almost like dictators.

I’m personally not surprised with our current world system – capitalism, socialism, any system you look at – it is about a control. If you look at the bottom of it – it starts with family. Families are smaller type of cults if they’re not healthy.

With that to mention, my next post will be – Why parents don’t have schools? Parenting is the most important thing a human being can do, but there is no school for that, no courses. Nothing. If we want to change our system in humanity, we need to start from families and parenting.

My own experience

Unfortunately, I was controlled since I was a child, so therefore, the fact that I ended up in a relationship with my ex- who controlled me, is no surprise.

Controlling someone means you don’t allow them to become their own personality; they don’t have their own right to their body and mind. So, yes, my mom used coercive control. From not having any rights to my body, home and my mind.

However, I will talk about child abuse later on, as this is completely different topic. Today I will just cover coercive control in my romantic relationship.

The problem is that I learned that I had no autonomy of myself, which means I was easier pray for predators (abusers) because they could spot how easily I can be controlled and manipulated.

I do have a lot examples, but I will mention main ones that come to my head. Regarding financial abuse and control – please read a post from last month. Coercive control goes to every aspect of your life.

So, one of the maybe more obvious ones was that my partner would control the smallest things like, when to turn on or off the heating in the flat. Which cooker size I should use or not use. When I can brush my teeth or when I cannot. When I could go to sleep or when I couldn’t.

Let’s start with how would he control the heating? Well, we had a system in flat where you need to set up the hours when heating turns on and off. I did that because I worked from home but before that we briefly talked with my ex about it. So, I kind of knew the times I should set off. However, one evening, the heating turned on and he turned to me being angry saying – why the heating is on? Why did you set up this hour? I was like – well we talked the hours, so I set it up, plus it is winter, it gets colder in the evenings. He was unhappy and went to turn it off and then started asking me what exact hours I set up, why did I do that and so on. In the end, he had to go through and approve whether he was happy with heating or not. If I would turn on heating to dry clothes, he would complain again. I was pretty much not allowed to turn on heating whenever I wanted or he would get mad.

With the cooker as well, if you know, there are smaller and bigger sizes you can use for pots and pans. I was using whatever I thought in my mind is okay to use. He came over, noticed it and told me that I’m wasting electricity because pot is too small for the size I was using. So, he told me I’m not allowed to cook on that size and need to use smaller. He didn’t leave my side until I changed it and moved it to smaller.

With brushing my teeth, I didn’t even realise, he was controlling that, few months ago realised while talking in the therapy and it is insane how subtle the control was. So, in the evenings, after cooking (when we cooked) I preferred to clean dishes asap. He didn’t. He would put all the dishes in the sink (which meant I can’t use it) and wash it only when he would decide is time. Usually, it would go to late hours. So, whenever, I wanted to brush my teeth – I couldn’t, because there was no space. (If you gonna ask why the hell I’m brushing my teeth in the kitchen, is because of UK sinks in the bathrooms. If you live here, you know that hot and cold water are separate, so it’s impossible to brush your teeth or clean makeup in a bathroom sink).

Or sometimes, I then would go and start cleaning the dishes myself as I would want to get ready to bed, he then would come and say – so you’re asking me to help at home, but then you go and do it yourself, you don’t let me help you. Which is crazy shift blaming because it would be like 10-11pm and I just couldn’t wait anymore. Because he would tell me to wait. So, then I stopped cleaning dishes, but then was brushing on top. When I would start brushing my teeth, he would come and start cleaning the dishes, so basically, then he would block my way of using the sink. And when I would need water, he would tell me that why I couldn’t brush my teeth earlier or later? Basically, it would be impossible to calmly go and brush the teeth. So, yeah, brushing my teeth was like always a problem for him. It is very subtle, but it literally takes out your autonomy and on top of that I was blamed for wanting to just simply wash my teeth.

Sleep deprivation I think is very overlooked part of abuse. My ex wouldn’t allow me to sleep whenever I wanted. He had to control whenever I go to sleep. How would he control? Wouldn’t allow me to sleep until we had sex, wouldn’t allow me to sleep by arguing and fighting the whole night, wouldn’t allow me to sleep whenever I would need to wake up early next day. Or in the mornings, he would wake me up early on purpose, because he was waking up early hours. He wouldn’t let me just sleep how much I wanted.

I had no control over where we moved in Glasgow, I was not allowed to make any decisions in regards what are we doing, where are we going and etc. Everything had to be the way my ex-partner said.

Like honestly, I could name hundreds of things he was in control, because it literally was EVERYTHING. I had no say. If I would try to reason with him, very big point – I was not arguing with him (he would keep telling me that I’m arguing with him and not letting him to make decisions, that I’m making drama), I would offer different opinion, or solution or different way of doing things – everything wasn’t acceptable. He would tell me he doesn’t understand what I want, that what I’m saying doesn’t make sense to him or not reasonable, so, therefore, we had to do his way. Because my way – wasn’t good enough, ever. It’s actually funny, because so many times it happened, after doing his way and it not working out or going badly, then he would say to me, that I was right and we should have done my way. But we never did.

He would tell me, that if I need something, I should just ask. Because he would say he can’t read my mind and etc. But then whenever I would ask for something, he would look at me as if I asked him millions of pounds and he would find an excuse not to do it.

The thing is, as I’ve mentioned, because of my past, it was very easy for him to control or manipulate me, I was just as a puppet. He said – means he knows better. I also trusted him. So, when I started disagreeing with him or/and offering different options or solutions, he started getting mad. Because he was losing control of me. His abuse got worse and worse the more I tried to stand my ground. That’s when people ask – why you didn’t leave, a lot of women are scared to leave, because as long as you comply with their demands – meaning – you’re totally out of control, no self in there – they’re happy and the abuse is not so intense (it is still happening, but not as aggressive at least in my case). Unfortunately, once you start saying no – they get mad. Once you start doing your own way, expressing your views or etc, they get more aggressive.

On top of that, they also blame you for their anger and abuse. They tell you, that you’re out of control, unstable, insane or crazy, but truth is that they are mentally unstable, out of control and psychotic. I mean they can control it in front of others, in front of their family, friends, your family and friends, colleagues, to all those people they can be amazing. But they intentionally choose to abuse you. They intentionally choose to control you.

As I said. It’s like setting of the bomb. If you don’t move – you’re safe. Once you move – it explodes. Same with abusers.

Also, another thing I really want to put out. Abusers are weak. Yes, we tend to think they’re strong. But actually, strong people don’t abuse. Strong people protect. Abusers are not strong people. That’s the shame they cannot face. The shame of being weak. Because they can’t admit that or face that, they choose abuse as a tool to live in their delusion that they’re strong. Truly, deeply, they’re just small, hurt children who never were protected, loved and appreciated.