Talking Domestic Violence — What You Need to Know

In our first episode, host Dean Hinton, an attorney at Legal Aid Society, talks about domestic violence. This is a topic that affects many families across Middle Tennessee.

Dean sits down with Heather Herrmann, Assistant Director of Education & Strategic Initiatives at the Metro Nashville Office of Family Safety. Heather explains what domestic violence is, how to spot the warning signs, and what you can do if you or someone you know needs help.

Dean and Heather also talk about your legal rights. If you are in an unsafe situation, Legal Aid may be able to help — for free.

This episode is for anyone who wants to better understand domestic violence, or who may be going through a hard time at home. You are not alone. Help is available.

If you are in danger right now, call 911. For local support, contact the Nashville Office of Family Safety or call Legal Aid at 1-800-238-1443.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello and welcome to TV, a podcast that focuses on domestic guidelines and practical guidance on how to leave a relationship with your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, or whoever might be harming you. My name is Steve Henson. I'm a licensed attorney in the state of Tennessee. For almost a decade, I've found cases involving people whose partners have been physically, emotionally, and financially abusive to them. By providing practical guidance to you, my guest and I will hopefully help you escape harmful relationships. Talking DV with me today is Heather Herman, the Director of Education at the Office of Family Safety in Nashville, Tennessee. Heather has more than 17 years of experience in the domestic violence field. Heather, welcome to the studio today. Thanks so much for coming in.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Yeah, thank you so much. I am so glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Heather, one of the things we want to do when we're first talking about domestic violence, domestic abuse, these sorts of things, is we need to be cautious because many people don't really identify with these terms. We need to sort of break it down and tell people what we're talking about, or we run the risk of losing our audience.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

One of the things that we say in every training that we do with our staff, with everyone, is unless that victim is labeling it as domestic violence themselves, you don't want to be the one to do it for them. Because we have such a societal perception of what domestic violence is, what it looks like, what it includes and involves, that there is a very specific image in a lot of people's heads. I mean, for me and you, we've seen all of the sort of nuances and the gray areas of these relationships. But for people who are just seeing it on the news or on a movie, on a TV show, it conjures up a very specific image that they may not associate with themselves. What they might be thinking is we're toxic or we fight a lot or I'm just I don't know what to do, I'm afraid. This feels wrong, but I can't really articulate why. So for a lot of people, that label of domestic violence, the image that it conjures is like black eyes. It's very heavily correlated with physical abuse, which we know is is obviously common in these cases, but it is not how many of them start, and it is not a a hundred percent certainty.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

It could be a range of things. It could be physical abuse, emotional abuse, and I kind of put emotional and psychological abuse together. I don't even know if I should, but I always say emotional psych together.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

I do too. I know there are some kind of fine nuances there, but I think most people kind of there's not a lot of teasing it apart. If somebody's really damaging you emotionally, then I feel like that has a deep psychological impact. I don't think you can pull them apart in a clean way.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Financial abuse, sexual abuse, stalking, those of us who maybe work in this industry, if I could call it that, I think those are the broad categories we sort of break it down into. Does that sound right to you?

SPEAKER_02 3:17

It sounds right to me, yeah. I think really thinking about it as any way that this individual can control you. And it's gonna be different for every person because every person is unique and what it takes to control you is not gonna be the same thing that it takes to control me. For example, if you are someone who comes from money, has a trust fund that is yours and yours alone, then the financial control may not be as effective as it is for someone who is working paycheck to paycheck. If they lose their job, they are days away from being evicted or having some kind of issues with not paying bills. So financial control might be much more effective on that individual. So we're seeking out as a perpetrator the sore points, the spots that are going to allow me to exert the most control with the smallest amount of effort over my specific victim.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

You mentioned financial abuse, financial isolation is what we sort of sort of call it sometimes. I saw this website the other day, and I think this is might be true, is 90 something percent of all abuse cases involve financial abuse.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

It's huge. It's huge. And even in, like I mentioned that case of the person who may have the trust fund, may have their own money, even in those cases, financial abuse can be present because that person is trying to control how you spend that money, control how much money you spend is maybe guilting you for spending, is maybe using your spending as the thing that they're blaming their violence on. If you hadn't gone shopping and just blown all that money, then I wouldn't have screamed at you, I wouldn't have hit you, I wouldn't have done whatever. So even in those relationships where I can't necessarily use the leverage of destitution, I can still financially abuse you even though there's plenty of money flowing in.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

I kind of looked this over in anticipation of this episode of this podcast. Financial abuse is keeping money from somebody, sabotaging efforts to work, keeping someone on an allowance, maybe a strict allowance. And I've even had clients where they were being told when they could eat and you know when they could spend money and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Oh yeah. You have a hundred dollars a week, and that's all you have access to, and you have to buy all your groceries, gas for your car, anything that your kids need, whatever it is, you've got a hundred dollars. And I think very few of us could manage things like that without without gas prices going up, without our kids back to school and I have to buy them a new backpack. And then those out-of-bounds things are the things that the perpetrator then uses as this was your fault then that I had to abuse you, right? I gave you a hundred dollars. What more do you? I'm working for our family, I'm giving you money, and you want more from me? You're ungrateful, and they have all these ways to twist it to make it your fault. There's so many of those sort of mechanisms built into all the different ways that they control and abuse you.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

And Heather, when you get in court, guess what they tell the judge? They tell the judge, oh, it's her fault. A lot of my clients, almost all my clients are female. Yeah, it's her fault because she does she spends too much money. I have to have to do this. I there's no other way. This she can't be trusted with her.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

She's got a shopping addiction. Yeah, right. She's got a shopping addiction. She's on Amazon all the time, Judge. You don't understand. Like, I'm trying to protect our family, but I'm I'm still over here giving her money. So what more does what more can anyone ask of me? It's this altruistic defense. It's the I did it for us. So there's a lot of different defenses that these perpetrators use. And the altruistic one is extremely common. It's the I did it for you, I did it for us. It's the same one they use when they're isolating you from your family and friends. It's because your mom doesn't understand our love and she doesn't want you to be happy. And every time you talk to your mom, you guys end up getting into a fight and like you're sad after. So, so just just take a break for a week and see how you feel. And then a week becomes a month, and then slowly you withdraw, and it's all for your own good. So I am twisting it that this is something I'm doing for you when in reality I'm slowly isolating you from the people around you. That's the altruistic defense, and it's such a powerful manipulation to wrap your head around when you're so deep in this, and the person is telling you literally everything I do. I'm doing it for you to make your life better. And you're you're telling me I'm abusing you. So it's a it's a trip.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

The thing I love is that people will often tell me, Oh, I can't work because he is sabotaging my efforts to work. He's too jealous and possessive and controlling to allow me to work. I had someone tell me that this morning, by the way, that exact same thing. I couldn't work for X amount of years because he prevented me from. But when you get in court, it automatically flips, especially if they have an attorney. It's like, well, she's not working. Judge, make her work, that sort of things. It's really interesting to me how the dynamic changes very quickly, how it's used against them, against clients, against the opposing party all the time.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Yeah, the manipulation is off the charts. That is sort of woven into every aspect of these relationships. How they manipulate private perception between them and the victim, how they manipulate public perception between them and the attorney, them and the judge, them and their friends, their family, the kids' PTA, whoever it is. They are always, I won't say always, you know, you have people who just don't care what others think of them, but a lot of these extremely manipulative perpetrators are always thinking about how they are being perceived. They want to be intimidating to the victim, but they want to be charming to the victim's mom, and they want to be like the perfect neighbor because if the police come, then the neighbor's gonna say, Well, he's such a nice guy, and I've never seen them fight. And there's this act that they're putting on in all of these facets, and it makes it much more difficult for the victim, too, because you're thinking, Am I the crazy one? This is someone who is my family loves him, the kids' teachers love them, the neighbors love them, they get along with everyone, they have all these friends, and then behind closed doors, I feel like a prisoner in my own home. Maybe it really is me that's doing something wrong. So there's all of these manipulations and mind games and ways that they make victim doubt themselves.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

It's interesting you said that because you talk about the neighbors and how that might contribute to someone feeling isolated from everyone else. I've been listening to another podcast from Dina McMillan, she's a social worker who specializes in domestic violence. She has a podcast called Unmasking the Abuser, and she calls those neighbors that the abuser might go contact. She calls them flying monkeys. Oh yeah. I have, yeah. From The Wizard of Oz. So the other person is sort of used, it's called stalking by proxy, I think. They use other people to continue to monitor and surveil and give the abuser information that they might not otherwise have. And to your point, contribute to the person feeling the survivor feeling that they're crazy. You know, it's sort of the gaslighting thing. I think that's the term we use.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Yeah, it absolutely is gaslighting because you feel as if you are constantly under a microscope. That everything you do is being watched, that everything that you think is happening is your perception is wrong. You're getting into these fights with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, and then they're telling you you made it all up in your head. You feel like you're sort of alone in this vast sea where there's no help in sight because everywhere you turn, you have these flying monkeys or these people who your perpetrator has sort of groomed to believe and support them.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

And it kind of leads into another aspect of abuse, and that's the stalking aspect. Yeah. And I heard people say this, maybe some judges say that in a relationship, an ongoing relationship, say a marriage, there's no such thing as stalking. But I think that people on our side of things who sort of maybe have a a different understanding of domestic abuse uh would think that that's not true. In other words, there is harassment. There's a series of harass if you want to define stalking, it's a series, a pattern, a series of visual physical proximity or closeness, a non-consensual communication designed to make you feel unsafe, and that does make you feel unsafe. I don't know if that's a little too wonky, but still.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Yeah, I think there is a big difference. You have to look at at especially with any of these relationships, you have to look at the context. But stalking, I think it is is especially important to look at context because things that are in the context of an a domestic violence relationship, an interpersonal violence relationship, are horrifying, are fear-inducing. Maybe things that in a normal, healthy relationship would you would feel are nice. To give you an example, if someone is controlling me, if someone is engaging in these stalking behaviors, engaging in these isolation behaviors, they're trying to sabotage my work. Let's say I've had two jobs in the past, they have managed to get me fired from both because they will call incessantly or they'll come to the workplace incessantly, and eventually my supervisor has just had enough and they're like, we can't keep you here. Now I'm on my third workplace. My partner comes in and brings me flowers. Divorced of context. All of my colleagues see this wonderful person who's bringing me flowers to congratulate me for my new job. In context, this is maybe the continuation of this pattern of behavior where this person is interfering with my work and has gotten me fired twice already. So we really have to think about context when it comes to stalking. A lot of things that are individual pieces in that larger pattern of stalking, because you mentioned the legal definition, stalking has to be a pattern. It has to be multiple incidents. A lot of the individual pieces taken out of context are perfectly legal. Giving somebody flowers, calling someone, texting someone, even showing up at someone's house is technically legal if you haven't taken the steps to bar them, right? So without the context of the relationship, we really are just divorcing it of its meaning. And a lot of times these behaviors, like my example with the flowers, the only person who can, or the only two people, I should say, who really know the meaning are the victim and perpetrator. Everybody else from the outside looking in is seeing this as this lovely gesture.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

So I just threw out this sort of wonky, I don't know, maybe quasi-legal definition of stalking. I was gonna ask you, maybe turn that around, and if you have a client in your office, how do you explain to that person what stalking is? Before you do, let me just say I sort of think of it as sort of someone someone monitoring your whereabouts without your permission. I know that's maybe not exactly right, but it seems that is pretty close to how we explain it.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

I also tend to throw in communicating with you repeatedly without your permission or with in ways that make you afraid. Because sometimes even if the person isn't monitoring where you are, they are constantly finding ways to communicate with. They're texting you, calling you, emailing you, their mom's calling you. You have all of these things.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

And why aren't you responding to me? Right. You know, why aren't you? Where are you? What what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 15:31

You know, automatically suspecting you of maybe being being with someone else, or probably expecting And that is the mo one of the most common ways that our clients actually present with stalking. They'll come in and say, they just won't leave me alone. They text me hundreds of times, my call log is filled up with them, they're sending me messages on every social media, my email, their their friends and family are sending me messages. I just can't get away, and they are not perceiving that as stalking. But the moment you dig below the surface, you find out that there are also those behaviors of wanting to know where I am all the time, following behaviors, maybe having the find a friend on the phone, and like I see that you're at Kroger and you said you were gonna be at the quick stop, so what's going on? Just barely scratching the surface of that obsessive contact. You often find these following behaviors as well, these tracking behaviors.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Obviously, we just talked about financial abuse, stalking, these two together, among other things, makes it very difficult for a survivor to leave.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Hugely.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Because they can't afford it.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Think of if you share your bank account, like I don't know about you, but I have an app on my phone where as soon I just got gas on the way here, within five seconds of getting gas, Shell Station, blah blah blah, shows up. So if you share a banking app with that perpetrator, they can see in real time kind of the places that you're going and spending money. That it can be a tool for stalking and financial control at the same time. It makes it incredibly difficult because we tell people change your locks, we tell people get cameras, we tell people move sometime, especially with stalking. Stalking can be really pervasive and persistent over long periods of time. And a lot of these interventions require money. I have to have money to change my locks. I have to have money to get cameras. All of these things really add up, especially for someone who may have not been able to work because of their abuser, who may have lost jobs, who may have to pour all their money into moving, and then on top of it have all these other expenses they're incurring.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

And one of the things I'm hoping to cover in a future episode of this podcast is the Safe at Home Program. And that is hopefully one way a survivor can get away from their abuser is the Safe at Home program is where someone's given an address that for the public use, but they have the abuser wouldn't be able to find their private address. Their mail would go to a location. It's actually the National Guard Armory. I've heard that abusers actually try to go in to that address. Oh yeah. And they go to the National Guard Armory and find out that that's not the actual survivor's address. So I thought that was kind of interesting. But uh there are ways that's a that's inexpensive, a free service that the state of Tennessee provides. And again, we'll probably get into that in a later episode, but I thought I'd mention it now just because we're talking about how to maybe undo some of these behaviors. We mentioned financial abuse, we mentioned stalking, and sort of falling into that whole line of abuse, unfortunately, is emotional abuse, threats, intimidation, ice well, we talked about isolating people from their family and friends, controlling someone with uh by monitoring their phone, where they're going, who they're going with, interrupting their sleep.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

That's such a big one. That's such a big one that we don't think about. And it's so awful to do to people. Think about just how you feel after getting one bad night's sleep, and then think about that occurring every single night. Or think about a new parent. I know I have a lot of friends who have really young kids who are just getting kind of past the phase where they're getting up a couple times a night and really struggling with that lack of sleep, and that is a huge tactic. It makes you disoriented, it makes you less functional during the day, it is just something that generally kind of is cruel. People will do it just for cruelty's sake, honestly. But it's another thing that can feed into multiple of these sort of manipulations. If I am losing sleep and I am not on top of all the things I have to do in a day, then that can put my employment at risk. It can put my all the things that I have to do with my kids and my custody at risk because I am maybe getting them there to school later or doing all those kinds of things. It can also make me a lot more susceptible to manipulation, to that emotional abuse, because it really takes a very large toll on you mentally and emotionally when you are losing sleep. There are a lot of studies that say just like one or two hours of lost sleep every couple of days can really harm you mentally and emotionally and can really cause some symptoms similar to anxiety and depression over time.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

And think I'm sure that messes with your memory as well. And think about what that means in terms of prepping them for a human. We always talk about on our side of things to get turned aside, having to prepare a domestic violence survivor for court. We kind of anticipate that they might not be able to gather their thoughts and remember things very well, and I'm sure sleep deprivation plays into that a great deal.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Oh yeah. Trauma already messes with your memory. Fear, anxiety, all of that messes with your memory, adds sleep deprivation into it, and it's just compounding.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Something I didn't really think about maybe until I heard her podcast was that abusers resort to public embarrassment of survivors. They'll find something that maybe was disclosed to them in confidence and then reveal it in a public situation and maybe use that against them to embarrass them, you know, sort of adding on to this whole emotional abuse tactic.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

It's often done in these extremely manipulative ways, right? Because it's not just that we're going out to dinner with friends and I'm calling you a derogatory name. If I did that, our friends would be on your side. That would turn public perception against me. So, very much like you said, I might tell a story that I know is embarrassing for you. Tell it in a way that, oh ha ha, we're just having fun, it's funny. And then if you're hurt or you get angry, I can spin that as you being emotional or you overreacting, you caring going too far. I've even seen and and worked with victims who've whose perpetrators will then circle back to the people that they sort of embarrass the victim in front of and say things like, They've they I've really been worrying about them lately. I don't know what's going on, I they've been drinking a lot. Really kind of setting this, sowing the seeds of undermining them with friends and family, talking about drinking, talking about their mental health, even if none of that is true, and using these public humiliations as fuel to that fire. Having that then in your back pocket. So if I do go to court, or if I'm trying to get a divorce, if I'm in a custody proceeding, whatever it may be, well, I have these three character witnesses that can come up here and tell you that Dean has been struggling with his drinking and mental health. And I, you know, we've been talking about it for months. So all of that kind of, like I said, it's it's that constant weaving of the public perception.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

I'd like to thank Heather for coming to the studio today to talk domestic violence. Heather and I will continue our discussion in the next episode, including identifying what physical abuse is, what sexual violence is, and we will also dive a little bit deeper into domestic violence by going through the 15 signs of domestic violence, which is recognizing the patterns of behavior so that you can be forewarned before you get into a relationship with an abuser. Thank you for listening to Talking TV, a podcast that focuses on providing you with practical information on how to leave an abusive relationship. I'm your host, Dean Hinton, encouraging you to seek legal counsel for your specific case. If you cannot afford an attorney, contact your local legal aid office. Many legal aid offices often offer free legal clinics where you can speak to an attorney face to face about your specific legal problem. There's no reason to give up hope.