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Domestic Violence: A Pandemic Within a Pandemic?

domestic violence awareness month

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. We are dedicating this month to draw attention to this unspeakable crime and continue efforts to raise awareness and stop the violence.

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The Staggering Stats

According to the WHO, across their lifetime, 1 in 3 women, around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner.

This number increased sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading some to call domestic violence a pandemic within a pandemic.

According to Time Magazine, growing evidence shows the pandemic has made intimate partner violence more common—and often more severe. Surveys around the world have shown domestic abuse spiking since January of 2020—jumping markedly year over year compared to the same period in 2019.

Research conducted by the University of California, Davis suggests that extra stress in the COVID-19 pandemic caused by income loss, and lack of ability to pay for housing and food has exacerbated the often silent epidemic of intimate partner violence.

The Aftermath of Domestic Violence

See below for Kat Masley’s personal story on being a domestic violence survivor. Originally published on NCADV’s blog, re-printed with permission.

“I don’t give a shit about your stupid little teen soap opera.”

A seemingly simple statement, albeit a bit nasty. But it was said with such vitriol that it stopped me in my tracks for a second. It was the first time he had ever spoken to me like that, and I was caught off guard by the gruff in his voice. All I wanted to do was watch a show that comforted me, and I was super confused as to why he was reacting this way. I ultimately shrugged it off. It was only years later as I was reflecting on my life with this man that I thought, “Wow, that was a red flag that I so easily dismissed.” It was my first peek into the guy I’d wind up calling “Mr. Hyde.”

Cue to six years later and I’m sitting in Planned Parenthood waiting for the doctor to come in and scrape out the cluster of cells that could have one day been our baby. Only I found out I was pregnant shortly after discovering he was cheating on me. The days (and very long nights) leading up to that moment were filled with insomnia, tears, screaming, tremor-inducing anxiety, intimidation, other women, deep depression, questioning my sanity, 911 calls, and what very closely resembled a drinking problem on my part. The days after that moment were, and still are, loaded with PTSD and night terrors.

Whenever I displeased him, I was met with an array of consequences. One night, my belongings and I were (literally) thrown out of the house into an ice storm at 2 a.m. We had been drinking, and I had no choice but to sleep it off a bit in my car, being that I was an hour away from my home. I then proceeded to drive home at four in the morning, still not sober, in an ice storm. Could he see my car was there for a few hours? Yup. Did he attempt to see if I was OK or ask me to come back inside? Nope. I was serving my sentence and he’d be damned if he didn’t teach me a lesson.

Another time, after bringing up yet another one of his indiscretions, I was backed into the corner of the kitchen, scared stiff as he punched the table in front of me. Fearful that the next object might be my head, I attempted to call 911 while not making it obvious that I was trying to do something on my phone. My acting skills went out the window, and my phone went across the kitchen.

I left a million times. The sick cycle of abuse got me, though, and I continued to go back. Abusers are extremely skilled at “love bombing” and discarding. It was like being on a see-saw, only by myself. The back-and-forth became an unsteady way of life that I thought I deserved. I was always made to feel it was my fault, so I kept returning to the relationship. I didn’t realize until years into it that what I was experiencing was abuse, and it was only at the hands of a few close friends that I was able to come to this conclusion — I was blind to it.

I discovered what gaslighting was, though I wasn’t self-aware until the tactic had long been used on me. He systematically assaulted my reality and twisted it until it became unrecognizable, even to me. In short, he had convinced me I was losing my mind. I started to believe that I didn’t, in fact, properly recall certain events or conversations. Or perhaps I misheard. Or my favorite, he “misspoke”, and therefore I should only take heed of what he was saying NOW.

Signs of PTSD still linger. I have very negative reactions to loud voices/yelling or if someone hits or slams something around me. It feels as if my insides start eating themselves, in the hopes that I can inevitably decrease into nothing and I don’t have to endure what’s happening around me any longer. That’s one of the sensations I recall being constant in my time with him: Trying to shrink. Wanting to become as physically small as possible. Willing myself to be invisible.

The aftermath of an abusive partner is not pretty. Being purposely kept off-balance for six years while being mentally terrorized has long-lasting negative effects. I am still learning how to process and deal with it all, years after that pivotal moment in PP. That moment when I decided that I would not allow a child to grow up with such a man as its father. When I realized having a baby would mean I would be tied to him for the rest of my life. That moment when I finally said, “Nope.”

It’s been four years and four months since sitting in that operating room. I left him for the last time after my abortion. I moved out of my home state. I’m hyper-vigilant when it comes to anything that might relate to him. For example, the thought of visiting home/friends is a daunting one. I wonder how to plan/who to tell so as not to have word spread that I’m in town. I have given very few people my address or any details about where I live for fear of a surprise guest. Little things like this, that most people wouldn’t stress about, have become a mandatory way of thinking for me. Another thing I’m still trying to work out.

These days I tell myself it can only get better. It doesn’t have to haunt me forever, though I understand that it still might mess with me a bit in the coming months and maybe even years. But at the end of the day I think of it this way: It’s a lesson, not a life sentence. I am the strongest person I know.

Kat Masley is a New Jersey-born artist & writer. After considering publishing this blog anonymously, she decided that is was HER story to tell, any way she wanted to. She hopes it allows others who may be in her situation to see that there is hope, light at the end of the tunnel, and within you, a strength you never knew you had. Kat currently lives in Los Angeles, CA, and is beyond grateful she has her life back. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram

If you or someone you know needs help, please reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

The post Domestic Violence: A Pandemic Within a Pandemic? first appeared on Humintell.

Opportunity Favors the Prepared

Guest Blog by Ron Holloway

Ron is the owner of Arrow Coaching, LLC. He pairs his studies and research with the experience with becoming blind and cognitively impaired to an invaluable thought leader in the government and beyond. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Lessons From Boxing

Mike Tyson once said, “every fighter has a plan until he gets punched in the mouth.”

I want to add that the amateur might forget the plan and get emotional whereas the professional fighter takes it, feels the blow and gets back to the plan. The shock makes the amateur panic and helps the professional focus.

We can say the same about life and emergency management when one encounters their metaphorical punch in the face with either an untrained mind or a trained mind.

What happens after that hit is the result of everything that went into preparing for it.

As, Sun Tzu said, “The battle is won before the fighting.”  Or what I learned as a soldier, we don’t rise to the occasion; we default to our level of training.

As an anti-fragility coach and consultant, I prepare individuals and organizations to be like that professional fighter.

In particular, I develop leaders for that moment when everyone turns to them with fear in their eye’s and say, “What do we do?”

Ron’s 4-Part System

My system draws on philosophy, psychology, physiology, and spirituality.

Like boxing there are principles, such as keeping your hands up and throwing combinations.  There are also techniques to drill into your muscle memory until they become automatic.

How it Applies to You

But you might be saying, I’m not a boxer what do I need this for?  Well, there are benefits in the real world that will come with being a champion.

An example we can draw from is the initial public response to Covid-19.  Some people rushed out and bought a ton of toilet paper for a condition that affects the respiratory system not the gastro-intestinal system.

Others asked themselves the classic stoic question of “how do I turn this to my advantage?” and those people invested in Zoom and saw their investment quadruple over the next few months.

Amazon, Circuit City, and Best Buy

This doesn’t only apply on the individual level. A great example is found in the consumer electronics market.

When Amazon entered that ecosystem, Circuit City went into denial and didn’t adapt.

Best Buy adapted and diversified by finding other areas to improve, the Geek Squad, the sale of high-end home appliances and home theatre systems, and training the sales people to develop subject matter expertise in products and to sell not just to husbands but also their wives. These are what make Best Buy the last man standing.

In the Darwinian sense Best Buy is the fittest and Circuit City is extinct.  Now this lesson is part of Best Buy’s corporate story and culture and as is often written, culture trumps strategy any day.

Post Pandemic

As we emerge out of the global pandemic, we need to do an after action review. We need to ask ourselves as individuals, organizations, and a country if next time disruption occurs will we waste money and precious time on a lifetime supply of Charmin, or are we going to get the contract for those social distancing stickers in front of every register in every store in the country?

Want to enhance your knowledge about emotions, skills in reading emotions in others, and your own emotion regulation competence? Check out our online courses here!

The post Opportunity Favors the Prepared first appeared on Humintell.

Body Language in the Classroom

School is back in session! Humintell Director David Matsumoto has been a Professor at San Francisco State and Judo Instructor for over 30 years. In this video, he explains how reading facial expressions of emotion and body language (nonverbal behavior) has so many benefits in the educational process.

Teachers

For teachers, reading their kids’ and their student’s facial expressions of emotion is incredibly important. It helps them know if the students are getting the material or not, engaging with the classroom or not, and so many other things.

Students

For kids, it’s important to read each other’s nonverbal behavior and especially facial expressions of emotion for many reasons. It’s important for kids to be able to read their teachers so they can get the additional messages about what they’re trying to learn.

But it’s also very important for kids to be able to read facial expressions of emotion in everyone else for their social and emotional development, which is so important and is such an important part of the educational process- above and beyond the knowledge that kids learn.

Going Back Masked

But as you know as kids and teachers in many states and countries around the world are going back masked with a large portion of our faces covered, reading body language and especially facial expressions of emotion is a challenge.

And not doing so challenges the many benefits in reading facial expressions of emotion that would normally occur when we’re back in school.

In fact, there’s been some recent research about this that has shown that people are less accurate in reading each other’s facial expressions of emotion because of the masks.

All is Not Lost

We can still learn to read facial expressions of emotion even when people are wearing masks.

All of us here at Humintell want to help especially educators overcome this challenge during our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

We’ve got a number of blogs on this topic that can hopefully inform us more and give us more important knowledge about this important issue:

The Role of Nonverbal Communication in the Classroom

Can Children Read Masked Faces?

We’ve also got some brand new online courses that can help people learn to read facial expressions of emotion even when others are wearing masks. They made be helpful not only for educators but also for health professionals, security personnel, and anyone who’s dealing professionally with others wearing masks.

So please check out our resources. We hope that they can help all of us be the best that we can be in reading people and reading facial expressions of emotion during this difficult time.

The post Body Language in the Classroom first appeared on Humintell.