The Mind Control Tactics of Domestic Abusers

• “I felt like my brain was controlled by a computer chip.”
• “I wasn’t myself.”
• “I couldn’t think for myself. I really couldn’t think at all.”
• “I looked in the mirror and felt like I wasn’t there.”
• “All the constant psychic pressure made me feel like trash.”

Source: Laurentiu Morariu/Unsplash) cropped)

The above quotes from survivors of domestic abuse show the effects of mind control. Abusers deliberately make their partners feel confused—sometimes not even knowing their own thoughts. Abusers overwhelm their partners’ views, desires and opinions through what Evan Stark has termed "perspecticide," leaving a victim with an abuse-related incapacity to know what they know. (For example, an abuser convinced his partner that he could read her mind. Another convinced his partner that he was justified in locking her in a closet as punishment).

Mind Control Tactics

How do abusers exert such extreme influence over their partners’ thoughts and feelings? In workshops and support groups, abuse survivors have named the following tactics:

• Isolating their victims socially
• Restricting access to information
• Enforcing rules with punishments for “disobedience”
• Blocking their partners from making decisions about things that matter
• Keeping their partners sleepy and even malnourished
• Pushing their partners to consume alcohol and drugs
• Drugging their partners without their knowledge, so the victim just does not “feel right” and may even lose consciousness
• Exhausting them physically through forced labor in or outside the home
• Humiliating and injuring them through sex
• Manipulating them through lies, the silent treatment, and gaslighting
• Making their partners “crack” mentally by torturing them. For example, by denying them needed medication, forcing them to listen to two talk radio stations at once, denying them access to showers, or forcing them to harm their own child or pet.

One survivor, Denise, described what she endured as “a blitzkrieg of mental abuse.” Her husband told her that she was repulsive, stupid, and useless. Denise said that she eventually believed that he was right, and she was pitiful, worthless, and unlovable, which made it even harder for her to defend herself against the next verbal assault. Even years after leaving the abusive situation, some survivors report that it is difficult to get the abuser's voice out of their heads.

“Abusers use mind control for the same reasons they use intimidation, isolation, putdowns, financial control, and a host of other tactics,” according to Craig McIntosh, LCSW, who has more than 20 years’ experience working with sexual and domestic abusers. McIntosh suggests that a “crippling attachment anxiety” drives abusers to work so hard to control their partners. He adds, “I would suspect that most abusers who go to the trouble of intentionally creating crazy-making scenarios do it out of a sadistic need to watch others suffer.” McIntosh describes abusers deliberately causing their partners to doubt their perceptions and ultimately their sanity. He added that abusers use this kind of gaslighting not only to make victims feel as if they are crazy, but also to cover up lies such as criminal activity or infidelity.

Defining Reality

Abusers also define reality to control their partners. They make repeated assertions about what love means, how people should behave in a relationship, and the “way things are.” Abusers present household roles, rules, and responsibilities as common sense and nonnegotiable. By establishing the terms of reality, abusers define their cruel and controlling behaviors as inevitable, normal, acceptable, or even as proof of love. For example, Don told his wife, Cindy, that if she loved him, she would allow him to do whatever he wanted to her sexually. Sam told Chris that love pardons all, and therefore she “had to” forgive him if he apologized. Matt asserted that his jealous rages, including punching walls and breaking objects, were signs of love. This form of oppression in a relationship is particularly problematic when people cannot name how they are harmed.

Hard to Leave or Stay Away

Mind control can make it extremely difficult to leave an abusive partner. If a victim makes plans to end the relationship, the abuser may double down on his verbal assaults, or take out loans in her name to make her "too broke to leave," or create public “scenes” to make others think the victim is crazy. Making a partner miserable and then comforting her leads to trauma bonding. The victim turns to the abuser for consolation, which reinforces their attachment, even though the abuser was the original source of the suffering.

Mind control also influences survivors to return to the abuser after a separation. Survivors are used to coordinating their lives around the abuser’s wishes. Sometimes they feel panicked, lost, and empty when this central person is “gone.” They likely also feel responsible for the relationship problems since the abuser has blamed them.

Tips for Recovery

Recovering from mind control in an intimate relationship can be compared to healing from brainwashing in a cult. The abuser inflicted countless small and large psychological assaults throughout the relationship. Time alone will not heal these wounds. Survivors and experts suggest the following specific steps for coping with the effects of mind control after an abuse.

• Psychotherapy (especially a trauma-focused therapy with someone who understands domestic abuse)
• Journaling
• Reading about coercive control
• Learning to be in the moment (mindfulness)
• Avoiding romantic relationships, dating and sex until you feel you are well and whole on your own
• Rediscovering interests that you may have abandoned, and finding new hobbies and activities
• Getting in touch with your body through walking, sports, dance, yoga, massage, or other activities that get you moving or help you relax
• Finding new friends and renewing old ties with friends (not former intimate partners)
• Volunteering. You build self-esteem by connecting with others and doing esteemed acts

Domestic Violence Essential Reads

25 Red Flags of Intimate Partner Violence

Denial for the Perpetrator and Survivor of Intimate Partner Abuse

Amanda McCormick reminds us that abusers’ mind control is powerful because social forces support some of their ideas. “'You're crazy’ goes with 'women are crazy, emotional, and hysterical.’ ‘You're inadequate’ goes with 'women are weaker and less competent than men.' 'No one will believe you' goes with the fact that women are often disbelieved. 'You like it rough' goes with the idea (promoted primarily through the pornography industry but also in mainstream media) that violent sex is a turn-on for women.”

Lack of social supports for victims who break free—such as safe and affordable housing, jobs that pay a living wage, accessible medical care, etc.—also make it harder to exit an abusive relationship. In other words, domestic abuse is not just a psychological issue but is also grounded in social reality.

Speaking with a domestic violence advocate and participating in a support group helps survivors break free of the aftereffects of mind control in domestic abuse.