Break the Cycle of Abuse

by Linda Barrett

On Sunday afternoon, October 4, 2009, Chesterfield mom Lisette Johnson was shot in the chest by her husband. He shot her again as she ran into the backyard. He then turned the gun on himself, dying in the doorway to their family home. Their two young children were in the house.

Marshall Johnson had not been physically violent before, so Lisette did not realize his potential for violence—until it was too late.

“I knew I was unhappy in the relationship, but my mistake was in prolonging leaving. I kept trying to ‘work it out,’” Johnson explains. “I didn’t see myself as unsafe because I didn’t recognize emotional abuse as dangerous. I didn’t have broken arms or black eyes.”

Emotional Abuse Is Abuse

Emotional abuse is based on power and designed to control and subjugate another person through fear, humiliation, and guilt, through degrading, terrorizing, isolating, and denying emotional responsiveness, among others. Like brainwashing, it systematically wears away the victim’s self-confidence, self-worth, and self-trust, and can leave scars deeper than physical ones. Victims become convinced they are worthless, believe no one else could want them, and stay in the abusive relationship because they believe they have no place else to go or fear additional abuse.

We, as women, tend to blame ourselves. We deny, rationalize, justify and minimize the abuse, and begin believing what the abuser says about us when what we need to do is identify signs of an abusive relationship.

Emotional abuse can happen to anyone. Johnson is an intellectual, successful 50-ish woman and she and her husband lived in an upper middle class neighborhood. Like many abusers, Marshall was very personable and well connected—and adept at assuming a persona while hiding the true chaos inside. Only those closest saw the real person.

The Cycle of Abuse

“I never considered myself abused although I knew something was really wrong with the relationship,” Johnson says of her 21-year marriage. Her husband would say, “You’re fat,” “Why don’t you wear makeup to the grocery store,” or “You’re a bitch.” He tried isolating her from her family and friends, and blamed his problems on her, saying, “I wouldn’t be like this if it weren’t for you.”

She was unknowingly trapped in the circular Cycle of Abuse that leads from tension to an “incident,” to reconciliation, to a period of calm, and around again.

Lisette’s Mission

While at the hospital, Johnson began receiving letters from women she had known for years confiding their own abuse stories. “I was shocked by how many women had similar experiences,” Johnson says. “I asked myself, ‘If I had known their stories earlier, would it have changed the decisions I made?’ Absolutely.”

Since the incident, Lisette has made domestic abuse awareness her mission. She speaks on the topic throughout the region and serves on the Chesterfield County Domestic Violence Taskforce. “Sure it’s embarrassing, but it is so important for me to get out there for my own healing as well as to help other women,” she says. “Looking back into the jungle, it was a very dark place. I’m in the light now and I’m carrying a flag so other people can see their way out.”

Unless It's Stopped, The Cycle Continues

Image from Heart 2 Heart, Support Network and Self-Help Data Base for Abused Women

More Resources on Domestic Abuse

June 2010 Digital Edition continued

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