I met Paula through a friend of a friend. It took a while before she finally agreed to meet with me. I wanted to find someone who would open up to me about her personal encounter with domestic violence. It was not so much the humiliating details of the violence and the pain that interested me.
I wanted to determine, if I could, whether the abuse that attends domestic violence occurs within any particular psychological paradigm, whether, in a sense, it may not be ‘something cultural and whether what we do and how we do what do is anywhere near enough to arrest this malady.
Part of the difficulty that we face in coming to a full understanding of the phenomenon of domestic violence has to do with what we learn about it. That, sometimes, is very little. We have been led to believe that much, even most of this type of violence occurs in among what one might describe as ordinary people and that the abusers are unschooled, unsophisticated humans whose backgrounds predispose them to that kind of behaviour; and even if all of us no longer believe this to be true we still, to a large extent, pretend that it is. Why? Because to do otherwise would be to upturn some of those myths that refuse to attach unacceptable forms of behaviour to people of a certain class; and once we begin to believe that there are, in fact, abusers who are part of that class, we tamper with some of those conventional wisdoms that are interwoven to comprise the very fabric of the society in a most discomfiting way.
Who is to say, for example, that the very institutions to which we look to rein in domestic violence are not, themselves, havens for the most heinous abusers? Who is to say, moreover, that some of those very institutions do not perceive domestic violence to be either ‘a private matter,’ a minor infraction or else, a bearable irritant that we simply have to live with. We need, I believe, to unlearn much of the conventional wisdoms about domestic violence that we continue to embrace and to recognize that we cannot truly seek to eradicate a phenomenon the nature and magnitude of which we understand only in a limited way.
That is why I had spent so many weeks looking for Paula. I wanted to find someone who had been intimate with domestic violence but who could – for a period at least – set aside the physical and emotional experience that attends the ordeal and speak with me, dispassionately, about the nature of the beast.
In the course of my search I discovered that many, perhaps most women are inclined to suffer in silence. With some it is the shame that attends public disclosure that life is far from what it seems to be. With others it is a very real fear that going public might render their circumstances infinitely worse and might even cost them their lives. With others still, it is an incomprehensible loyalty to their abusers, a loyalty that sometimes derives from the absurd notion that the violence, somehow, is, in its own twisted way, a reflection of caring.
I wanted to find someone who could help me determine whether domestic violence was simply a random, succession of violent acts or whether there was a rationality of sorts to that type of behaviour.
There is, I believe, such a thing as the psychology of domestic violence. By that I mean that domestic violence is driven by its own particular set of dynamics; that it manifests itself in a particular environment in which both the abuser and the victim are trapped. Both, in their separate ways, are victims. This by no means exonerates the abuser, I say this simply to make the point that stamping IT out cannot be accomplished simply by a thicket of laws and an enhanced enforcement capacity. We must, I believe, seek to challenge and change the psychology of domestic violence if we are to make a fist of ending or at least significantly arresting this menace. That is the lesson which I had hoped that Paula would leave with me.
I did not think that she was the ideal subject for that sort of interview. She had set several rules. No real names; no photographs; and she insisted that we meet at a place of her choosing and that the identity of the meeting place remain a secret. The rules, it seemed, cut across my wish for an open interview. I was seeking an encounter with someone who was more than just a battered woman. It was the psychology of the relationship in which that kind of violence thrived that interested me. Paula, it seemed, was just another frightened and emotionally shattered victim. It seemed that she was terrified of the likelihood of reprisal on the part of her abuser and if that was how she felt I did not believe that she could give me what I wanted.
The friend of a friend talked me into changing my mind about Paula. She said that she understood what I was looking for and that she believed that Paula could ‘deliver.’ She said that she felt that I would want to listen to Paula’s story.
We met once, Paula and I; she said she would give me one hour, no more; that our first meeting would be our last, that she would not communicate with me again, in person or otherwise, to clear up or clarify what she would say during our meeting.
When you meet someone who is a victim of domestic violence you find yourself, instinctively, looking for evidence of injury. I saw none; no mark, no black eye; no bruise; no discernable limp.
“When last were you physically abused?” The question was a dead giveaway. Paula laughed and told me that she had learnt to deal with “that particular problem.” By that she meant that she was aware that I was looking for bumps and bruises but that she had come to learn how to conceal those. She gestured to her upper arms, hidden beneath a long-sleeved blouse. “You learn to hide these things,” she said.
I told her that I felt that her response seemed like a trivialization of her tragedy. She disagreed. “That’s just another way of looking at the situation,” she told me.
Paula described herself to me as “a University of Guyana dropout.” She said that she had been unable to cope with the demands of “a difficult pregnancy on top of academic work. When I told her that I knew of other women who had managed to cope she seemed a trifle offended. “Perhaps I am not like those other women,” she retorted.
Sometimes, as a journalist, you tend to play little games with people, to test their levels – so to speak – to cause you to arrive at an understanding regarding what you can ask and how you can ask what you ask and what sort of answers you can anticipate.
I realized after only a few minutes that this twenty-nine year-old “University of Guyana dropout” was an intelligent, thoughtful and discerning woman who wanted to talk with me about issues that went beyond her own pain and suffering. That was the comfort zone that I was seeking.
I listened intently to her account of the history of her common law relationship. It had developed in the teeth of strong opposition from her parents whom she described as “poor but decent people with middle class preensions.” They wanted marriage though not to a man who was quite happy “working in the entertainment industry.” He persisted and she ignored her parents’ wishes.
The first time he beat her was less than a month after they had moved in together. Paula remembered that it was the day before her birthday; she was pregnant and the beating almost led to the loss of her unborn son. She told me that his violence had shocked and surprised her but that what she felt most was the shame of being kicked and stomped. “You feel like an animal,” she said.
They had talked about the beating afterwards and he had said he was sorry but that he didn’t think that it was all his fault. “When I looked at it carefully later on I realized that I had made the mistake of having him persuade me that I was in some way responsible for his violence.” She laughed. “It is ridiculous, isn’t it?” She didn’t seem to want an answer to her question.
I probed deeper and she agreed that the concession that she might have been in some way responsible for the violence had been a costly error. “By conceding that being beaten is, somehow, your fault, justifies the actions of your abuser. The only consequence that can stem from that is more beatings, more apologies for hurting you and more suggestions that the beating was really your fault in the first place. Strange as it may seem, sometimes an environment can be created in which the abuser sees nothing wrong with his actions. It is,” she says, “part of a weird logic” that attends some abusive relationships. “Both the abuser and the victim become delusional.”
She made another point to me which I found bizarre in an interesting sort of way. “It remember him actually suggesting, quite calmly, on more than one occasion, that what he had done was for my own good. That is the extend to which an abuser can manipulate your mind,”
She believes, she says, that central to that logic is a perception on the part of the abuser that the victim “is owned.” She says that once a man “comes to that twisted understanding” that the victim is his property, the abuse is justified. The notion of ownership, she says, may come from the victim’s material and/or emotional dependence on the abuser. “Some of them even believe that beating is a manifestation of caring.”
Paula asked me if I thought I could understand what she was seeking to explain and the implications of such a circumstance. I told her that I had some difficulty in believing that relationships between two people could be informed by that kind of delusional thinking. “That is why, sometimes, the abuse never stops. That is why it sometimes ends in killings. Strange as it may seem the cycle of violence can even become normal for both the abuser and the victim.”
I suggested to Paula that if she had been able to come to such a clear understanding of the nature of her situation, there was really no excuse for her to remain in that relationship. She told me that my response suggested that I really did not understand a great deal about abusive relationships. “Whether you go or stay depends on a number of things and the fact that you are being abused is only one of them. Sometimes other issues arise. In my case it was a fear that once I attempted to leave he would kill me,” she said.
After that she became more animated. She said that she believed that one of the main reasons why domestic violence persists and why it frequently leads to killings is because many of the victims do not believe that they can really be protected by society once they decide to leave the abusive relationship. “Those women whose killings and maimings come to public attention are mostly women who have been victims of this very situation. They are trapped in relationships that are held together by delusions. Some of them even know beforehand that eventually they will die.”
The encounter had become less of an interview and more of a lesson for me in the complex issue of domestic violence. Paula told me about the second time that her abuser had hurt her. He had broken her, finger, taken her to the doctor and persuaded her to lie about the cause of the injury. “I felt then that in a funny sort of a way he had drawn me into playing a sick game with him. I find it hard to describe the feeling. It was as if I was willingly embracing this ordeal and even helping to create the environment in which it could thrive.”
Paula remembers about seven beatings. She said that they had ranged from a severe slap across the face to ferocious, heavy-handed attacks. “Sometimes, after beating me he would be almost as tired and exhausted as me,”
There comes a time, Paula told me, when the pain, the fear and the humiliation rises above the resignation, “It is at that point”, she says, “that you begin to weigh your options…” and when you believe that there is nothing that anyone can do to help you that is when you sometimes think that you’re capable of murder” I asked her if she felt that she had ever reached the point where she had contemplated murder. She told me that she wasn’t sure.
I asked her whether she did not think that there were institutions in the society that could help her and for the second time during our conversation she seemed to lose her temper. “You have to be in it to really understand,” she insisted. “A battered woman is sometimes driven by a logic that no one else can relate to,” I sought an explanation. She told me that she did not believe that the Guyana society had really embraced the problem of domestic violence. “When you fight your fears and your pain for months on end and finally decide to go the police and when your abuser is not arrested you feel a terrible sense of despair.”
She spoke too about the fear that the abuser will feel a sense of being wronged by the victim’s police report. “At that moment you could die,” she told me.
I sought her views on the way in which society perceived domestic violence. “Its a fovoured moral talking point. It looks and sounds good to be against domestic violence. The real issue has to do with how much we are prepared to do to stop it.” She says that what we do is limited to passing laws and talking about domestic violence in the media. “I know of no one outside of an abusive relationship who can even dream of how a victim truly feels. The other problem, of course, is that domestic violence is so common, so prevalent, so accepted that we have not even begun to put the resources together to fight the problem. It really is a far, far bigger problem than we think.”
She asked me if I thought that she was wrong not to take her case to “the authorities’ and I told her that even if she did not believe that the right solutions were being applied she might at least help to create an enhanced institutional understanding of the problem. She said that she was glad that I had given her that kind of response. The problem, she said, was that there were people “who just talk and talk and talk about domestic violence. While they talk more women get beaten and killed. They accomplish little because they understand little. They do not have to take the problem home with them.”
What Paula had done was to shift my focus completely. I had become drawn in to her nightmarish world, her sense of despair. She had made me feel her fear. I asked her what was to be done and she said that she “honestly” did not know. She told me that she believed that “you have to “feel it to understand it.”
She asked me whether I felt that “all the publicity and the hype and the legislation” could help. I told her that I believed it might. She smiled and told me that in that case I should explain why the incidence of domestic violence was rising at a time when it seemed that more was being done to highlight the problem and she seemed irritated when I could give her no answer.
Paula told me that she was seeking answers for all abused women. “I feel like an expert on the subject, not but because I have an intellectual understanding of the problem but because I have lived in it and my understanding of it comes from watching it unfold. Do you think I am an expert?” I agreed that she was.
I asked Paula if she had known of any other case of domestic violence in her own family. The question surprised her. It surprised me too but I felt that our conversation had reached a level of intimacy that allowed for such an enquiry. At first she said she didn’t know then she remembered that she had had had an uncle who was an engineer who used to beat his wife. “He would slap her if he came home and something was not in place. They eventually migrated to Canada and I remember her telephoning my father once to tell him that the beatings had not stopped. Interestingly enough, the abuser’s father who was also my father’s father, was a fervent preacher. It takes all sorts, I suppose.”
It was Paula who returned to the issue of what is to be done. “We need to reinvent the social culture.” She said it suddenly and I was momentarily confused since the remark bore no relation to what we were discussing at that particular point in time. “I think it’s a cultural thing in a sense. I’m not sure but sometimes it seems to me that domestic violence in Guyana is really a part of the culture, Not everyone subscribes to it but I honestly believe that a great many men believe that it is their right to mistreat women. If I am right I believe that that makes it a cultural thing.” I wasn’t sure that I wanted to proceed along that road. What bothered me was that I could find no fault with what she had said.
She caught the look of puzzlement on my face and dared me to deny what she had said. “That is what makes domestic violence the huge problem that it is.” The animation in her tone suggested that she believed that she had made a profound point. I have no recollection of ever before being lost for words during an interview.
The hour had passed quickly, Paula said that she wanted to tell me more but that she had asked her mother to keep her son for “a few minutes.” Then she fell silent, a thoughtful expression settling on her face. “Do you know he would probably kill me if he knew I was talking to you?” I did not respond.
She asked me if I had gotten what I had wanted and I told her that I wasn’t sure. She hoped that other women would tell their stories too. “More women should talk. It might help.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell Paula’s story. She is an attractive, highly intelligent woman whom, somehow, I could not associate with being in an abusive relationship. That, I suppose, is a reflection of my own lack of understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon of domestic violence.
I asked her whether she still lived together with her abuser and she told me that her mother was ill and that she had used that as a reason to stay with her. “He calls the house and complains from time to time but that is as far as he has gone since I have been with my mother. At least it gives me time to think.” Arnon Adams
