Five years ago, I remember Googling phrases like "Am I in an abusive relationship?" or "Can an abusive boyfriend ever change?" Now, as a journalist who has been using past personal trauma as a motivator to report on misconceptions surrounding intimate partner violence, I've learned about the soul-sucking process known by psychological experts as the "cycle of abuse."
At the start of the cycle, an abuser might use "love," in the form of charm and nice gestures, as a smokescreen to control their partners. To me, that's always been the scariest part of abuse—someone who is willing to distort love and vulnerability as a means to degrade and control their partner. When a victim musters up the courage to leave, the abuser will typically make threats, undermining safety (and the safety of loved ones) along with access to finances, health care, or children. My abuser would often tell me things like, "No one will ever love someone as messed up as you." Then, he would revert back to step one, apologize, justify his actions, and tell me that he loved me. After five years of therapy, I've learned to identify this process as a "cycle of abuse."
In a debut memoir, Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival, author Kelly Sundberg explores this cycle, investigating the interplay between violence, love, manipulation, and terror. Sundberg details her survival during and after her marriage with a man who was at once compassionate and supportive but also vindictive and violent. Like many, when she fell in love with her husband, Caleb, she saw no warning signs of an abusive relationship. Sundberg was 26 and working toward an undergraduate degree from Boise State University when she learned she was pregnant. Within a few years, she was trapped in a hazy, relentless fog of abuse.
[For more on this story by NATALIE PATTILLO, go to https://psmag.com/social-justi...es-of-domestic-abuse]
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