Acknowledging the anxieties created by coercive control

Anxiety within the relationship context is an internal sign that indicates a level of feeling unsafe within the relationship.  As these words are read, there may be some thinking for the first time that their anxiety could be caused by a certain person or people or relational dynamic or situation in their lives.  Others will have already identified this as an issue.

Coercive control is a pattern of controlling and manipulative behaviours within a relationship — any relationship.

Any time there is a case of feeling controlled within the context of the relationship, where certain actions are required, where a person is isolated or monitored, where there is gaslighting, where a person’s reputation is sullied without justification, there is the controlling of the person and a manipulation of how they operate.

Anxiety is not always evidence of feeling unsafe in a relationship, but just as the body does keep the score, anxiety is the body’s own evidence that it’s on guard for a sound reason.

Anxiety is the sign that a particular person or situation is either present or absent.  Depending on the circumstances, even a particular person’s absence can be anxiety evoking, and the body has a way of finding the target of its stress, be it past, present, or future, or a combination of these.

The very presence of an anxiety evoking person, and even their absence in some situations, will create a sense of hypervigilance in the person under coercive control.

It’s important to identify and acknowledge the impact of a person’s coercive control.  It’s important to face that truth, to acknowledge that we’re not just “weak” or “over sensitive” because of the treatment mete out to us.

We’re fortunate to live in a day of reconciling these truths, because in bygone eras there was a pathologising of people for their reactions to such abuses.  In our world today, there is more understanding than ever, and the term “gaslighting” (for one instance) is well known these days.

As there is the phenomenon of cause and effect, we can see that anxiety is an effect of coercive control.  Where that anxiety is accommodated for long lengths of time the effect is toxic and trauma can and does take place.