Destabilization And DV

 OFF BALANCE

One of the most strengthening aspects of our human development is in how well most of us can gain and procure the stabilizing circumstances that help us to progress in the world.

 

In healthy relationships, our friends, family, loved ones, and likewise, our intimate partner relationships help us to accomplish and maintain the stability necessary to procure both the psycho-social support, and resources we need to live in our best capacity.

 

However, when entangled in dysfunctional or otherwise harmful intimate partner relationships that seek destabilization to procure power and control, it can significantly diminish the victim’s ability to independently thrive without the abuser, rendering them destitute, and co-dependent within the relationship dynamic.

 

Abusers do this by manufacturing events that serve to disarm their victims in ways that keep them from being able to effectively gain the leverage necessary to escape the relationship.

 

Destabilization is the act of purposely and intentionally deregulating someone’s ability to sustain themselves in ways that keep them from maintaining any freedom or strength within the relationship. In essence, it serves to undermine the personal power of the victim and is used as a mechanism to disorient and shift the ideals, perceptions, and goals within the relationship to those of the abuser or manipulator, at the expense or sacrifice of the target.

 

DESTABILIZATION CAN LOOK LIKE

• Economic Sabotage - By manufacturing events that undermine and prevent the victim’s ability to thrive within the relationship. 

• Inducing Chronic Homelessness - Or other circumstances that force co-dependence within the relationship.

• Seperating Victim - From family and friends or other stabilizing and strengthening resources that serve to promote victim wellness within the relationship.

• Psychological Instability- By distorting, confusing, undermining and attacking the victim’s perceptions, belief systems, decision making and self-preservatory or healthy ways of caring for themselves.

• Economic Instability - Through acts of devastating the financial strengths of a victim to keep them trapped within the relationship. Economic destabilization also serves to render the victim helpless and destitute in all other capacities, by fostering circumstances that aim to keep them without resources or other financial tools to thrive outside of the relationship. 

 

PERSPECTIVES

Acts of destabilization by abusers also serve to demoralize victims, rendering them unable to control or regulate themselves as they attack victim morale and will in ways that serve to disintegrate them and cause both discord, disassociation and cognitive dissonance. 

 

Since these tactics are employed to exert POWER AND CONTROL over a target, the primary facet is usually to psychologically weaken or undermine victims, in an effort to completely disarm them.

 

Likewise, destabilization is known to induce traumatic or superficial bonding, such as seen in the phenomenon of Stockholm Syndrome in many survivors within these relationship dynamics.

 

KEEPING YOUR BALANCE

One of the most important factors in a survivor’s ability to thwart destabilization efforts in an abusive relationship is to recognize the signs of abuse early enough in the relationship  to take the right action in minimizing further entanglement with the abuser or abusive group. However, this isn’t always easy to do, as these acts can start out subtle and increase over time, effectively desensitizing the target to what is really going on.

 

However, it is critical that we learn to BELIEVE PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR OVER WORDS...ALWAYS! If your partner fails to help you, protect you or care for you in the ways that you need them to, WALK AWAY. There are plenty of people who already possess all the attributes you are looking for in a healthy relationship.

 

Further, always seek to maintain your friends, family, support groups and other financial strengths while in the relationship. If your partner is requesting that you give up any of these things, especially in the early phases of the relationship, this is a RED FLAG. Take note and respond accordingly. Those who mean us well, typically won’t expect us to sacrifice our stabilizing attributes for them. In fact in healthy relationships,  individual freedom and cumulative or communal strengths are encouraged and revered, as they serve to help all within the relationship thrive and survive. 

 

Just as we are born within clusters of family, the intimate partner relationships we seek should always reflect the same tenets of family and community, as these factors protect us from facing life’s hardships alone. It truly takes a village, and our intimate relationships should be an extension and culmination this. 

 

If you are involved in a relationship that seeks to separate you or disenfranchise you from your resources or support groups. LEAVE!

 

You are worthy of all the good there is to be had in communities of healthy relationships and people...always.