Photo by Hailey Kean on Unsplash

In all the recent discussion about domestic violence and intimate partner abuse, the same few silly questions pop up on your #MeToo bingo card.

Why didn’t she just leave?

Why did she let him do that?

Why didn’t she call the cops?

“Why didn’t she.” Notice that through-line, as opposed to “Why did he.”

Also on the bingo card are these inane assessments:

I don’t know, he seems like a nice person.

She just wants attention.

People fight, it’s no big deal.

I’m inclined to say that it’s pointless to address these questions. There are many reasons people want to disbelieve survivors of intimate partner violence. It’s baffling, isn’t it? It’s a legitimate question: why didn’t she leave? Why didn’t she report? If she didn’t, it must not have been too bad, right?

Of course, people aren’t always asking these legitimate questions legitimately. They’re actually making a statement. When they “ask” why she didn’t leave, they’re saying they would have.

I can’t answer these questions for everyone, because as with any relationship, abusive relationships take many forms and affect people differently. (People have different experiences, how about that.)

I could talk about the facets of partner abuse and the science and data behind those facets. As an academic, I have read hundreds of papers on this very topic.

However, I doubt it would really answer these questions, and that’s because I was conducting this research when I got into the relationship with my abuser. It still took me a year to recognize the thing that I was studying in my own life.

I did leave, after a year. I never did report. I engaged law enforcement and consulted with a lawyer. As many survivors have found, there are few avenues that seem safe, let alone effective. I ultimately decided not to pursue a restraining order, which in my state has a high likelihood of lethal retaliation, or to file a police report, for reasons I outline below.

I stayed for a year because I was trauma-bonded. Trauma-bonding, the basis of Stockholm Syndrome, is the ultimate answer to #WhyIStayed. I stayed not because I believed his promises, but because I wanted to. I stayed because I had poured so much energy into the relationship that no other avenue seemed possible. I stayed because I felt an unspeakable bond to him, wrought by the fires of his fury and my chilling fear that leaving would be much, much worse.

I also stayed because I doubted my own reality, due to an devious tactic called gaslighting. The term is derived from a classic film and refers to trickery meant to make the victim doubt their experience and memory. Their reality. It’s especially insidious because victims of gas lighting appear unreliable to outsiders and moreover feel confusion that compounds their shame. They ferociously pursue the reality that’s mockingly wandering away from them. If given a choice between two realities, wouldn’t you choose the one in which you’re not a victim of abuse?

I didn’t report because police said that they would need full access to my life and then talk to my abuser. I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which police showing up at his door would end in anything besides my body at the bottom of the river. I also didn’t want all of my friends, family, and acquaintance to be interviewed about me. I didn’t want to be the subject of gossip and speculation. As it is, my abuser made me so. Abuse victims feel pressure to be strong, to behave as though everything is normal. If we don’t, we’re beaten. That’s why people say, “You two seemed so happy, though!” They’ve been duped by the performance.

I also doubted cops would believe me. Here’s the thing: victims of abuse don’t look too good in these situations, and especially not in our messages. There are messages in which we’re begging the abuser to take us back. There are others in which we tell them to go to hell. We seem inconsistent as we struggle to navigate the Boschian hell the abuser has painted for us.