The Behavioral Science of Domestic Violence
~ Understand What Happened.
~ Reclaim Your Power.
~ Build a Meaningful Life you Love!
About Jess
Welcome.
I’m an author, a speaker, a podcaster, a Certified Clinical Trauma Specialist CCTS-I, and a Coercive Control Recovery coach who’s passionately empowering women through an evidence-based behavioral change modality (ACTr).
I don’t believe in codependency.
A woman who is targeted for Coercive Control by her partner isn’t codependent. She isn’t weak. She isn’t small. She isn’t broken; her world is.
I believe that pathologizing the experience and behaviors of a woman experiencing Coercive Control is one of the most damaging things we can do. See, here’s the thing. Calling her codependent makes it easier on us. Seeing her as broken and needing fixing lets us be the strong ones.
You know what’s scary? Sitting with a woman experiencing Coercive Control and trusting her as the expert in her own behaviors. Seeing her as another human having a very normal human reaction to what someone else has done to her world… it forces us to realize that any one of us could be her. That is scary.
Coercive Control is a process of narrowing someone’s world, by slowly narrowing their repertoire of available behaviors to choose from. Any one of us is only as strong and capable as our behavioral repertoire.
A woman targeted for Coercive Control isn’t making bad choices; she is making excellent and resourceful choices from the very poor options she has available.
She is making choices that keep her safe in her unsafe environment. She is making choices that get the family’s needs met, even when it has been made extremely difficult. She is making choices that make perfect sense in the world her abuser has created. Even when from the outside her choices seem senseless. She is the expert at navigating his whims, his moods, his expectations, his demands, and using the resources available to her.
My Story
I grew up in a cult… But don’t think that’s the reason Coercive Control found me. Women of any faith, or of no faith, women of any background, race, socioeconomic class, region, or any other demographic marker can end up Coercively Controlled by a partner.
The truth is, though naive and sheltered… I was smart. Through concurrent enrollment, I started college while still homeschooling, and earned an associate’s degree in architectural drafting. 20-year-old Jess had ambitions of becoming an architect and working in innovative sustainability. I was highly competitive, loved to write, draw, and dance, and valued deep conversations where sources were cited.
Coercive Control can happen to anyone.
I fell in love with a boy at church. He was kind, smart, funny, generous, a good Christian, had a great family, and showered me with attention. 9 months after meeting, at age 22, I was married.
Many survivors of Coercive Control will describe a sudden shift, a moment in time when the behaviors of the abuser change dramatically. Before this shift the abuser will have often been charming, kind, loving… and after the shift she finds herself in a relationship with a stranger.
My shift happened on the drive home from the wedding. I sat in my wedding dress, in the passenger seat, next to a person who had just promised to cherish me, but was now giving me the silent treatment. This was the beginning of nearly a decade of ever-increasing Coercive Control. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at times, my choices were removed, my world was narrowed, and my life became restricted to the whims and moods of my husband.
College was put on hold temporarily. I tried several times to go back, but somehow it was never quite the right timing. I had to quit my job. I had to move out of state, away from my friends and family. The family planning we had agreed upon was revoked, and the babies came fast. Working wasn’t an option. A second vehicle wasn’t an option. Leaving the house alone wasn’t an option. Choosing clothing and hairstyles for myself wasn’t an option. Dancing wasn’t an option.
Without quite knowing how I had gotten there, I found myself a hollow ghost of who I used to be. The light from my eyes was dimmed. I experienced chronic pain. My once-sharp brain now felt like it was trying to think through thick mud. I learned to keep my opinions to myself and doubted my perception of reality. At times, I wondered if I was going crazy.
Living in a Camp
Every survivor story has a low point. The point where the cost of the Coercive Control became greater than the risks of challenging that control. The point where we stopped caring about safety, and decided to make a dangerous choice. A choice to risk everything to escape the control.
I gave birth alone to my fourth child, while being forced to live in a shipping container, roughly fitted as a “cabin” without plumbing, on 5 junkyard acres of muddy Oklahoma prairie. Cradling that new baby in my arms, I promised her, and myself, that I would make things better.
Breaking Free
A journey had started. I used the scary “a” word, and finally acknowledged that what I was experiencing was abuse. Over the next year, I learned everything I could about how abuse worked, what Coercive Control was, and why it worked. I wanted to understand the web around me. Books, podcasts, blogs, and secret facebook groups of other women supporting each other. The picture started to fill in.
It was damn hard. I tried multiple ways to heal the marriage, including couples counseling with a CSAT, a 12-step program called Celebrate Recovery, and an affair recovery program. Each one caused more harm. All the programs to help couples were based on a codependency model… which labeled me as a codependent and willing participant in my own abuse. These models reinforced that I was at least half the problem. They shifted the focus away from the fact that my abuser was limiting my choices, and instead shamed me for not making better choices.
That didn’t sit right with me. I rejected the pathologized codependency model, and began learning about behavioral change through the behavioral science model, ACT. I wasn’t broken. My world was.
15 months after catching my own baby in a shipping container, I had filed for divorce, had moved into a cute little house in town, and was enrolled in college. Oh, and joined a WCS dance class.
Breaking Free
They say your pain becomes your purpose.
Now, 4 years free, a Coercive Control Recovery movement is underway. I work full-time in the field of behavior analysis, and am in a graduate program. Understanding Coercive Control from a behavioral perspective has become an all-consuming passion.
I became certified as a life coach, and have been coaching women through Coercive Control recovery for two years. The Analyzing Control Podcast was launched and explores Coercive Control through a Behavior Analysis lens. I have a bold goal to give a TEDx talk.
So that’s life now. Following the passion, living the freedom, and consciously working every day to keep burning brighter and healing through building behavioral skills and radical acceptance of my own messy humanity, learning and sharing, and making up for lost time exploring this amazing world we have.
Safety Help
If you are experiencing physical violence, threat, or history of physical violence, or have reason to fear physical violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Expert advocates have been trained to help you assess your situation, explore your options, make a safety plan, and protect yourself.
NATIONAL DV HOTLINE:
800-799-7233
More safety information: