The feelings of hopelessness and helplessness caused by coercive control can be overwhelming, anxiety, terror, and depression-inducing, and often result in PTSD or CPTSD.
Coercive control can also be life-threatening and life-altering.
I have known for a long time that coercive control creates suicidal ideation, because I have experienced it myself many times. Every survivor that I have asked about suicidal feelings has indicated that they experienced them, at some point, as well. This happens, not only because of the direct coercive control of the coercive controller, but also because, when the target tries to escape the PsychoSocial Quicksand™ they are trapped in, they often encounter biases and #SystemicCoerciveControl where they are not believed and are instead blamed for their own victimization.
When I was married to a coercive controller, I became so physically, emotionally, psychologically and financially bankrupt from his sadistic and inescapable coercive control that I not only felt suicidal during the day, I also began having vivid nightmares of killing myself. In one particularly terrifying nightmare, I died by suicide in a graphic and bloody way, specifically so that my coercive controller would be forced to clean up the mess. (Yes... being victimized by a coercive controller can make a targeted victim feel angry and outraged that someone who claims to love them is terrorizing them). By this point, it was obvious that he was not going to stop his coercive control, and if I attempted to escape again, he would likely escalate to killing me, (and maybe even my kids).
Once, during this time, while driving, I contemplated swerving off an overpass to escape the PsychoSocial Quicksand™ he had trapped me in. What stopped me was the thought that I might injure or kill innocent people in the process. My life had become so constrained, terrifying and painful, because of my coercive controller's threats, deception and torture, that I was only concerned for the lives of strangers and no longer wanted to live my own. During this time I also came to believe that my children would be better off if I were gone. After all, he would have no desire to torture them as a way to punish me, if I were no longer alive to watch. My life had become a living nightmare, and I was willing to do almost anything to wake up.
Maybe this is how Catherine Youssef Kassenoff felt. Maybe it is how Kellie Sutton felt. Research indicates that domestic abuse / domestic violence strongly correlate with suicidal ideation for targeted victims. Jane Monckton Smith's domestic homicide timeline, used to detect and prevent domestic abuse homicide, ends with stage 8, homicide / suicide. In the cases of suicide, stage 8 often occurs due to systemic failures which cause victims to feel so trapped that they resort to what they perceive as their last remaining #ActOfResistance, death by suicide.
TRIGGER WARNING: Proceed with caution when watching this video. #DomesticAbuseSuicide
#IAmCatherine #IAmKellie
Contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for help in the US. In the UK, click here.
