Yesterday in “Normal”, we saw the cyclic behavior beginning to slip back to old and habitual ways of operating. You may remember that the mother said nothing about her partner’s outburst at the children. She instead just thought that his behavior was a bit tough. He’d been trying so hard that she didn’t want to be negative and spoil the positive changes that he had made. However, his outburst is the first indicator that the behavior is on a downhill slide and that the household is beginning to become unsafe.
During the Tension Build Up stage of the relationship, tensions mount quickly. The perpetrator has already broken through the layer of ice and therefore continues to have snappy moments because he now has nothing to lose. The tension is building in him, his partner and in the children. No one is using clear communication and each person is left to his or her own thoughts about what has happened. Each family member second guesses the other persons reactions and interprets what is happening. Resentment builds. All family members are keen to go back to the good times so bite their tongues and pray for a move back to the happier times that they have recently experienced.
The perpetrator becomes stronger in his tactics of power and control. He uses behaviors and comments designed to intimidate, scare, isolate and blame the victim. Often he will join with one of the children and use them to make the mother feel guilty. It is a tactic designed to make her think she is a bad parent and must therefore be the one in the wrong. Her mind begins to feel crazy. She questions her own reality and can’t understand what she has done wrong.
Feeling stressed and concerned for making things right, she self isolates by canceling engagements she had entered into during the Buyback or Honeymoon stages. She may ring and make an excuse for not being able to meet you for coffee, attend a counseling appointment, or she may be too emotionally drained and unable to attend school functions. She finds herself obsessing over what she’s done wrong. There is no particular behavior to explain what is happening to her. She just knows that things are not quiet right.
The children feel the tension and they begin to act it out. Desperate for emotional reassurance and safety they will typically do one of two things: withdraw or become physically and emotionally demanding of their mother. Either of these reactions will anger the perpetrator and he uses it to reinforce that his partner is a bad parent, she’s the one with the problem, and she should get help, not him. Look what she’s doing to the kids. Useless woman! She can’t even care for a couple of poor little children.
The home becomes a pressure cooker. As the pressure mounts, the victim subconsciously wonders when the right time to let the steam off will be. Too soon and she’ll ruin the stew she’s cooking, not soon enough and the pressure cooker will explode and the stew will be all over the ceiling. What to do????
Tomorrow we’ll look at the final stage before the Cycle starts all over again. In the final part, the Stand Over phase of the Cycle of Violence, the victim decides to let the steam off because she just can’t cope with having to clean the stew off the ceiling.