{"id":9666,"date":"2019-09-09T20:49:58","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T03:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/btsadv.wpengine.com\/?p=9666"},"modified":"2025-01-01T12:03:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T19:03:55","slug":"emotional-abuse-and-sleep-deprivation-as-tools-of-coercion-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breakthesilencedv.org\/?p=9666","title":{"rendered":"Emotional Abuse and Sleep Deprivation as Tools of Coercion \u2013 Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Written and adapted by: Amy, BTSADV Volunteer <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post will detail what happens when the forces of\u00a0verbal and emotional abuse discussed in part one<\/a>\u00a0collide with\u00a0forced sleep deprivation discussed in part two<\/a>. As the second post covered the more technical side of sleep deprivation, this post will focus on how combining methods of abuse with sleep deprivation affected me through personal narrative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Trigger Warning<\/strong>): Please note that there may be\nbrief descriptions of physical violence, as I experienced all of these methods\ntogether with the forced sleep deprivation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I awoke late one night, blinded by the ceiling light in the\nbedroom and my ex straddled over me in a panic as he ripped the covers off. He\ndesperately jerked at my limbs, picking them up and moving me around as though\nhe was checking for something. I was in a fog for a few minutes as this\nhappened and was barely able to recognize that he repeatedly yelled my name and\nasked if I was okay. The light was painfully bright, and my brain battled\nfiercely to pull itself out of the sleep-induced haze. This angered him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmy, are you okay?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I finally was coherent enough to understand what was\ngoing on, I was annoyed. He kept asking me if I was bleeding anywhere, and\nI snapped back that I was okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt must have been a dream.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went on to tell me that, in a nightmare, something had\nbeen furiously chasing him \u201caround in circles\u201d through the apartment. And\nthen he said it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had a dream that I cut you up into pieces, and there\nwas blood everywhere. I thought I killed you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a few short months, this would be one of his favorite\nthreats: to cut me up and throw me in the basement of the apartment house or\ndump me in the woods. His speech was unsteady, as though he was desperate at\nthe thought of what he had just said. I was never entirely sure if his\ndesperation was concern for me, but I always suspected that he was more afraid\nof the consequences of the act than having remorse that he thought he had done\nsuch a detestable thing to begin with. He was never \u2013 and I suspect that\nwhatever he is doing now to his next victim that he still is not \u2013 fond of\nconsequences. Part of his belief system includes the thought that he is above\nconsequences, guilt, and blame, and too many around him enable it to stay that\nway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I quickly learned that the only thing that motivates him is\ngetting what he wants and getting away with it. After he was assured that he\ndreamed the entire thing, his tone quickly changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m sick of that s***! Why does it always take your\nstupid a** so long to wake up? No one does that! Just you and your weird s*** like\nalways.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those of you who have been abused are not shocked that by\nthis point, the physical abuse had already become a regular occurrence.\nDependable. Reliable. You would understand why I would not run away screaming.\nYou know the amount of conditioning I endured to bring me to the point where I\nsit on the edge of that bed and \u201callow\u201d myself to be trapped in the free fall\ninto darkness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I remained perched on the edge of the bed, shackled in invisible\nchains, weighed down with all-consuming shame, and vulnerable \u2013 even\ndefenseless \u2013 to his attack. He told me how he noticed this pattern that occurs\nwhen I get woken up after about \u201conly a half-hour after falling asleep.\u201d He\ntold me how ridiculous it was because he could be woken up and become\nimmediately alert. But this? It was just me and my \u201cweird a** s*** like\nalways.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t never seen no s*** like this before. Your a**\nain\u2019t the only woman I\u2019ve been with.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may think that this was not a big deal, but it is\nindicative of his ability to pick out patterns, troubleshoot them, and tailor\nhis response. Every. Single. Time.<\/em><\/strong> It is a problem\nbecause unlike the average person who uses this ability for something good, he\nleverages it to gain total dominance. He uses it to manipulate, control, and\nexact compliance \u2013 with no regard to the cost incurred by anyone else \u2013 as long\nhe gets his way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems so obvious to me now that I have a full view of how\nlife with my abuser unfolded that he would add this to his arsenal of brutality\nagainst me. At the time, it was just one more unreasonable thing he said to\ndemonstrate how wrong I always was, even when I was not awake to be aware of\nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I found out that he was still married, I was filled\nwith guilt and tried to cut that part of the relationship off. By this\npoint, I was terrified of him and wanted him nowhere near me.  The two\ncombined caused me to want to be as distant as possible.  This was when he\nbegan using the forced sleep deprivation in combination with the verbal,\nemotional, and physical abuse that had already become a regular part of the\ndynamic in the household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would simmer in his mind as he played it over and over,\ncounting all the reasons I needed to be punished for my lack of submitting to\nhis will, for refusing to do \u201cmy duty.\u201d I could tell when something was\nabout to happen, even if I could not predict how it would explode into\nviolence. I learned to read his mannerisms, changes in speech, and facial\nexpressions. The tension would be suffocating, but still, he would let me remove\nmy hearing aid and fall asleep, and he would wait just long enough that he\ncould be sure the fog was setting in before attacking me from behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first three nights would generally be prolonged arguing,\nthreats, and physical violence. I would awaken to a furious slam and thunderous\npain at the back of my head. He would not wait for me to recover from the blow\nto the back of my head and sit up to acknowledge him; he would just begin\nscreaming at me as he paced back and forth, sometimes with an object is his\nhand down to his side and out of my line of sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen\u2019s the last time you\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of how I replied, I was always wrong or accused\nof lying. This, of course, made him angrier. He would make me promise him that\nI would change all my flaws and glaring worthlessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he pretended to be calming down, we would go through a\nlengthy discussion regarding the fact that once I took out my hearing aid, I could\nnot hear him. Each time I reminded him that if he wanted to discuss anything, I\ncould not take it out. If I did and he was talking to me, and I did not respond\nbecause I was unable to hear him, he would become enraged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We would lay down in silence, and I would try to have my\nhead turned just enough that I could see where he was out of the corner of my\neye. There would be nothing for several minutes, and then it would resume,\nusually by being elbowed in the side. Sometimes, he would jerk me onto my back\nand punch me in the stomach. Other times, he would kick me off the bed and\nstart screaming at me as I struggled to get my hearing aid back in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cB****, get your stupid a** off the f***** floor!\nYou know I\u2019m talking to you!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, he would wait for me to put my hearing aid then\ndump water over my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I did not move fast enough, he would pick me up by my\nhair, and the cycle of arguing, physical attack, and prolonged, tense silence\nwould continue for the rest of the night. I was expected to stay awake the\nentire day following the incident. If he caught me falling asleep on the couch,\nhe would ambush me again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat the f*** you so tired for? You been busy?\u201d<\/em> (read:\ncheating on him)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each night I would lay down, and he would let me sleep for a\nhalf-hour. Then it would begin again: jarring pain to the back of the\nhead. Brain fog. Disorientation. Ambush.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By night four, I was having difficulty thinking clearly.\nThere was no logic, just desperation to keep moving in an impossible drive to\nnot upset him. At this point, it would be normal for me to be standing at the\nstove with a burner on high and an empty pot on the burner unable to remember\nwhat I was doing in the first place. I would put bleach in the fridge or metal\ndishes or foil in the microwave. To this day, I am still not sure how I managed\nto avoid burning any of the apartments down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My abuser was hyper-observant, and he always was able to\ndetermine the appropriate time to escalate by adding gaslighting and other\nforms of emotional abuse. He knew once I reached the point where I was in the\ngrips of brain fog, he could freely manipulate and torture me, and I would be\ntoo exhausted and too scattered to respond to him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would become trapped in conversations about how horribly I\ntreated him compared to those I dated before him, and I\u2019m not even sure how he\narrived at that conclusion. I did not discuss previous relationships with him,\nbecause he would get intensely jealous and accuse me of still seeing them. Any\ncoldness he claimed that I displayed was a direct result of the terror I felt\naround him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he would wear me down with conversations about his\nprevious girlfriends, how they acted with him, comparing everything about them\nto me, and explaining to me in graphic, malicious detail why they were all so\nmuch better, why I was so worthless, and why he needed to talk to other women.\nEven after I managed to lose the rest of the extra weight I had, he began\nmaking jokes about my weight and telling me he should start chaining the\nrefrigerator shut. He would take food off my plate as he told me that I did not\nneed to eat it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was weighed down with viscous shame. Self-hatred permeated\nevery last cell in my body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Why couldn\u2019t I do anything right? Why did I always have\nto be so selfish? Why were all those others so much better than me, and\nwhat was wrong with me that I could not wake up and figure it out? If I really\nwas so insensitive, so selfish, and so oblivious, maybe I did not deserve sleep\nuntil I figured it all out. Maybe if I figured out what I was doing wrong\nand prove to him that I would never do it again, all this would stop. I could\nsleep. I could think. I could act the way I was supposed to, and he would not\nhate me anymore.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the sleep deprivation reached the fourth day, I would\nreach the point where I would be hallucinating, struggled to discern reality,\nand would have sold my soul to sleep. If I was too out of it to cook, he would\nstart threatening me about the cat, whom, according to him, I loved more. When he\nsaid that I trained the cat to hate him, I told him he was horrible to the cat;\nI was directed to be silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know, you seem to like my cooking a lot. You love\nthat cat more than me. One day I\u2019m going to boil him up and make you eat it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His twisted smirk was met with silence and nausea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou would never know, would you? I\u2019d watch you eat it,\nand the cat would be missing the entire time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first night he did this, he did not tell me that the cat\ngot out of the apartment. Inside, I flew into hysterics. I could not eat\nthat night, and I refused to eat anything that I did not cook unless I watched\nhim prepare food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And again, each night I would lay down, and he would let me\nsleep for a half-hour. Then it would begin again: jarring pain to the back of\nthe head. Brain fog. Disorientation. Ambush.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou stupid cow. Your family don\u2019t want you! I ain\u2019t\nnever seen anything like this! They don\u2019t call you; they don\u2019t answer the\nphone, they don\u2019t return messages\u2026 they don\u2019t even come see you. Know why? They\nknow how worthless you are. They were glad to drop your a**!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One time during an argument over all the things I was\nfailing to do, I turned around to see a fist coming at my forehead. With a\nblinding flash, I dropped to the floor, trying to steady myself until the room\nstopped spinning. He leaned over me, screaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmy?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silence. Then he would hiss at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I forced down vomit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmy, get the f*** up! I didn\u2019t hurt you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pulled me up by my hair and continued to scold me. My\nweakness had angered him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to keep doing this until you learn.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the middle of the day, he would lie down to sleep,\nexhausted from all the activity the night before. I was expected to clean,\ncook, and do laundry by hand in the kitchen sink (sometimes until my hands\nbled) \u2013 anything but sleep. He would randomly sneak up behind me to check on me\nand make sure I was complying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was always my fault, and somehow, I would always be\nsorry, begging for forgiveness, apologizing profusely, and making promises when\nI could not even figure out why I was sorry and what I promised him to\ndo. If I was coherent enough to repeat anything back to him, he would use\nmy being hard-of-hearing against me, insisting I either misheard him or did not\nhear him at all. At some point, I became too tired to care. I just wanted it to\nstop. By the end of the cycle, I would be so exhausted, and in so much pain, I\ncould barely move, and all I could think about was sleeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I had found out that he was not single as he had told\nme, I became unwilling to initiate or participate in anything intimate with\nhim. In the beginning, this is usually what started the imposition of forced\nsleep deprivation. At the end of two weeks, I would become so desperate for\nrelief from the cycle that I would give in to him to get it to stop. I could not\nsee past the exhaustion and the pain to remember what would inevitably come\nafter. I would forget that he would often hit me after for my refusal to\ncomply and obey or for thinking I had a right to attempt to assert my will in the\ninterest of my own needs. I would forget the humiliation, shame, and guilt I\nfelt afterward. At the moment, I just desperately wanted peace, and I\ncompromised myself to get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At other times, he would use sleep deprivation against me to\nget his way. For instance, initially, when I started a Bible study, he\nacted as though he supported it. Eventually, he would begin to try to dissuade\nme from going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re tired. You should stay home. Are you sure\nyou want to go?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What he was really saying was: \u201cI don\u2019t feel like\nletting you out of the house. I expect you to stay, and if you continue to\nchoose to do otherwise, there will be consequences.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those consequences would come in the form of his usual sleep\ndeprivation tactics, but he would also assault me before I left. When that\nfailed to earn my compliance, he would begin doing so after I came home. Once\nit became severe enough to keep me from leaving the house, I would still do my\nstudy on the phone. But he adapted as I did, engaging in a warped battle of\nwills. He would take my books away, so I responded by hiding multiple copies\nall over the apartment: behind bookcases, along closet walls, even stashed in\nout of the way areas under the carpeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he started confiscating the house phone, I moved to the\nmobile. Then he would take off with them, and I would be able to send emails\nwhen the internet was still working just to let the person know I had no phone.\nOnce the cable was shut off, I was trapped in silence. All the while, the\nambushes, sleep deprivation, and physical attacks continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His disdain for me studying was not the fact that I was\ndoing it. The group I studied with expected one thing, and he expected another.\nWhen my behavior started changing, he reacted. I became trapped between a group\nthat wanted me to behave, think, and speak one way, and him, a power-hungry\ntyrant who wanted absolute control over my entire life. At times, I felt like a\nrag doll being torn apart, because neither side wanted to let go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Here is why emotional abuse and sleep deprivation are efficient\ntools to force compliance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Sleep deprivation slowly erodes your ability to think clearly, and it impairs your short-term memory.<\/strong> This makes you far more susceptible to gaslighting. Did s\/he really say what you \u201cthought\u201d you heard? Was that the way it really happened? Did it even happen at all? Are you sure you did not misinterpret it? When combined with gaslighting, being deprived of sleep amplifies the abuser\u2019s ability to manipulate you. When you cannot be sure of reality, how can you guard yourself against being attacked? Once the seed of doubt is planted in this state, you are at the abuser\u2019s mercy. You will agree you are wrong, even if you were right. You will assume blame even though it is not yours. The abuser will be able to alter your memory of what happened and implant others in their place. They will also be able to \u201cconvince\u201d you to do things you would not agree to in a clear state of mind.<\/li>
  2. Sleep deprivation makes you do illogical or dangerous things.<\/strong> Being sleep deprived can cause an increase in risky behavior \u2013 including situations where others could be harmed (driving, etc). When the abuser sees you doing dangerous or odd things, they will use this to their advantage in more ways than one. They may share this with others to defame you and turn others against you or convince others around them\/you that you are dangerous and could be trying to harm them.<\/li>
  3. The exhaustion from sleep deprivation can make you desperate for sleep.<\/strong>\u00a0If you do not sleep, your body will eventually shut itself down. Abusers engaging in this form of maltreatment will combine this with other methods of abuse to heighten your distress. Your brain will not be able to tell you that this is wrong, that you should not do something, or that you need to consider the consequences of compliance. It will drive you \u2013 compel you \u2013 to obey to get the relief you need. You will do things that would generally go against your values and better judgment. You will agree to do the abuser\u2019s will because you want the torture to stop. Emotional abuse and the chronic effects of sleep deprivation will destroy your ability to resist. In effect, you will be absent, because your stress, exhaustion, and inability to interpret reality will break you.<\/li>
  4. It inevitably increases the burden of guilt and shame you carry, and when you are finally able to get a brief rest from the cycle, the fact that it is eating away at you internally will be inescapable. <\/strong>This shame, in turn, pushes you further into the abyss and darkness of silence and increases your risk of escalation to other forms of abuse. It always contributes to the risk of severe physical injury and death at the hands of your abuser. It also increases the risk of addiction, self-harm, depression, and suicide.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    *This series has been adapted by the author from a series\nthat appeared originally on her personal blog.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship,\nthere is help. You can visit the Break the Silence website at\nwww.breakthesilencedv.org or chat with one of our helpline advocates at\n855-287-1777.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Written and adapted by: Amy, BTSADV Volunteer This post will detail what happens when the forces of\u00a0verbal and emotional abuse discussed in part one\u00a0collide with\u00a0forced sleep deprivation discussed in part two. As the second post covered the more technical side of sleep deprivation, this post will focus on how combining methods of abuse with sleep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[348,569],"tags":[161,162,90,116,117,241,128,34],"class_list":["post-9666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-domestic-abuse","tag-break-the-silence-against-domestic-violence","tag-btsadv","tag-domestic-violence","tag-emotional-abuse","tag-physical-abuse","tag-sleep-deprivation","tag-trauma","tag-verbal-abuse"],"yoast_head":"\nEmotional Abuse and Sleep Deprivation as Tools of Coercion \u2013 Part Three - Break the Silence Against Domestic Violence<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/breakthesilencedv.org\/?p=9666\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Emotional Abuse and Sleep Deprivation as Tools of Coercion \u2013 Part Three - Break the Silence Against Domestic Violence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Written and adapted by: Amy, BTSADV Volunteer This post will detail what happens when the forces of\u00a0verbal and emotional abuse discussed in part one\u00a0collide with\u00a0forced sleep deprivation discussed in part two. 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