Coercive control is not a one-time thing; neither is domestic violence. For anybody, I guess you could be having a bad day, where you can raise your voice or something happens. With domestic violence it's not a one-time thing. It's not something bad happening. You never know what sets them off.
It's really a pattern that is daily. We victims, both the mothers and the children, are forced to.... Everything has to stay hidden, because if anybody finds out, God help you. He'll make it clear that if you do or say anything, “Oh, it's going to cost me $5,000,” meaning he would hire somebody to kill you. That's on top of the attempts on my life and my children's lives.
We have to put on a face and go out in public. When people come over, when we go to school or when we go out with everybody, we have that face on. We become experts at that. At the same time, we do that to protect ourselves, but the abuser also has a face. That's what the courts need to recognize.
As I wrote in my testimony, what is going on behind doors and what the public sees are two different things. The judges and all the social actors need to recognize that they are master manipulators. I'm going to quote something that one of my children testified to. There is the George who's at home, the George who's on vacation and the George who's in court, meaning at home he's the abuser, while on vacation he acts all nice. Even now, he has a donut shop. He donates donuts, sponsors nurses and doctors—he's Mr. Wonderful. In actuality, it's that double face. Judges need to recognize that just because he looks prim and proper in court...they are able to do that.
Meanwhile, while we're in court and being accused of parental alienation, and we're forced to self-represent, we're trembling, anxious and nervous, because we're forced right now to question and act as a lawyer when we have—pardon the expression—no idea what the hell we're doing. Judges need to recognize this.
It's not only about training, because no amount of training.... When I'm self-representing and I pick up a picture of clear abuse towards my son and show it to the judge, the judge's first instinct is to tell me that I could have downloaded that from the Internet. The father's hand is in the picture. Then the next thing to do is to remove my parental authority for travel and allow him to go anywhere. No amount of training is going to change the misogynistic views that some judges have. That's not only male judges; it's female judges too.
It seems to be that it's contact at all costs. I don't know where this foundation and ideology came from. Sure, it would be great if both parents had a right to their children. The children should be able to benefit from both parents.
However, if one is a clear danger, what are we showing these children, and how are they themselves going to become parents in the future? We're telling them, “The more you lie, the more you manipulate, the more you beat up on people, well, the courts are going to grant you everything.”
Coercive control has to be clearly defined. The actions have to be clearly defined as a pattern. It has to do with discrediting the mother. When they shut down your bank accounts and your email accounts and they have your insurance sent elsewhere, those are clear patterns.
There's no age limit for coercive control. There should be no statute of limitations, because we're scared to come forward for anything.