Spot the signs of coercive control

Love bombing is a form of emotional abuse that involves a person going over the top with attention, gifts, or pressuring you into a relationship before you are ready. This aims to make you feel indebted to or overly dependent on that person so they can control you.

The signs can look different for every person, but it usually involves behaviours such as:

• excessive flattery and compliments
• giving you lots of unwanted gifts
• early and intense talks about your future together.

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that makes you question your own feelings, instincts, experiences, and sanity. As a result, you start to believe the perception of events of the person who is using violence against you over your own. Once a person using violence has broken down your ability to trust your own perceptions, you may question if you are really experiencing coercive control or abusive behaviour in the relationship.

These may be signs of experiencing gaslighting:

• you constantly second-guess yourself
• you ask yourself, “Am I too sensitive?” multiple times a day
• you often feel confused and even crazy
• you’re always apologising to your partner.

Social isolation can start with subtle, controlling behaviours that can end in completely isolating you from your friends, family and support networks. For example, the person using coercive control:

• won’t let you leave your home without them going with you
• wants you to always stay at home, either with them or when they go out
• decides who you are allowed or not allowed to have contact with (e.g. friends, family, work colleagues), or how you can have contact (e.g. in person, online, or via phone)
• decides when you can have contact with friends and family
• continually criticises your friends and family or work colleagues
• humiliates you in front of your children, your or their friends, family or colleagues, and/or other people/members of the public
• makes you move or live away from people who are important to you or who you would like to live close to (e.g. friends, family, other support people)
• won’t allow you to attend appointments or to access the services you need (e.g. disability support services, medical appointments)
• won’t allow service providers to go into your home, to help you with your support needs
• won’t allow you time alone with people who visit your home or with people you have appointments with
• won’t allow you to use the car or public transport
• damages, won’t charge or won’t let you use mobility or communication devices.

Financial abuse can start with subtle, controlling behaviours and result in someone having complete control over your finances. For example, the person using coercive control:

• tracks what you spend money on without your permission
• gets angry about you spending money on important/necessary items like food, medicines, and bills
• makes you live off an inadequate allowance
• takes your pay (leaving you with no money or not enough money to buy important items or to pay bills) or restricts your access to joint bank accounts
• refuses to pay for necessary items required by you or your children
• uses your name on bills or contracts but won’t pay (or give you money to pay) bills
• won’t let you decide how to spend your NDIS money or your disability support pension
• regularly says they will pay you back but never does
• makes all money decisions and never lets you have a say
• does not let you have a job so you will not have your own money.

Emotional abuse is not always easy to identify, but it can lower self-esteem and confidence, impacting your mental health and wellbeing. For example:

• constant criticism, put downs and name calling, often in relation to appearance/attractiveness, parenting ability or likeability
• intentionally embarrassing you
• often or always telling you what to wear or criticising your looks
• threatening to commit suicide or self-harm to intimidate and control you or make you afraid
• threatening to harm your children, other loved ones or pets
• you feel like you're 'walking on eggshells' (e.g. where you feel unsafe, and you worry anything you do or say could anger or upset the person using coercive control).

Psychological abuse can affect your inner thoughts and feelings as well as exert control over your life. For example:

• controlling what you can or cannot eat (unless following medical advice)
• controlling access to medications to impair physical or mental health or wellbeing
• 'gaslighting'/making you question your own mind
• frequent abusive or threatening text messages or phone calls.

Verbal abuse can include:

• frequent yelling, shouting, or swearing with the intention of making you feel afraid
• using words to threaten, intimidate, or cause fear
• constant criticism and put downs.

Physical abuse involves causing physical harm/injury to you or your children, to create fear and control you. For example:

• slapping, kicking, punching
• choking, suffocating or strangling - anything that prevents you from breathing normally
• anything that causes a physical injury
• punching holes in walls or breaking furniture and belongings
• physically restricting your movement, for example locking you in a room or house or preventing you from leaving
• controlling what you eat
• not giving you the help and care you need to meet important needs such as meals, medication, showering, access to services and supports
• injuring pets or assistance animals or not giving animals the care they need (e.g. food, water).

Technology-based abuse and surveillance can include:

• constantly messaging or calling you about where you are, who you are with and what you are doing
• requiring you to constantly call or text them about where you are, who you are with and what you are doing
• checking your phone and other devices unreasonably or without your permission, including installing spyware apps on your devices
• stopping you from accessing or using technology such as computers or communication devices
• monitoring you on social media, or constantly abusing, threatening, or humiliating you on these platforms
• using tracking devices to monitor your whereabouts unreasonably or without your consent
• monitoring your internet usage
• taking video or audio-recordings of your home, car and workplace, without your consent or knowledge
• posting sexually explicit images or videos of you online without your permission; this is also image-based abuse and a form of sexual abuse, and may be referred to as ’revenge porn’.

Stalking and surveillance can include:

• following you in your car or on foot
• frequently driving past your home or workplace to keep watch on your movements
• waiting outside your home, workplace or educational facility without your knowledge or consent to cause you fear, or as a threat
• leaving excessive, unwanted notes or gifts for you to find
• talking to friends, neighbours or your children about your movements or activities
• constantly checking where you are, what you are doing, or who you are with
• frequent abusive or threatening text messages or phone calls.

Sexual abuse can include:

• forcing or coercing you to have sex or engage in sexual acts
• unwanted exposure to pornography
• deliberately causing pain or injury during sex without consent
• using sexually degrading insults or humiliation during sex without consent.

Visit sexual consent explained for more information.

Reproductive control can include:

• not letting or forcing you to use contraception
• tampering with contraception without your knowledge
• pressuring you to terminate a pregnancy, or not allowing you to terminate a pregnancy
• pressuring you to start a family or have more children when this is not what you want.

Religious and spiritual abuse can include:

• forcing you to participate in religious activities
• stopping you from taking part in your religious or cultural practices
• misusing spiritual or religious beliefs and practices to justify abuse (physical and non-physical), violence or coercive control or to restrict or control your decisions, or to take away human rights.

Identity-based abuse is often specifically targeted at people from LGBTIQA+ communities and can include:

• threatening to reveal your sexual orientation—outing you—to others
• threatening to reveal your HIV status to others
• reinforcing your feelings of confusion, shame or guilt about your sexuality to coerce you
• using your concern that support services may be homophobic or transphobic to discourage you from seeking help
• isolating you from your family, community, or LGBTIQA+ spaces, or threatening to isolate you if the relationship ends.

In addition to identity-based abuse, people from LGBTIQA+ communities frequently experience many of the other types of abuse/signs of coercive control noted above.