(231)S11E2/4: Abusive Propaganda in the Real World w/Judy and Rosanna
Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. In this episode, I had the privilege of interviewing two women that I met a year or two ago from the Kingdom Women podcast. Judy and Rosanna both work with survivors of abuse, and Rosanna is herself an abuse survivor. I appreciate the openness that these women bring to the discussion of abuse as their sharing of their own stories and of their work with others helps to illuminate the realities of abuse and cut through the propaganda which so often with abusers. There are a lot of points that the women make in this podcast which are insightful and that reinforce what I've tried to lay out here in the short section of the season.
Derek:But there is one recurring issue they bring up that I think is really important to highlight before you listen. When we discuss propaganda, we are talking about the manipulation of information in some way. But one problem with our current view of propaganda is that we often view it solely as a means of infusing some information or idea into people. So we think of propaganda as being like, you know, the movie Inception, with these crooked people trying to get into our minds in order to plant some idea there. And in general, that's true.
Derek:Usually, propaganda aims towards infusing or imparting some idea into you. That's right. However, what Judy and Rosanna touch on a bit in the interview helps us to see a slightly different aspect of propaganda. Part of what abusers do is they manipulate information in order not to create the clarity of an idea, but rather to sow confusion. And it's not just abusers that do this, of course.
Derek:You can look at the popular political discussions in The United States and recognize that social media bots, news flooding, and a cacophony of always screaming voices creates an environment where there is usually more confusion than there is clarity. Yet, I would argue that that's by design oftentimes. Creating a highly charged emotional environment and overloading the system with multiple angles of information, it creates confusion. When the abuser says that he loves you one minute and brings you flowers, while the next minute he's calling you a stupid bitch who can't do anything right, how do you process those two seemingly incompatible things? Do you hang on to the I love you and the act of service?
Derek:Or do you hang on to the derogatory names and threats? Is it even possible to blend those two together? Which person is the abuser, the lover or the abuser? When you confront the abuse and he points to all the nice things that he's said and done, and you're just focusing on the abuse or what you call abuse, are you just being overly critical? Do you fail to acknowledge the good that he does?
Derek:Hey, you know what? Maybe you are kind of a bitch, right? Maybe he was right about you after all. Now, right there is propaganda in action. While the sowing of confusion isn't the inception of an idea into one's mind, it is a tool which makes Fertile the ground in preparation for that message.
Derek:When the survivor tries to process all of the conflicting dissonant information in her mind, she can't. But you know who can help her to interpret it? The abuser. The abuser is there in the confusion, the solid rock, the guiding light, the prophet who can see the truth. He can help the survivor to see that she's emotional, that she's really hard on him and that she's ungrateful for all that he does.
Derek:The dissonance that the abuser sows is intended to heighten stress and emotion while simultaneously lowering cognitive perception. We know this is what propagandists do because we talked about it all the way back in the second episode of the season. Propagandists create enemies. They thrive on fear. When you have an enemy and you are living in fear, you're gonna look for a solution, for a savior.
Derek:The thing is, when it comes to domestic abuse, the abuser makes the survivor her own enemy. She can't trust her emotions, her interpretations of events, her friends who all think she's crazy, or her own sanity. If she can't trust those things, who then can she trust? Only the propagandist, only the abuser. So I'm looking forward to you hearing from Judy and Rosanna.
Derek:You're in for a treat from some people who are willing to share their stories and who have fantastic insight on this topic. So enjoy. Okay. So I think we should just start off with each of you introducing yourself, and we'll go alphabetically. So Judy, go ahead.
Judy:Okay, well, I'm Judy Vici and I got involved in abuse advocacy probably fifteen, sixteen years, well, maybe more than eighteen years ago, but specifically in domestic abuse advocacy about five years ago. And yeah, since then it's been a journey of learning, walking with women, learning from them. Survivors are my best teachers, our best teachers in this work. I am getting certified with Call to Peace, a ministry that works with churches and communities to bring healing and hope to abuse survivors, domestic abuse survivors. And I'm also currently enrolled in school and working on a degree in psychology.
Judy:I live in Northern Indiana with my husband and four kids. And yeah, that's the particulars, I suppose.
Derek:All right. Thank you. Rosanna?
Rosanna:Yeah, I live in Pennsylvania and working on my master's in clinical mental health. I just finished my bachelor's in crisis counseling and psychology. Anyway, yeah, I've been working on as a board member with Life Ring Christian Ministries for two years, I believe. It's been in the works for maybe three. And I've I am a survivor of domestic violence and I've been involved with women for quite a number of years.
Rosanna:I don't really have a timeline. Somewhere in the last eight probably. So, yeah. That's have three children and a girl and two boys, and my two oldest kids are dating. So it's it's an interesting time of life.
Derek:All right. Yeah, thank you. And this is actually the second time that you've helped me out to try to understand this topic a little bit. So I appreciate you guys taking your time and being patient with me as I try to wrap my brain around a lot of this stuff. And your vulnerability.
Derek:I just I appreciate how you are open because I know that that's the kind of thing that can help people. Keeping things secret, which is what a lot of people have tried to do, is not a good thing. So for me, it's probably for a lot of issues, but the abuse issue in particular as well, it's probably only been about like five to seven years since I've really started to kind of come to see it and understand it. You know, the Me Too movement sometimes gets a lot of flack like, it's, you know, it was a trend and it's just, it's something that's passing. But for me, it was extremely, it impacted my life a lot because you just see person after person after person come out who has this seemingly double life.
Derek:And, you know, beforehand, my concept of domestic abuse was, well, you know, you'd be able to see it, right? If somebody has a black eye or a broken arm or something like that. It's kind of obvious when somebody's being abused. Or you've got this guy who's maybe got, you know, the shirt that they call a wife beater. You've got he's wearing this wife beater and he's got tattoos.
Derek:He probably lives in, you know, not a gated community or something, you know, that that's the type of person who's going to beat somebody. But I'm learning more and more, and you've helped me with a bunch of book recommendations and stuff. Why does he do that was like amazing. But I'm coming to understand more and more that physical violence and domestic abuse is actually really hard to see. Could you guys maybe explain a little bit how you how do we define abuse?
Derek:Because I think that's a really important place to start. It's not necessarily the black guy. So how do we define abuse, and how does it generally play out in day to day life?
Judy:Well, abuse is by definition, the use of power to coerce or control another and therefore harm another always causes harm. And domestic abuse is not really the incidents, it's the patterns that defines what domestic abuse is. And so domestic abuse is that pattern. It's like a pattern of abusive behavior that's used by one intimate partner to gain or to maintain control over the other partner. And it can take many forms, physical, sexual, you know, physical, like you mentioned, we think physical abuse when we think domestic abuse, but actually in religious circles with the women I work with, many of them, their husband has never laid a hand on them.
Judy:It's other forms of coercion and control, psychological, emotional, economic, spiritual, using religion and religious dominance to control. And it's these things that are used to control another person's mind and therefore their behavior. We often in advocacy world, we use, I don't know if you've come across this and you're reading the Duluth model, the power and control wheel. There are, I believe is it eight Rosanna spokes on that wheel, the different ways that abusers use power and control to dominate their partner.
Derek:Rosanna, before you speak, I want to emphasize one word that you said, is really helpful for me. Because The other day I was listening to, I don't know if you've heard of The Great Sex Rescue, but it's kind of been a popular book. I don't know if you like it or not, but anyway, one of the things that the author said was, you know, she was talking about, you know, it's abuse if, you know, when you don't have sex with your husband, he I forget exactly what it said, but like he'll, you know, be cold to you or treat you rudely. And I was thinking, man, like, well then, like my wife and I, we abuse each other throughout the year because there are times when, you know, if I don't do the dishes or if she doesn't do something, like we'll get in a bad mood because it's like, I can't believe they did that. And I'm like, that's not abuse, but the word pattern is very important there.
Derek:And that helps me to understand, okay, so that's what she's talking about. It's not you're in a bad mood one day. It's a pattern and for control.
Judy:I'm also an adoptive mama, foster mama, and we talk about So I raise kids who carry some trauma and we talk about their trauma a lot. And of course, the abuse victims also carry trauma. We talk about how when we make a mistake with our kids, we and then we repair. And you won't see that repair in an abusive marriage. You will see a pattern of domination and control where where the abuser cannot own.
Judy:That he is doing what he's doing and and cannot repair. So you didn't do the dishes one night and your wife got really annoyed at you. And you know, punished you the way we do as married couples in some way. Got snippy or, you know, slammed something or whatever. But she'll come back.
Judy:And she'll repair where she aired. And that doesn't happen in abusive marriages.
Rosanna:Yeah. The pattern is that is the most recognizable thing about abuse. In like in Mennonite circles, like even in my relationship, I was only hit a few times and but the fact is I have, we had a pattern of like verbal and emotional abuse And the physical abuse only starts where you can it only starts where the abuser feels like he's losing control.
Derek:Okay. Yeah. So speaking of control, since that's such a big idea, I want to talk a little bit about how abusers get control and maintain control. And specifically in this season, I'm I'm focused on propaganda, like how information is wielded. So from from reading, why does he do that?
Derek:You know, one of the things that that was kind of clear is that a lot of times abusers will actually have two targets. They'll target the victim and then they'll also target the connections that the victim has. And I
Judy:would
Derek:love if you could kind of speak into maybe some real world examples or strategies that you have in regard to how do abusers target the victim? And then how do abusers target people outside of the victim? And why is that important to target those relationships?
Rosanna:Oh, well, one of the things that really using information to control or target is is very crucial, especially in our late Mennonite churches. That's that's how well, actually, in any church or any relationship that's abusive, the the information is used for instance, we were let's say a wife and husband are going somewhere and the husband tells the wife, you know, you must make sure you don't criticize me in public or do this or that when you're there. So that's some of that is information. But then on the way home, he's like, well, you told so and so this, and they think you're stupid or you're crazy. You can't you can't just behave like an idiot around my family.
Rosanna:And, like, those are one some of the ways that that the abuser controls information to other people or to his partner.
Judy:Also, an abuser will always use some form of isolation. To cut access off from his victim, from other people and from the I mean, that's sort of what Roseanne is referring to. When he gaslights her reality with a lie of how he claims other people perceive her, but then cuts her off from being able to talk to them. And one of the ways he does that is by giving her a sense of shame in who she is, telling her she's stupid. And so she's not gonna go ask that person if they said what he said.
Judy:And so isolation is a common tactic of abusers to make up lies about other people, but then to remove those people that can anchor her in what is true and right amidst of the fog, it disorients her and prevents her from seeking out what is the truth.
Derek:Yeah, I guess the abuser tries to burn the bridges. On victim's end, he gets her to sever ties with those people emotionally at first, but then that causes her to kind of remove herself from those relationships. But then simultaneously, those other people, you know, if he's saying, Oh yeah, she's just really depressed or she's just not, you know, admitting, she's just rebellious. And then those people kind of see that distancing as her rebellion or her removal.
Judy:Yeah. Yes. So he's isolating her there, but then he's also triangulating where he's bringing in other people into the situation to gain an advantage over his victim by determining the narrative of what, you know, he sets the narrative of what's being said. Worked with one survivor who his son would catch him using porn. And so then he would tell his son, Well, I'll tell your mom, don't talk to her about this because it's so upsetting for her.
Judy:I'll take care of it. And so sometimes he would and sometimes he wouldn't, but he was gaslighting them both by saying what he was gonna do and then didn't do. Or sometimes he would tell her, but he would only tell her a very watered down version of what had happened. And then he would maybe say that, you know, we should make sure that her children were teenagers, make sure that you don't talk to the, say anything about this to the children, because we really don't want them to be afraid that our marriage is falling apart or anything like that. And so he was isolating them from each other, cutting them off from each other, but then he was also kind of triangulating things.
Judy:Then he to the counselor, he gave another story and and made her out to be just like you were describing a poor soul who's, you know, depressed and confused. And it just creates a web of confusion for the victim.
Derek:Yeah. And that sorry. Go ahead.
Rosanna:I was gonna say you also have, like, when somebody important does find out, like let's say the church or so, then he's like, well, then he uses messages that they would approve of such as like, well, my wife was so insubmissive or she's driving me crazy and I just didn't know what else to do. So I flipped out and hit her and I feel awful about it. Know, the information that's that's being heard is something that the crowd around wants to hear. So, I mean, that is being heard by the church is something that they would understand or would control like she said control the narrative control what they think about her. So it's not only what she and the children think about each other, it's what everybody else thinks about her so that it would work into his dance of trying to make her do something that he likes or to keep on doing something that he likes.
Rosanna:Like as in making meals on time, you know, whether it was an accident or not that she didn't before or cooking full course dinners. Like, one person that I talked to said their husband had to have full course dinners. And actually, was at their place one time. She had a beautiful spread on with tomato sandwiches, soup bar, and a whole lot of condiments, everything. I was like, oh, I'm so hungry.
Rosanna:That looks so good. He said, let's pray. And they prayed. And then after prayer, he said, now I said, what's for dinner? And I was angry and mortified that she'd he'd said that right in front of us.
Rosanna:Well, he was using information in a way that hurt his wife and in a way that would make maybe supposedly make us feel like she's inadequate and she always does this kind of thing.
Derek:Yeah. So one of the big questions that that I've had, and I think it's something that that you saw pretty frequently coming out of the Me Too movement where a lot of people were surprised at all of the abuse that was going on, is, you know, we're like, well, why didn't you, like, why didn't you say something? Why didn't you come forward sooner? Oh, well, it's really convenient that you're coming forward now that somebody else has come forward or, you know, after five years, like you should have come the first time he hit you. Or So why is it usually hard for the victim to recognize?
Derek:And I do want to ask, is it appropriate to call somebody the victim or is that demeaning? What's the appropriate word?
Rosanna:I often say survivors, but some of them still are victims. They're stealing it, you know? But if they're out of I usually say survivors.
Derek:Okay. Thank you. I'll go with that. Why is it usually hard for the survivor to recognize abuse as abuse and lies as lies when when the man, and and we're using men here too, I know that it can happen to men, but in general, why why do they believe the guy when he says, oh, they think you're crazy or you're overreacting, you're stupid, nobody's gonna believe you? Like, can't they see the abuse and why can't they see the lies?
Rosanna:Well, he's usually chalky and deadly. And I was gonna say, people like that work to control their images. Plus, a person that's been living under it has that element of shame, like Judy described earlier, and also doubts herself because of the gaslighting usually. So you have got all that playing in with, I don't know, if you would say hit your wife in play, do you call that hitting? I had this thing where I did this minimization, you know, where, well, he never put me in the hospital or, you know, he never really hit me.
Rosanna:He just smacked me. Know, he didn't punch me. He didn't put, you know, bruise my face. Well, know, that kind of thing. You had this minimization thing going on.
Rosanna:A lot of abuse survivors do that to cope. But like you said, even you said, you think of abuse as somebody with a big swaggering attitude who walks around being mean to everybody. So a survivor doubts her own definition of abuse. So she's got that going for her. So how do you tell whether if he only hits you once a year or about every day he usually says something criticizing or cutting.
Rosanna:If he doesn't put you in the hospital, if he doesn't break a leg, if he doesn't really really beat you up, it's not a beating if he just smacks you once. Right? So you've got all that confusion about the definition of abuse, the lack of education about abuse, and also your own natural shame. You've just got a lot coming out against you talking about it. Plus, go to church, nobody else looks like they're being beaten.
Rosanna:Nobody else talks about abuse. You've got that plan with you too, with your head.
Derek:Yeah, it seems like seems like a big part of that is even if even if you kind of have inklings of there being abuse, if the rest of society isn't educated, if your community isn't educated about what abuse looks like, then you are going to think you're crazy because, you know, if I wouldn't have thought it was okay that a woman was hit, but, you know, seven years ago, if somebody would have said, you know, we were in a big fight, we were yelling at each other and he pushed me. I'd be like, I mean, he shouldn't have done that for sure. But like, he just kind of pushed you once, like, that really abuse? Like, I don't know that I would have been on board and known the patterns and and and the things to believe somebody or understand how to how to cope with that.
Judy:And and think, you know, you asked your original question was, why is it hard for a woman to recognize abuse as abuse? It starts small. He slaps her once if it's a physical abuse thing. And then he is so, so sorry. And he makes it up to her.
Judy:And it doesn't happen for a long time again, but she remembers the slap. And when he gets the dark, stormy look, she quickly works to appease him. And there's several factors at play here. And some is, like you mentioned and Rosanna mentioned, the ignorance, the lack of education. There's just a lot of unawareness culturally and in general regarding issues of abuse.
Judy:And then you combine that with messages that women in Western Christianity at least get that her job is to submit and serve, to lay down her life. And so a woman thinks that love calls her to endure all things, even a sometimes unreasonable man. And then if the abuse has no physical components to it, and it is just psychological and mind games, that happens a lot in Christian circles. Then you have all of that to sort through that creates such confusion and cloudiness for a woman. And so for her to sort through, like, never hits me.
Judy:This is not abusive. But why do I feel like he doesn't like me? And why do I feel It must be me. And so the blame and shame goes inward. And for her to be able to recognize it as abuse, it takes a lot.
Judy:And I'm so thankful that in the last five years, it feels like this is the new frontier of discovery of what it means to care for each other and to follow Jesus and to educate people on what it looks like to follow Jesus, even difficult marriages that are more than difficult, they're abusive.
Rosanna:And there's also the fact that spiritual abuse is especially vague because everything the Bible says is true, right? So if he says you need to be more submissive, there's like, wow, you know what? I really care about my faith and my spiritual life. I should be more submissive. So you've got that spiritual abuse is so dangerous, especially maybe in Christian communities because the Bible says wives submit to your husbands in the King James version.
Rosanna:And in other versions, implies the same thing. And it's true. I mean, you don't want a wife to just go, I'm gonna do the opposite or whatever you want. That would be rude. But the fact is we had to use almost a whole Bible approach where you don't just submit but the husband also wants to submit.
Rosanna:But we haven't been taught this in our Christian circles. Generally Christianity is bad at teaching the marriage passages because they almost always do that where the wife is down here and the husband's up here then God's up here. You know we call it the umbrella of authority. But I'm beginning to question that model as far as what the Bible is actually teaching about the the umbrella of authority.
Judy:You're beginning to question it?
Rosanna:Right. I've been reluctantly kicking and screaming, letting go of that concept. And Judy would know because we've been friends a long time. She still says I'm egalitarian and I should just admit it.
Derek:Yeah, it seems more like a tango. Mean, I've read more, you talked about Doctor. Witt and talking with him, but just seeing the idea of mutual submission, you know, if you go complementary and that's true, it's also very true that there should be more emphasis on submission on the man's part as well. Service, laying down life. So either way, whether you're egalitarian or complementarian, there's an emphasis on the woman's role for some reason.
Derek:So I definitely want to talk more about the church and its shortcomings and maybe what hope we can have for it towards the end. But, Judy, you mentioned something that I want to get to first, which, you you talked about how you kind of become acclimated to the abuse. You know, it starts small and then it gets it gets worse. And but at the same time, I've also I've also reading Jacques Lloux on propaganda, he talks about how we get acclimated. He calls it methodized, which is like you become used to the poison, and so the poison
Judy:doesn't affect I know it's bad word.
Derek:Yeah. Yeah. That's his word. I learned the word too. But you become acclimated or immune to the poison over time.
Derek:But at the same time, and it seems like it it's kind of it it doesn't follow that you could have both of these things. But the other thing that happens is you become sensitized, to it, where it's like you become more attuned to the abuse. And you mentioned something earlier, like, you see the storm in his eyes or something, or, you know, you you you make one mistake and you're like, you're on edge. So could you talk a little bit about you just talked about becoming acclimated. Could you talk a little bit about, like, what becoming sensitized and becoming just on edge about things?
Derek:How does how does abuse just make your life a wreck in regard to always being fearful?
Rosanna:Yes, I could answer that one. I'm in
Judy:a state of hypervigilance. Go ahead, Rosanna.
Rosanna:Well, yeah, hypervigilance and that has to do with, like you said, or one of you said that when he hits you one time, he can use that as leverage. You really try to you don't want things to get to the extreme and an abuser only uses as much force as necessary. So basically he learns a body language or he has a body language, but he's more freer to use it as time goes on. You can tell by the side of his shoulders or the expression on his face what he's feeling like. So when you walk in the door, you don't want to escalate the storm.
Rosanna:Although there were times at the end of my relationship that I wanted to escalate the storm just to have it over with. If he blows up, then he's usually a little calmer after that because he's got it out of his system. But it's not a good feeling. And you get physical health issues from that amount of cortisol in your body. But they that is a message and it's a signal to the woman that she needs to get in her place, quote, unquote, or try to appease him.
Rosanna:That's what Judy said, that's very appropriate language. When And abuse doesn't always do that storm thing where the fact is the abuse might escalate and de escalate as days go by, But the control always increases. It just goes up and up and up until you're like swamped and then you've had enough if he doesn't kill you first.
Judy:Yeah. And it's a state of being I mean, to survive in an environment like that, victim in that state has to disassociate to some degree because you can't process that much trauma all at once. And so it's this weird thing of both disassociating and becoming hypervigilant and always attuned to the abuser's mood. Like Rosanna was saying, body language, just his presence, just being super attuned to that, hypervigilant. But also when the abuse happens, you disassociate.
Judy:Well, that trauma has to go somewhere and it goes into the body. And like Rosanna said, then many women end up with health issues that seem to have no cause and they can't pinpoint the cause or treatment because what is it? Well, it's actually trauma stored in the body. And so it's both that hypervigilance and at times the disassociation from the effects of that level of abuse and trauma. But then what often happens, well, I'm not sure if you're gonna get into this, but as a woman steps away and begins to recognize what's happening, that this is an abuse situation, that this is toxic, that this is not something that I should be allowing to come against me and my children, As she begins to step away and heal, there's a sense in which for many women, their sensitivity becomes even higher.
Judy:Because now that they are aware and naming the abuse for what it is, it's almost like they're triggers, they become more easily triggered. And as they step out, if they get away and are exposed back to the abuse, So there's so much that happens. And I'm learning so much recently about what happens in the body throughout abuse and trauma. And it's fascinating stuff, but it's also heartbreaking stuff because this is affecting women that I love and their children that I love as well. One of
Rosanna:the things that I noticed is when I left, and it gets more dangerous when you leave. The abuser has lost control, so he'll do a lot more. The time a woman leaves, she's usually that's when she'll be killed or that's when she'll be feeling the most threatened because that's when he
Judy:is That's the most dangerous season.
Rosanna:Yeah. So basically, you have that so that you are living on the edge for the first I don't know, I always say a year. The first year is always the worst. And then as he realizes he's lost control, there's always situations with the children if they have any or maybe the house, various things like that. But anyway, but they're sad.
Rosanna:So if you start healing, you might start healing where you're not quite as triggered the first time as you think his vehicle's going past, it might be another vehicle. Or when you hear a voice in the crowd of people that sounds a little like his or things like that. But after a while that gets better, But when you get healthy and you're around the person the next time, you will be quicker to call out abuse and name it abuse because you'll recognize the physical symptoms in your own body and your knowledge has increased about abuse. So you've got that, your level of healing. I don't know that you would I would say that a woman gets more desensitized or sensitized but that she gets that her knowledge increases, her own self awareness increases.
Rosanna:So yeah, she's probably becoming more desensitized to, well, what would be the step in, Judy? Yeah.
Judy:Is becoming her triggers are being untripped. Like, her triggers are being untriggered. I mean, what's the word? Like, the trip wires are being
Rosanna:unconnected Exactly, like reset.
Judy:Yes, yes. But her knowledge now, her knowledge that she now has makes her much more aware of, and she can pick up you know, the vibes, the scents. She's much more vigilant. And I'm not in an abusive marriage, but there was some abuse in the home I grew up in. And I can pick up still how many years later, I'm almost 51, how many years since I've left home, but I can still pick up on the vibes from homes that were similar to mine, especially since I've become more educated and knowledgeable.
Judy:So I'm not sensitized, but I am What's the word I want, Rosanna? I'm more aware?
Rosanna:You recognize. Yeah, you're more aware. Was going say like now, whereas before you might have stopped the conversation or the interaction up here, Now you're going to stop it back there and put up your boundaries down here and put up your boundaries because now you're going to say, you know what? Oh, he's trying to control the situation. I'm going to back out, put up a block, and just say, you know what?
Rosanna:I'm not talking to you right now. I'm gonna hang up the phone. Whereas before, you might have left to get up here because you knew when his level of tripping is.
Derek:So how do you how do you start to see that in the first place for the first time? Because if you're if you're so inundated by the lies that he's telling you and by fear, maybe you even think, you know what, this really isn't abuse because I didn't go to the hospital. What causes people to see that for the first time and to step out of that?
Rosanna:Sometimes it's somebody else telling you that, at least that's how it happened to me several times. It took a long time before I realized that I was in his in fact I didn't even realize when I left how deep I was in it. I know my counselor told someone in my presence that we were having a three way conversation that I was so enmeshed he didn't think she could help me at first. Well, and yeah it took people but it also took me realizing that there were were people that could help me. No, I don't know.
Rosanna:I was desperate. I needed to get out because I was going crazy. Was on the verge of I was living my nerves and everything. I was living in tension so high that I felt like I was going to snap and I recognize my own children's anxiety. Their trauma was interfering with their development.
Rosanna:Things were happening with their behavior that made me realize that it's time I do something. It was The best thing we can do for survivors is to tell them, you know what, I don't like that. That doesn't make me feel safe. Does it? How do you live with that?
Rosanna:Or are you okay? And point it out in gentle ways, Well, you're being abused because we're gonna like, Oh, stop it. No, that's embarrassing. How could you say that? Know, I've had one person do that to me and I was angry and humiliated.
Rosanna:But but yeah, I just like, hey, that that doesn't feel safe. Know, I don't like that. How do you like it? And that's the question that got me out of it.
Judy:How do we all learn about ourselves or about what we're experiencing or about our needs, it's usually through other people, through other people's input into our lives. And so I think, as we become educated, it's just exactly like Roseanne saying, Roseanna was saying that we can step in and say, I'm not okay with him treating you like that. Like that made me really uncomfortable. He wasn't respecting you. Are you okay with that?
Judy:It plants the seeds. It plants the seeds that makes her question, wait, if she thinks it's not okay, maybe it's not okay. It doesn't feel okay to me, but I was just treating women. It is like Rosanna said, when they see their children begin to be affected, then they realize, oh, something's got to give. This is not okay.
Judy:And so it's a combination of things. Very few women on their own, unless they have been raised in a very healthy home themselves. This does happen. If a woman's been raised in a very healthy home with very solid parenting, parents with a great connection to each other, they may recognize on their own that they are in an abusive marriage, but that's not typical. Typically, takes someone stepping in and saying, Hey, I'm not sure what's going on here, but I care about you and this isn't okay.
Rosanna:And that's a good way of using information because you're basically feeding them more correct
Judy:information. Healthy propaganda.
Derek:Yeah, yeah. I think we should call it healthy propaganda discipleship, you know, or apprenticeship.
Judy:I like that.
Rosanna:Is propaganda ever a positive word?
Derek:Yeah, so I mean, it started off as kind of a neutral word with the Catholic Church just saying, Hey, we need to go teach people. And so it was propaganda. So yeah, I mean, propaganda doesn't necessarily mean lies. It just means you're using information to educate. But it's come to mean the manipulation of information, usually for not good purposes or for one's own self interest.
Rosanna:Yeah.
Derek:Okay. So I want to get into the church. And and I think the church probably, you know, it's not that the church has unique problems so much. I think that institutions in general, I mean, you can go to Hollywood and see that they have, you know, sexual abuse problems and politics, doesn't matter where you go. But we are Christians, and we value the church.
Derek:And we know that it has problems. So I want to focus a little bit on the church, and we can kind of extrapolate that to other institutions as well. But how how does the church play into abuse as you've seen it? And at least from from what I've been seeing and hearing, why is the church so often not a safe haven for women? Why does it perpetuate abuse or harbor abusers?
Rosanna:Judy, I was gonna let you go here. You go first. Well, think there's a theology of womanhood that's unhealthy in the church generally. And we talked about that a little bit here in the podcast. So you've got lies that are or misinformation that's being an imbalance of teaching that put women down here and men up here.
Rosanna:And that solidly feeds into an abusive relationship. So you have that in the church. And I'm not saying yes, I'm saying that it's really bad because I was just thinking right now of all the literature out there that teaches women how to be good wives and good spouses. It's all submit, give up your life, knuckle under, communicate. The power of a praying wife, if you pray for your spouse enough, he won't be bad, know, or if you submit then he's gonna be a godly decent guy.
Rosanna:And if you there's a huge message across churches that and I think it's, I don't know where it started, but somehow this crept into the church and it's not leaving. And I feel like we could do a whole lot better about teaching the fruits of the spirit and interactions with both men and women. If we're dominated, if we're led, I'm sorry, by the fruits of the spirit, then you're going to be treating other people, including your wife and children, respectfully and kindly and gently and tenderheartedly and with knowledge. There are scriptures against abuse in the Bible against abuse of wives, husbands being out harsh with them or an abuse against abusive children like you know be bring them up in the nurture and admonition. It doesn't say it's trick, discipline, and punishment you know.
Rosanna:So yeah there's a lot there's a lot to teach us and the way that information is being shared in churches is not very healthy. It could be more balanced. And I don't know why this is, unless it's part of the curse.
Judy:Which that's really sad. If we are, as the body of Christ, allowing the curse to dictate our relationships, within the church and especially toward the most vulnerable, victims of abuse, that to me is tragic. I think women's voices aren't, for all the lip service given to men and women are equal. All the lip service given to the quality of men and women. Traditionally, the circles I move in are more patriarchal and complementarian.
Judy:And however you feel about those terms or that way of thinking, associated with that, it just happens as part of that package is that women's voices are not valued, typically. And so in churches, in more traditional churches, women's voices aren't as valued. And so when a woman comes forward with allegations of abuse, we might investigate it. I've seen this happen numerous times where sure, she'll be listened to, she'll be heard, they'll start to check things out. But the man comes with his tale, with his narrative.
Judy:He's so polished and put together, so believable, so humble, so sorrowful. And so the woman is disbelieved. No way that her story she's often a mess. Or if not a mess, she's at least not presenting very as polished. And so I don't know how to combat that.
Judy:I don't know we go about elevating women's voices so that they are believed. But often what I will say to people is there is no way, there's no woman who wants to admit that abuse is her life. No woman wants to admit that. So if she has the courage to come and say, My marriage, something's wrong. And I'm feeling confused and I'm feeling something's not right.
Judy:And I think I'm in an abusive marriage. If she has the courage to come say that, believe her. Lean in and listen. Because she doesn't want to be in that marriage. It's not what she signed up for.
Judy:It takes a great deal of courage to overcome the shame of that to even begin to say anything. And we, yeah, I think the silencing or the not believing of women in their voices is huge, but I don't know how to combat it necessarily.
Derek:Yeah, it's almost like men are the sex that's most easily deceived, you know, because they believe abusers all the time, which is a little bit ironic, you know. Finally ironic. Yeah. Yeah. So finally, I I can think I know one case that I can think of that in a church from back in The States where there was an individual who claimed that her husband was abusive and it went before the elders and everything.
Derek:And essentially, from my understanding, I wasn't at the the hearing or whatever, but, you know, he might have gotten centered a little bit like, hey, you know, calm down. And she was told to submit. And that was that was ultimately the conclusion. Have have first of all, have you seen a lot of churches actually have real church discipline for abusers? And then the the follow-up to that would be, how do you how do you go through a process?
Derek:Like, I I was just talking with my wife the other day. I was like, I mean, even knowing what I know about abuse, if I have two people come in front of me, and I'm not in their home, I don't have cameras in their home, I've got two people telling stories. I think the wife is right because knowing what I'd know about abusers, she probably is if she's coming forward. But at the same time, you know, we've got our mindset of innocent until proven guilty in The United States. I'm like, how do I go about discipline or following up on this?
Derek:Like, what insights do you have to that?
Rosanna:Wow, it's really hard. I I know one church put both parties in time out. In other words, disfellowship both of them. And after a long time, a number of years, they realized that she was telling the truth and they let her back in and he still does fellowship. But yeah, it took that lady, it took her years of talking to ministry and educating them about abuse for her to be heard.
Rosanna:And I think that have I ever I don't think I've ever seen church discipline happen to an abuser. The most churches do is a slap on the wrist because I don't believe churches really generally believe abuse is nothing less than beating somebody black and blue and putting them in the hospital. So you don't I don't really feel like I've heard much about abuse that's less than that. They will support you if you end up going to the hospital. They will support obvious abuse, but but they don't generally believe or value like, I've had people ask me, well, was he drunk when he hit you?
Rosanna:Or did he like, is there there must be some kind of something that made him do this or or the other thing was would say does he hit your kids? Like is that that proof that he's what kind of proof does a church need? And I'm sorry but like churches just generally do really badly about disciplining. What do I want to see? I would like to see people actually believe a victim right at first because like Judy said, it's really embarrassing to present with a story that, you know, what my husband's abusive.
Rosanna:But also when somebody denies it, that's also very much of a telltale sign. Like if you would say, well no, he isn't. My wife is stupid or whatever. Basically crossing an abuser proves that he's if you cross an abuser he will turn on you and that's how you can prove that an abuser is an abuser. But does it happen?
Rosanna:I think churches hate to make somebody feel bad.
Judy:But even there, Rosanna, with the kind of covert abuse that we see a lot in religious circles, not always do abusers turn on the outside world the way they turn on They don't always turn against religious leaders, way they turn against their victims. And so I don't hesitate to say that because I've seen cases where the abuser just becomes more polished, more covert, more slick and manipulative, and fools everybody, except for his victims, his wife, his children, and those who are walking closely with them. And so they don't always turn. They may often, but not always. I think what I long for, because like you highlighted, Derek, these cases are so tricky.
Judy:You asked your wife, what would you do if you had a victim come and tell you? Like, how would you handle that in a church setting? You know, we all like formulas, right? Including our churches. We like formulas.
Judy:Here's what we would do if X, Y, Z happened. Here's our policy for how we handle that. And people and relationships just don't work well with formulas. It's case by case, situation by situation. I think what I long to see as an advocate, what I long to see is like Rosanna said, that churches believe victims and that they allow their approach to these situations to be victim led.
Judy:What do you need to be safe and to thrive? And knowing your husband the way you do, knowing his patterns, knowing his needs, knowing his background, his story, what you think he needs to be held accountable or to be discipled if he really does have a desire? And there are some users who do have, you know, on the lower end of the scale maybe, and have a desire to, they are repentant, but their patterns of thinking, their mindset is so twisted, takes a long time to untangle. So to allow our church, if you want to call it that, our discipleship to be victim informed is huge. But we tend to not trust the victims to know because, oh, they don't have the seminary degree or they don't have the Bible knowledge or they don't have yeah.
Judy:They're just not together quite. So we tend to discredit what they say. From my point of view, I really feel like we'll respond to these situations much more wisely if we lean in and humble ourselves to be learners from those who know the situation best. And those who know the situation best are those who are being victimized by the situation. And I know that's not a very piety formulaic answer, but I think it has to start there with some education about what abuse is, and then with a willingness to humble ourselves to learn from the victims.
Rosanna:That's what I was going to say. Education, education, education. Churches must get educated on domestic violence. Believe it or not, the church is way far back on education compared to the world. The world's got education on domestic violence, and they believe survival generally.
Rosanna:The church does not. I hate
Judy:to say this, but it is true. It is true what Rosanna is saying. I see in my experience, which is not that long, but I have seen courts do far better, a far better job of protecting and supporting and empowering victims of abuse than I've seen churches do. And that grieves me. I don't want it to be that way.
Judy:I pray and I work toward change.
Derek:Yeah. You know, not being a formula and being relational, I think, is particularly helpful. Victim led is helpful. You know, as I was thinking about it, something clicked for me where it's, you know, I'm thinking, Oh yeah, I guess it is about a relationship. I'm thinking in the mindset of being punitive.
Derek:Like if you've got a couple who comes, the woman comes and talks about being abused, I'm like, Okay, well, who do I punish? Who do I reprimand? Who do I excommunicate or remove from the community? And it's like, well, you know, of course, I'm going to have difficulty there because I don't want to judge the wrong person. But if I viewed it more as a relationship and said, hey, survivor, what do you need right now?
Derek:Okay, we're going to come by throughout the week, you know, we'll come knock on your door. What time what days and times are you home? You know, we'll stop by a couple of evenings throughout and check on you. Guy, we're gonna let's schedule, you know, every other Wednesday, let's go out and do lunch and we're going to talk. If it was if we tried to figure out who to reprimand and punish and we viewed it more relationally and said, you know what, this is going to require investing time in somebody and checking in to make sure that the survivor's okay.
Derek:Yeah, that seems like it would be it would look a whole lot different.
Rosanna:Chris Mull's model isn't to actually a lot a lot of this. It must be a lag, I think, here. But Go
Judy:ahead, please.
Rosanna:Chris model is to actually have one person check with the survivor and the other person check with the the abuser and and then run the stories together. You cannot ever really talk to them each in together. It won't work. But yes, relationship, but also should there be justice? Yes, I think so.
Rosanna:But another thing we talk about being victim led, a victim will be far more merciful to their abuser than you will or any other person would. But also, that's not necessarily a bad thing because victims do know they do love their abuser usually. I mean, they really yeah. They they hate the abuse but love the person, and that's pretty good. However, one thing I've heard is like a preacher will say, well, I was really tough on that guy.
Rosanna:And I don't like to hear that personally because being tough is what abuse is all about, being powerful. And so using power and control to stop abuse doesn't always work because it's not teaching them how to relationally love and be submissive. But teaching for a preacher or somebody a preacher's job, I would definitely send an abuser to somebody with experience counseling abusers. But for for a preacher to do that, I wouldn't see a place for that. However, the other thing is when you have an abuser, you really want to teach the abuser gentleness, patience, meekness, humility, and kindness rather than toughness.
Judy:Yeah, and you also the abuser's entitlement, his entitled mindset, his selfish mindset needs to be addressed. And so that's a completely different scenario. Like couples counseling, I think we might have mentioned this in the last podcast to do with you, Derek, but couples counseling does not work for these kinds of situations because this is not a couple's issue. This is a personal issue for the abuser who has an entitled proud mindset that needs to be addressed and repented of. And so that's not an issue between the couple.
Judy:That's his own personal issue that needs to be addressed. And that is partly why Chris Moles recommends sort of a two team approach to these situations where one team cares for the victims, the other team disciples the abuser. And I love how Rosanna highlighted that powering over to make an abuser cooperate, kicking him out or doing whatever you do, doesn't really I mean, reinforces his model of relating, and he doesn't need that reinforced.
Derek:Yeah, and like you said, justice is important, but that's not going to help him change. If he's able to change and willing, that's not going to help him change for sure.
Judy:Right, and justice. I often, I've thought so much of this over the last six months, justice on my terms isn't true justice. Justice on God's terms is gonna look a whole lot different than I might. I mean, justice for me is rescue the victim and punishment to the perpetrator, right? But that's not God's approach to justice.
Judy:And I want to learn to live, to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God and other people, and leave the justice in His hands, final justice for these kinds of situations. Amen.
Rosanna:All
Derek:right. So I think that's all that I have written for you in terms of questions. Is there anything that you think in regard to the conversation that we had that would be helpful for other people to know? Is there anything we missed? Is there anything that that you've tucked away?
Derek:You're like, I just I need to say this. All right. Okay. Then thank you
Rosanna:so much for I
Judy:don't really have anything. Sorry, I don't really have anything. I just wanted to thank you for I mean, the whole theme of propaganda, you could used any issue of the day to illustrate and highlight propaganda and the way information is manipulated. But the fact that you've chosen to highlight domestic abuse and how that ties into propaganda. I just really am grateful because there are many, many women who will benefit from people who listen to this podcast and learn from it.
Judy:And I really appreciate it, Derek.
Rosanna:I agree. Thank you so much.
Derek:Sure. Thank you guys for being vulnerable and coming on and talking. That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network.
Derek:Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and Kingdom Living.
