Controlling behaviour – a range of acts designed to make you feel subordinate and/or dependent on the abuser by isolating you from sources of support, exploiting your resources and capacities for their own personal gain. By depriving you of the means needed for independence, resistance and regulating your every day behaviour, they are ultimately ensuring you are entrapped in a world of confusion, fear, contradiction with no means of escape.
Coercive behaviour – an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten you.
Coercive or controlling behaviour is a core part of domestic violence. Some examples of coercive control include:
- Unreasonable demands.
- Degradation.
- Restricting daily activities.
- Making threats or intimidating you.
- Financial control.
- Monitoring of time.
- Taking your phone away.
- Destruction of possessions.
- Isolating you from friends and family.
- Depriving you of basic needs, such as food/medical services.
- Monitoring you via online communication tools or spyware.
- Taking control over aspects of your everyday life, such as where you can go, who you can see, what you can wear and when you can sleep.
- Depriving you access to support services.
- Repeatedly putting you down, humiliating, degrading or dehumanising you.