Physical and Mental Abuse: The Full Spectrum

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO). there are four different recognised forms of abuse - physical abuse; sexual abuse; emotional (or psychological) abuse; and neglect.

The categorization by the WHO specifically relates to children but that alone is not the purpose of this thread.

This is to cover abuse in any form from the age of zero to one hundred and zero.  Abuse is not defined by type or age or culture or religion or class or gender or education - it is a reality that can claim anyone as its victim.

This another of life's atrocities that needs to be addressed by all, not just the establishment but we can all play a part in trying to recognise something that could be going on right before our very eyes.

Nobody but nobody deserves or asks to be the victims of abuse.  The victims need help, they need to be taken away from the life they live - even if they don't realise it.  

Abuse after all starts with the grooming process.

Starting here..



One tragic story of a victim of abuse.

Just goes to show, you don't have to be a teenager or young adult with an under developed mind, to be the victim of grooming and eventual abuse, be it physical or mental abuse.

I'm guessing many ordinary folk out there have experienced grooming and abuse in some way, albeit only small by comparison. The other half who, after the halcyon days of romance are over, slowly but surely tries to change you. How you look, what you read, what you do, what you think, what you eat, what you drink, how you behave et cetera.

It's so easy to fall into the trap.

Not a Madeleine-related video - but possibly a Kate-related video if those bruises that were seen on her are anything to go by. And if not, then it's still an important video to watch, if not for yourself, but possibly to look for warning signs so that someone else might be helped out of a dangerous relationship.

I can certainly relate to everything Leslie Steiner said in that video, having been in that situation myself from 2003 to 2008...and what Verdi said about how abuse starts with the grooming process.

My own story (and I'll try to keep it brief) was that when I met my future husband back in 2002 he told me he was a lawyer. I also had a successful business. He was very funny and charming. He had a young son, 12 years old. Within that first year he had a diagnosis of an inoperable aneurysm and told he only had 12-18 months to live. He didn't have any family, they were all dead. Naturally he panicked about leaving his young son after he died so I agreed to marry him and take care of his son. I assumed this would relieve some of his stress.

I didn't realise it at the time, but I was then trapped. As soon as we were married the abuse started, gradually at first. I assumed it was his prognosis that was causing the temper tantrums and I tried to understand...he was dying and about to leave his son in my care. He was jealous that I got on well with his son, spent time with him, taught him to drive on private land, but what did he expect me to do as his new step-mother, just ignore the boy?

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I started researching my husband's condition and soon found out, having posted about his plight on an aneurysm support site, that he was not inoperable. I then had another fight on my hands - to make sure he had a life-saving operation. It took 13 months to eventually secure the operation, bearing in mind he only had 18 months at best to live. I documented it all here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

During that time there would be numerous beatings witnessed by his young son. He isolated me from my family and friends, controlled my finances (so it would free up my time to concentrate on getting his operation), destroyed my self-esteem, amongst other things. In hindsight, all the classic signs were there, but I didn't realise.

At one point we needed to obtain his medical records and I read through it one night and discovered that some years before he had been diagosed as being a psychopath and had actually been hospitalised. My world was falling apart.

The few times I called the police proved fruitless - they just wrote it off as a 'domestic'. Of course, hubby dearest would tell the police it was all my fault which they believed. You soon learn to keep things to yourself.

All the time I assumed things would return to normal once he had his life-saving operation and it was that hope that made me work harder and quicker to get the operation. We moved to Birmingham in 2004 so he could have his operation at the new state-of-the-art QE hospital, I sold my house and we bought a house together. His once inoperable aneurysm had now been fixed and his life saved and it took him 6 months to recover.

I assumed everything would be fine now. But it was short lived and the violence resumed. I was not prepared to take anymore so moved out, safe in the knowledge that he could take care of his own son, and started divorce proceedings based on his unreasonable behaviour.

But that wasn't the end of it. Oh dear me no

The divorce took 4 years and it cost me £18,000 because, with his knowledge of the law, and my lack of it having not been divorced before, he wouldn't attend 'mediation' and kept pushing the case through the courts with very expensive barristers. He had legal aid and I was working, so had to pay my own legal fees. But eventually the Judge ordered in his favour, ordered that I sign over my share of our house to him so that he could live debt-free because of his health situation and having a young son, and because I could "work myself out of debt".

Moral of the story? When a man shows you who he really is, believe him the first time!

Jill, thank you for sharing your personal story.  The outcome seems so unfair, I hope life is much better for you now 

And the saddest thing of all - victims seldom, if ever, share their suffering with a listening ear - at least not until it's too late.

What a rubbish world we live in.

For information..

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As Jill said, don't leave it until it's too late.

And don't forget, abuse is not always by the hand of the male sex.

Adults have a choice - children don't.

It's true what they say about not knowing what goes on behind closed doors.

Domestic violence is one of those things that people don't like to admit is happening, try to make excuses for it, blame themselves - as I did.

He was the typical psychopath, although I didn't know it at the time, charming etc. He manipulated my family and tried to turn them against me. He wrote a letter to my mum telling her that I was an abusive alcoholic and that she should get help for me.

After he had his operation he went by himself to a follow-up appointment and when he came home, when he came through that front door, he started again with his abuse, he said he told the consultant that I'd wished he'd died on the operating table, amongst other things - but he didn't realise my mum and sister were in the kitchen and they heard it all. Then they knew they'd been played by him.

Later that night when I was in the bedroom he came up the stairs and I knew what was about to happen, but this time I called my sister on my mobile phone and laid it somewhere out of his sight so she could hear what was going on. She phoned the police and they were there within a couple of minutes because we only lived a short distance from Bournville Lane Police Station.

He stabbed me twice that night. But when the police arrived he said it was me who'd started it and he was just defending himself and he showed the police his operation scars (which were horrific it has to be said) and said 'do you think I would get in to a fight while I'm recovering from such an operation?"

That, of course, was the reason I hadn't tried to defend myself. Ever! How could I fight back knowing he had this aneurysm and scar tissue?

Once again the police believed him.

Had I not phoned my sister and laid the phone down I believe he would have killed me that night. And all because my mum and sister had been in the kitchen and heard for themselves what he was really like. He knew his 'act' was over. I had been his meal ticket all the time we were married, I was working and paid for most things and now he knew that was over too which is why he continued to punish me with the divorce.

Six months after our divorce was finalised, (four years after his operation), he went and died anyway. I sent off for his death certificate just to make sure.

Acute Type A Aortic Dissection.

His son would have been 17 and he inherited the house. I just hope he didn't inherit psychopathy from his dad aswell.

Adèle Haenel MeToo moment shocks French cinema

By Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris

   7 November 2019

Jill, just read your story above.  So sorry.  Appalling.  Hope things are a little better now.  Sending you good thoughts.

Stop Press, just read pt II.  Truly shocked.  Not sure what to say.  Hope things are better for you and sharing your experience has helped.  Others may have been helped by you speaking out.  Thank you.

Russian domestic violence: Women fight back

By Lucy Ash BBC News

21 November 2019

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Two years ago, many Russians were shocked when the parliament significantly reduced penalties for domestic violence. Since then, women have been fighting back - demanding new legislation to restrain abusers, demonstrating in support of three sisters who took the law into their own hands, and finding new ways of tackling outdated attitudes on gender.

On a blustery, grey afternoon, Margarita Gracheva takes her small sons to the playground. They run ahead then jump on to the swings and shoot down the slide. "They're pretty independent for their age," she says. "They know I can't do up their buttons or tie their shoelaces, so they've learned to do it themselves."

On the morning of 11 December 2017 Margarita's husband, Dmitri, offered to give her a lift to work, but instead he drove in the opposite direction, towards the forest. He parked the car, dragged her from her seat, took an axe from the boot and chopped off both her hands.

Then he dumped her in the emergency department of their local hospital in Serpukhov, south of Moscow, before driving to the police station and confessing to his crime.

The couple had met at school and began dating after college. Initially they were happy, though he flared up easily over trivial things - and swore he would kill her if she was ever unfaithful to him.

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An Easter photograph of Margarita, Dmitri and their two children

Their relationship soured when Margarita began working in the advertising section of the Serpukhov newspaper. Despite having a degree, Dmitri could only find work driving a forklift truck, and he became resentful of her career and jealous of her male colleagues. At home he was increasingly cold and withdrawn.

When Margarita said she thought they should split up, he ignored her. But when she produced divorce papers he was furious. One night he attacked her in their one-bedroom apartment, waking the children, who saw the bruises on her body. The next time, when he threatened her with a knife, she went to the police.

"I wrote a statement and the desk officer said they would get back to me in 20 days," Margarita says.

"I pointed out that by then he might well have tried to kill me 20 times over."

The desk officer explained that women often made complaints only to withdraw them later, which just swamped the police in paperwork. "So what is the point of getting involved?"

Five days after the case was dropped for lack of evidence, Dmitri cut off Margarita's hands.

Her mutilated left hand was retrieved from the forest and sewn back on in a nine-hour operation. A crowdfunding campaign raised six million roubles (£73,000) for a prosthetic right hand, which was fitted in Germany.

Though Margarita has now published a book about her recovery, called Happy Without Hands, she hadn't wanted publicity to begin with.

"But the terrible thing is that in order to make sure he got a longer prison sentence, I needed help from the media."

Her lawyers told her that if she didn't get on to national TV, Dmitri would be let out of prison in three-to-five years - it was essential that they felt pressure from public opinion. Margarita took her lawyers' advice, and Dmitri ended up with a 14-year sentence.

Although she is maimed for life, Margarita could easily have suffered a worse fate. Russia doesn't keep statistics on deaths arising from intimate partner violence, but the Interior Ministry says 40% of grave and violent crimes happen inside the family. The most conservative estimates suggest that domestic violence kills hundreds of women a year.

This longstanding domestic violence "crisis", as campaigners call it, helps explain why two developments have sparked protests in cities across Russia. One was the decision taken in 2017 to downgrade domestic violence from a criminal offence to a misdemeanour for first-time offenders, as long as the victim doesn't need hospital treatment. The other was the prospect of long prison sentences being handed down to three sisters arrested for killing their abusive father in July 2018.

The father, Mikhail Khachaturyan - a businessman who made a name for himself running protection rackets in the 1990s - drove his wife from the family home at gunpoint in 2015, then began to focus his aggression on the girls.

"He tortured them at night, wouldn't let them sleep," says the mother, Aurelia Dunduk. "He did whatever he liked. He had a bell and each of them had to come and submit to whatever he desired. The kids were really suffering."

So one night, while Khachaturyan was asleep in an armchair in their home in Altufyevo, a northern suburb of Moscow, his eldest daughter Krestina, aged 19, pepper-sprayed his face. Then 17-year-old Maria stabbed him with a hunting knife while 18-year-old Angelina hit him on the head with a hammer.

"They were protecting themselves - they actually had no choice," their mother tells me.

A public outcry led to them being released from custody while awaiting trial. A petition calling for them to be acquitted has gathered 300,000 signatures.

One of the sisters' supporters is Maria Alyokhina from Pussy Riot, Russia's most famous punk band. When she headlined a fundraiser last summer she spoke about domestic and sexual abuse as "one of the most important problems in Russia" but one that is "always pushed under the carpet".

She added that 80 of the women prisoners she had met during her 18 months in a prison colony (for performing a "punk prayer" in Moscow's main cathedral) were women who had been subjected to domestic abuse "until they just couldn't take it any more".

Few Russian politicians see tackling domestic abuse as a priority. Oksana Pushkina is a rare exception. She was elected in 2016 as a member of President Vladimir Putin's own party, United Russia, but the treatment of women has turned her into a rebel. She is now campaigning to get the 2017 decriminalisation law overturned, and for Russia to pass a specific domestic violence law for the first time.

"From the grandstand of parliament, we said you can batter your whole family," she tells me in her office in the State Duma, referring to the decision taken two years ago. "This is a really bad law."

Her list of proposals includes restraining orders to keep abusers away from their victims - which have never existed in Russia - anti-sexual-harassment measures and steps to promote gender equality. But she faces fierce opposition and daily hate mail.

More than 180 Russian Orthodox Church and family groups have addressed an open letter to Vladimir Putin asking him to block her law, arguing that it's the work of "foreign agents" and supporters of "radical feminist ideology".

At a round-table debate in parliament last month, Andrei Kormukhin, a businessman and arch-conservative, warned that the draft law could lead to "the genocide of the family".

Even women are not immune to this way of thinking. Elena Mizulina, a member of the upper house of the Russian parliament, once told Russian TV that domestic violence "is not the main problem in families, unlike rudeness, absence of tenderness and respect, especially on the part of women".

She added: "We women are weak creatures and do not take offence when we are hit."

Mizulina seems to have been inspired by a 16th Century literary work called Domostroi, or Domestic Order, a set of guidelines for a happy household edited by a priest who took Ivan the Terrible's confession. The book advocates hitting children "to save their souls" and harsh discipline for wives and daughters. "If women do not fear men or do not do what their husbands or fathers tell them, then whip them with a lash according to their guilt, though do so privately, not in the public eye."

Most Russians would laugh off the idea that they live according to medieval rules, but some recognise that outdated attitudes towards gender are a problem and have been tackling them in ingenious ways.

Elena Kalinina, a young advertising executive, remembers how her own mother told her to put up with everything if she wanted a husband. "We have an expression here, 'If he beats you - he loves you,'" she says. "Twisted logic, yes, but it is still part of our mentality."

She thinks the country's gender imbalance - 79 million women to only 68 million men - diminishes women's bargaining power in relationships.

Earlier this year, she and her team developed a computer game about a fictional couple called Nastya and Kirill, and their toxic relationship.

He shouts at her and calls her a slut for cooking him the wrong kind of dinner. At different stages in the game, players have to choose how Nastya should react. The idea is to put yourself in the shoes of the victim and to see how very few options battered women actually have in today's Russia.

Nastya tries to phone her father for help, and the police who don't take her seriously. The game is based on a real case in which the young woman was killed.

Another innovation created by a young lawyer, Anna Rivina, is a website called No To Violence, which tells victims about their rights and where to go to help.

Anna's team of young volunteers use slick social media campaigns to reach women all over the country, including video clips of famous Russian men saying it's uncool to hit women.

"We try to work a lot with different celebrities because people are still ashamed to talk about domestic violence," she says.

"When strong successful women say they have suffered from it, it is much easier for others to be honest and that is why we have ambassadors like the actress Irina Gorbacheva, and [the activist and TV personality] Ksenia Sobchak.

"We need practical solutions, but we also need to change attitudes to this problem - we need to speak about it out loud."

Nasiliu.Net has also opened a centre in Moscow providing legal and psychological support. Unlike a state-funded women's refuge that opened in the city five years ago, women don't need to show a passport or residency permit to qualify for help.

All too often, the police seem to be part of the problem.

Margarita Gracheva says that when women write to her asking for advice she doesn't tell them to go to the police, because "they won't help at all".

Mikhail Khachaturyan's wife, Aurelia Dunduk, had an even worse experience. When she reported the beatings she'd received from her husband, soon after her first daughter was born, they immediately called him to the station. Then, when he arrived, they ripped up her statement in front of him. She never bothered going again.

In Solnechnogorsk, an hour north of Moscow, Anna Verba shows me photographs of her daughter, Alyona.

She was a vivacious 28-year-old sales manager and mother of a seven-year-old boy when she was murdered last year by her husband, Sergei Gustyatnikov. On the night of 5 January he waited until their son was asleep, then stabbed his wife 57 times. After that, he left for a dawn shift as a police captain.

"It all happened in this room," Anna says. "Not on this sofa, we had to throw the old one away because it was completely soaked in blood. This wall was splashed in blood."

Alyona's son, Nikita, was the one who discovered the body, when he went into his mother's bedroom the following morning.

"It was only after the official autopsy that I saw the terrible black-and-white photographs," says Anna. "They were bad enough, but what I can't get over is that the child actually saw all this. He told me her eyes were open… He called out to her and thought she blinked."

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Anna says Nikita ran to his own room and sat on the bed with the dog.

"He didn't know what to do - call an ambulance or call the police. In the end he phoned his dad, because he works in the police.

"How cruel do you have to be not only savagely murder your so-called beloved wife, and the mother of your only child, but to also leave that child to find her body?"

Sergei got nine years, a reduced sentence due to the fact that he has an underage dependent and is in the police force.

But Anna argues this should have worked against him, and led to a more serious sentence. "You made your child an orphan and they consider this as grounds for a reduced sentence? It's insane!" she says.

Our conversation is interrupted when Nikita comes into the kitchen to get a snack. He shows us his dog and offers to make us all tea.

When the child returns to his bedroom to play video games Anna talks about her fears for the future. Although Gustyatnikov was convicted of murder, he has not been stripped of his parental rights and could demand custody of the boy on his release.

"Nikita is very afraid of this. He says, 'Where are we going to hide when he comes out of prison? Granny, what are we going to do?'" she says.

Then she tells me that the summer before the murder, Gustyatnikov took Alyona for a countryside walk, supposedly to make up after a quarrel. On a lonely path, he threw her to the ground and held a knife to her throat. Alyona reported the attack but was later persuaded to withdraw her statement by her husband's colleagues.

"He came and fell on his knees and kissed our feet and asked for forgiveness and said he would never do this again," Anna says.

"He said, 'I really love her, I wouldn't lift a finger against her.' And five months later he killed her.

"I demand as the mother of a murdered girl for there to be changes in the law. I demand that they get rid of the decriminalisation for first-time abusers. There must be punishment.

"Even after my daughter's case, how many more girls have been beaten to death, cut up and strangled? All because the perpetrators go unpunished."

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" We women are weak creatures and do not take offence when we are hit " 

Speak for yourself my dear , ask yourself why some men are so afraid of women ?

Jill Havern wrote:It's true what they say about not knowing what goes on behind closed doors.

Domestic violence is one of those things that people don't like to admit is happening, try to make excuses for it, blame themselves - as I did.

He was the typical psychopath, although I didn't know it at the time, charming etc. He manipulated my family and tried to turn them against me. He wrote a letter to my mum telling her that I was an abusive alcoholic and that she should get help for me.

After he had his operation he went by himself to a follow-up appointment and when he came home, when he came through that front door, he started again with his abuse, he said he told the consultant that I'd wished he'd died on the operating table, amongst other things - but he didn't realise my mum and sister were in the kitchen and they heard it all. Then they knew they'd been played by him.

Later that night when I was in the bedroom he came up the stairs and I knew what was about to happen, but this time I called my sister on my mobile phone and laid it somewhere out of his sight so she could hear what was going on. She phoned the police and they were there within a couple of minutes because we only lived a short distance from Bournville Lane Police Station.

He stabbed me twice that night. But when the police arrived he said it was me who'd started it and he was just defending himself and he showed the police his operation scars (which were horrific it has to be said) and said 'do you think I would get in to a fight while I'm recovering from such an operation?"

That, of course, was the reason I hadn't tried to defend myself. Ever! How could I fight back knowing he had this aneursym and scar tissue?

Once again the police believed him.

Had I not phoned my sister and laid the phone down I believe he would have killed me that night. And all because my mum and sister had been in the kitchen and heard for themselves what he was really like. He knew his 'act' was over. I had been his meal ticket all the time we were married, I was working and paid for most things and now he knew that was over too which is why he continued to punish me with the divorce.

Six months after our divorce was finalised, (four years after his operation), he went and died anyway. I sent off for his death certificate just to make sure.

Acute Type A Aortic Dissection.

His son would have been 17 and he inherited the house. I just hope he didn't inherit psychopathy from his dad aswell.

You are a remarkable woman Jill. There are a lot of remarkable women in this world who have been abused and never ever want that to happen to another woman.


Your experience is much worse than my own.

sharonl wrote:Jill, that is absolutely shocking.  How could anyone behave in that manner?  Good thing you thought to leave you phone on that time, if only you had done that earlier.  

It wasn't a case of thinking to leave my phone on that time. Most of the time I didn't know what was coming - but this time I did simply because my mum and sister had witnessed his behaviour. I knew I was in trouble.

Fact is, even if I had wished him to die on the operating table it would have been a far better death than a ruptured aneurysm. 

But it was the most miserable time of my life for sure...and right up to the time I had to give up driving cos of my poorly leg I had volunteered for The Lantern Project that helps other women of domestic violence, giving them support to take their abusers to court. I had a support worker myself who was stationed out of Bournville Lane Police Station and I don't think I would be here today had it not been for her because domestic violence really does send you in to the depths of despair.

Liz Eagles wrote:You are a remarkable woman Jill. There are a lot of remarkable women in this world who have been abused and never ever want that to happen to another woman.

Your experience is much worse than my own.

Thank you Liz. I don't know about remarkable...just someone who came out alive. Not everyone does.

Not just someone who came out alive, I see no sign of self pity in your words. You are a special kind of someone, who has brought a great many people together in a shared cause. I echo Liz Eagles words,
REMARKABLE.

Supergirl's Melissa Benoist opens up about 'abusive relationship'

1 hour ago

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Melissa Benoist said she hoped sharing her story would 'help prevent more' from happening


Supergirl star Melissa Benoist has spoken out about being in an abusive relationship - saying at one point she had to learn to lock herself in a room.

In a video on Instagram, the actress says she "never thought" she'd be sharing a story like this.

She then gives details of how the "violence escalated" and how she "had to get out".

"I hope telling my story might help prevent more stories like mine happening," she says.

WARNING: This article contains details which some people may find upsetting


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In the video, which is captioned Life Isn't Always What It Seems, the actress never names the alleged perpetrator or suggests when the relationship took place or how long it lasted.

Melissa says "the abuse was not violent at first" but was more manipulative.

"Work in general was a touchy subject," she says.

"He didn't want me ever kissing or even having flirtatious scenes with men..."

She says she turned down auditions and job offers because she "didn't want to hurt him" and now sees that behaviour as a "red flag" for what was to come.

The 31-year-old says the violence started with "a smoothie being thrown in my face" before escalating to the point where she was "pinned down, slapped and repeatedly punched".

"I learned to lock myself in rooms but quickly stopped because the door was inevitably broken down," she says.

In the video, she says her "most vivid memories" are from when the arguments would end when "a wave of guilt would wash over him", he'd "carry me to an empty bath" before crying and giving what she calls "the typical abuser's apology speech".

Melissa says she would "just plain lie" to her closest friends to cover up what was going on until one day one of them confronted her about it.

"Unbeknownst to me, many people in my life suspected and feared exactly what was happening.

"It was the first moment I spoke about the abuse to anyone and I can't describe the amount of relief I felt.

"She held me and she said, 'You know what you have to do now, don't you?'"

'You deserve a violence-free life'

The actress says "leaving was not a walk in the park" but that the more people she "let in" the more she was "bolstered".

She closes the video by addressing anyone who might be going through something similar.

"What I went through caused a tectonic shift in my outlook on life. I will be healing from this for the rest of my life. And that's OK.

"If you are enduring what I went through and you see this... at least you might begin to think of your freedom.

"You can and deserve to live a violence-free life."

Since the video was released, hundreds of people have responded to the post and the hashtag [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] was trending on Twitter.

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One fan called the story "absolutely heartbreaking" saying the actress is "so strong" while another thanks her "for being yet another voice to say it's OK to say no".

Other celebrities have also supported her.

Riverdale actress Lini Reinhart said she was "so moved by her bravery" on Instagram' while writer Natasha Rothwell tweeted: "Check on your strong friends. Check on your quiet friends... Check on each other."

If you, or anyone you know, are affected by this story you can find more links to help on the BBC Advice pages or contact the National Domestic Abuse Helpline.


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This is just horrendous - not for the faint hearted..

Acid attack survivor: 'There are more good people than bad'

By Hailu Sahle BBC Tigrinya

   20 February 2020

An Ethiopian woman disfigured after her estranged husband attacked her with acid in 2017 says that despite her suffering she has reasons to be thankful.

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.....................

There is no punishment I can think of to cover such an act of barbarism.

How Coronavirus lockdown affected domestic abuse victims

BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire was 16 when her family left their home in Littleborough, near Rochdale - and with it the place she experienced violence at the hands of her father.

Thirty-five years on she returns to her childhood home to confront those memories and embarks on a journey to see how those living with domestic violence have been impacted by the coronavirus lockdown.

In-depth research by Women's Aid for Panorama reveals the true scale and nature of domestic abuse under lockdown during the pandemic.

You can watch Panorama: Escaping my Abuser on Monday 17 August on BBC One at 19:30BST.

Read more: 'My father was violent - I feared for lockdown victims'

17 Aug 2020

How Tina Turner 'broke the silence' on domestic abuse

Published

10 hours ago

By Helen Bushby
Entertainment reporter

This article contains descriptions of domestic violence which some readers may find distressing.

When Tina Turner first spoke out about the violence she endured during her marriage to Ike Turner, it was an act of bravery to expose herself so publicly.

"I was insanely afraid of that man," she told People magazine in 1981, revealing the painful reality behind the hugely successful musical duo.

Tina's scorching description of their marriage included being made to watch a live sex show in a brothel on their wedding night, and being beaten with a shoe stretcher while she was pregnant.

She also spoke about Ike throwing scalding coffee at her, and of being brutalised with a coat hanger. In 1968, she tried to take her own life.

"I was afraid to put it out [talk about the abuse] because of what I would get from Ike," she told journalist Carl Arrington.

Ike Turner, who died in 2007, always denied his ex-wife's claims that he abused her, and expressed frustration that he had been demonised in the media.

The couple met when Tina was just 17, after she saw his group Kings of Rhythm perform, and asked him to hear her sing.

Not surprisingly, he spotted her star quality, making her his lead singer, choosing her stage name and lavishing her with clothes and jewellery.

They married in 1962, and Tina, who had already experienced the pain of being rejected as a child by her mother, promised Ike she "wouldn't leave him" - something she later came to regret.

"I felt obligated to stay there and I was afraid," she told Arrington. "I didn't want to hurt him, and after he beat me up... I was sitting there all bruised and torn, and all of a sudden I'm feeling sorry for him.

"Maybe I was brainwashed."

But by 1978, after a string of hits including River Deep, Mountain High, Tina decided she felt able to leave Ike. She could no longer put up with the "torture" of being married to him, and the impact it had on their four sons.

"I was living a life of death. I didn't exist," she said. "But I survived it. And when I walked out, I walked. And I didn't look back."

Tina moved away, and had to rebuild her career, making money by singing in Las Vegas and appearing on various TV shows.

She decided to tell all in the 1981 interview, to expel some of the ghosts from her past.

In Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin's 2021 documentary Tina, the singer said she was so nervous about doing the interview that she asked her psychic if it would ruin her career.

"She said, 'No, Tina'," the singer recalled. "'It's going to do just the opposite. It's going to break everything wide open.'"

Dr Lenore E Walker, director of the US-based Domestic Violence Institute, which provides support for victims of domestic abuse, thinks Tina's decision to speak out was hugely important.

"In 1981 we were just learning about the extent of domestic violence in homes," she tells the BBC. "It was often thought to be only poor women without resources who were abused.

"When Tina Turner spoke out about her life, it brought awareness to the fact that domestic violence was everywhere."

She says Tina helped give credence to other women daring to speak out about abuse.

"Women were not believed when they spoke out about domestic violence, so when Tina Turner, a well-respected and famous singer, spoke out, it gave other women the courage to do so, also," she explains.

"We needed 'influencers' such as Tina Turner to speak out about domestic violence, so that my work on battered woman syndrome was introduced in the courts, and juries began to believe women acted to protect themselves and their children."

Dr Walker says the weight carried by Tina's words carries through to today.

"It is still important to hear her voice to understand how difficult it is for a woman to be able to terminate a battering relationship without getting hurt worse or killed," she says.

"The real question is: 'Why don't these men let women go?'"

Broadcaster and sexual abuse survivor Oprah Winfrey also talks in the documentary of the importance of women speaking out in the 80s.

"Nobody talked about sexual abuse, physical abuse, domestic abuse - abuse, period. Our generation is the generation that started to break the silence."

What Tina didn't realise, though, was that her explosive revelations would follow her round as her career took off again, with hits including Let's Stay Together, What's Love Got to Do With It and Private Dancer.

By 1986, she published an autobiography, I, Tina, co-written with Kurt Loder, to "get the journalists off my back".

She thought if they had all the answers from her book, they would stop asking her endless questions taking her back to such an unhappy period in her life.

But it didn't work.

Interviewers repeatedly asked her to relive her memories, with Buzzfeed noting in 2021: "Tina Turner deserved so much better from the media, and here are 14 moments that prove it."

The article highlighted moments including a 1993 interview with Australia's Nine Network, in which she was played a pre-recorded interview with Ike, who responded to a question about beating her.

Her dignified, calm response said it all: "I don't want to start an argument with Ike Turner via satellite. I have nothing to say."
Buddhist faith

Tina's career continued to grow, and her story carried on being told, and in the 1993 film What's Love Got to Do With It, adapted from the book I, Tina, she was played by Angela Bassett.

By 2005, Winfrey - a huge Tina Turner fan - recalled meeting a woman who was inspired by the singer to leave an abusive relationship.

Winfrey wrote: "When Tina Turner's Wildest Dreams tour stopped in Houston back in 1997, I stood (let me tell ya, you seldom sit at a Tina performance) next to a woman whose story I'll never forget.

"'I came because I was looking for the courage to leave the man who beats me,' she said. 'Tonight I found that courage.'"

Winfrey has paid tribute to Tina, saying: "Her life became a clarion call for triumph."

The singer often credited her Buddhist faith, which she found in the 70s, with helping her find the courage to leave Ike Turner. She said chanting helped give her clarity.

"I started seeing my life - I started really seeing that I had to make a change," she said in the documentary.

By 2018, the singer decided to bring out a new autobiography, My Love Story, where she also talked about finding love with actor and producer Erwin Bach and how she coped with the suicide of her son, Craig.

A jukebox stage show about her life also opened in London that year, and the singer said at the time: "When I look and see it done so well, I feel proud."

How does Tina Turner rate her own musical?

In 2021, Tina was inducted on her own into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, having previously been inducted - with Ike - in 1991.

Bassett made the speech to commemorate it, saying: "What a life Tina has led. Her story has become a film, a documentary, a blockbuster Broadway show, and a best-selling autobiography.

"What brings us here tonight is Tina's journey to independence. For Tina, hope triumphed over hate. Faith won over fear. And ambition eclipsed adversity."

In April, the singer's story went full circle, when Tina - The Tina Turner Musical partnered with Women's Aid for its fifth anniversary, ahead of Women's Aid's 50th anniversary.

Farah Nazeer, chief executive at Women's Aid said: "It is wonderful to have the story of such a powerful and influential woman supporting our mission.

"Tina is an inspiration, her story shows the strength of survivors and that there is hope for women experiencing abuse currently - there is both freedom and happiness after abuse."

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A truly remarkable woman, I never liked Ike Turner, he made me cringe, even before Tina revealed her life with him.