Betrayal Trauma Recovery - BTR.ORG

"I can't find the words to explain how I feel - but I do know that I feel crazy in my relationship."

So many women in our community spent years trying to to understand why they felt so responsible, alone, afraid, physically unwell, and yes - crazy - in their relationships.

Jane Gilmore explains in this riveting final interview how the media enables abuse - and consequently, causes victims to feel completely crazy and responsible for the abuse. Read the full transcript below and listen to the interview for more.
We Feel Crazy When We Can't Explain What's Happening to Us
Have you tossed and turned at night, completely unable to find the language to describe that uneasy awareness that something is just off?

Jane describes it here:
"[His abusiveness] builds up over time. It starts and then it stops and then he's sweet and then he's cold, and then he disappears and you know he's lying. But all you've got is a gut feeling and you're not sure what to do with it. Any woman who's been in that relationship will instantly recognize it. Like when you wake up at three in the morning and you feel sick and your brain's just spinning, spinning, spinning, and you're trying to work out what's really going on. 'Am I crazy? Am I imagining this? I don't know what to do and I'm too scared to tell anyone 'cause I'm just gonna feel like a fool.'"

Jane Gilmore, Consent Educator
Covert Abuse Feels Impossible to Describe
Overt abuse, the kind that the media has determined is "real" abuse - abuse that:

* Leaves bruises, blood, breaks bones
* Is clearly documentable and would immediately illicit a response from a police officer to side with you
* Damages property
* Scares children into siding with you
* Is clearly visible to other people, besides you

Is generally MUCH easier to describe than the abuse that women in our community face.
COVERT Abuse Includes:

* Intimate betrayal, including secret pornography use
* Sexual coercion
* Gaslighting
* Covert physical abuse, including physical harm that does not leave marks or is committed secretly
* Covert threats
* Stalking without any proof
* Spiritual/religious abuse

The Media Enables Abuse - This is How
"Most of the media is controlled by men, so they're not going to be able to show [abuse] from a woman's point of view, because firstly, they don't understand it. And secondly, they don't really want to. It's not like there's a huge crew of powerful white men in the media going, 'Let's make women really, really aware of the manipulations that men do to keep them under control.' And this is not deliberate or conscious or planned out. A lot of it just happens subconsciously, but, 'Let's make women feel responsible. Let's make them be the ones that are trying really hard."

Jane Gilmore, Consent Educator
When the media, including:

* News media
* TV shows
* Movies
* Social media
* Public forums

depict abuse as solely overt abuse, they are ignoring a huge demographic of women who are experiencing life-threatening covert abuse. As a society, we are conditioned to depend on the media (in all of its forms) to determine what "normal" is - and the media is doing a terrible job of defining and validating abuse for victims.
You ARE NOT CRAZY - You're Being Abused
Just because the media, your family, friends, clergy, and others have de-validated your experience because the abuser has not punched you, broken down a door, or threatened to murder you - please take the abuse you're experiencing seriously.

If you:

* Feel crazy
* Feel unable to determine reality
* Find yourself consistently preoccupied with trying to "...