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For some parents, [...] the least popular feature of their children is defiance. Yet it is one of the most important for safety. If defiance is always met with discipline and never with discussion, that can handicap a child. The moment the two-year-old defiantly asserts his will for the first time may be cause for for celebration, not castigation, for he is building the courage to resist.
-Gavin de Becker
There are many reliable pre-incident indicators associated with spousal violence and murder. They won't be present in every case, but if a situation has several of these signals, there is reason for concern:
The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk.
At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage.
He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence.
He is verbally abusive.
He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide.
He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.).
He has battered in prior relationships.
He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse effects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty).
He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”).
His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery).
There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things).
He uses money to control the activities, purchases, and behavior of his wife/partner.
He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time.
He refuses to accept rejection.
He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life,” “always,” “no matter what.”
He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them.
He minimizes incidents of abuse.
He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc.
He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship.
He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner.
He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave.
He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise.
He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified.
He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed.
He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions.
He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge.
Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons.
He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”).
He experienced or witnessed violence as a child.
His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for the children).
— The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker (1997)
"We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait. People seeking to control others almost always present the image of a nice person in the beginning. Like rapport-building, charm, and the deceptive smile, unsolicited niceness often has a discoverable motive."
—Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear (1997)
(via @yotey)
The Gift of Fear (Gavin de Becker, 1997)
"Looking for Mr. Right has taken on far greater significance than getting rid of Mr. Wrong, so women are not taught how to get out of relationships.
That high school class would stress the one rule that applies to all types of unwanted pursuit: do not negotiate.
Once a woman has made the decision that she doesn’t want a relationship with a particular man, it needs to be said one time, explicitly.
Almost any contact after that rejection will be seen as negotiation.
If a woman tells a man over and over again that she doesn’t want to talk to him, that is talking to him, and every time she does it, she betrays her resolve in the matter.
If you tell someone ten times that you don’t want to talk to him, you are talking to him—nine more times than you wanted to.
When a woman gets thirty messages from a pursuer and doesn’t call him back, but then finally gives in and returns his calls, no matter what she says, he learns that the cost of reaching her is leaving thirty messages.
For this type of man, any contact will be seen as progress.
Of course, some victims are worried that by not responding, they’ll provoke him, so they try letting him down easy.
Often, the result is that he believes she is conflicted, uncertain, really likes him but just doesn’t know it yet.
When a woman rejects someone who has a crush on her, and she says, “It’s just that I don’t want to be in relationship right now,” he hears only the words “right now.”
To him, this means she will want to be in a relationship later.
The rejection should be “I don’t want to be in a relationship with you.”
Unless it’s just that clear, and sometimes even when it is, he doesn’t hear it.
If she says, “You’re a great guy and you have a lot to offer, but I’m not the one for you; my head’s just not in the right place these days,” he thinks: “She really likes me; it’s just that she’s confused. I’ve got to prove to her that she’s the one for me.”
When a woman explains why she is rejecting, this type of man will challenge each reason she offers.
I suggest that women never explain why they don’t want a relationship but simply make clear that they have thought it over, that this is their decision, and that they expect the man to respect it.
Why would a woman explain intimate aspects of her life, plans, and romantic choices to someone she doesn’t want a relationship with?
A rejection based on any condition, say, that she wants to move to another city, just gives him something to challenge.
Conditional rejections are not rejections—they are discussions."
My friend gifted me The Gift of Fear book for my birthday. It’s a very interesting read that helps you recognize danger signals from other people but the author Gavin De Becker actually helped me manage my anxiety just from a short video somewhere where he explains the difference between fear/suspicion and anxiety/worry.
Very simply put fear/suspicion is a reaction to something in your environment while anxiety/worry is a response to something you imagine or remember either because it happened to you in the past or because you read about it somewhere.
So fear is if you walk into a room and there’s a man acting weird, and anxiety is if you walk into an empty room but get scared because maybe a man acting weird might show up.
There are of course nuances to that. Like, there might be frail old man just reading a newspaper but you get scared because you’re scared of all men, that’s anxiety, or you might know you have a stalker and then it makes sense to not want to be alone in a room with no escape, or you get scared when walking alone because you know it’s a dangerous area, but in both cases the rule still stands; fear is a response, anxiety is a memory/imagination.
De Becker also points out that it’s perfectly reasonable to be suspicious even if it turns out to be nothing. To give a personal example, I used to clean at an office that was in a nook of a lager building with other businesses. It was a busy area but it made no sense for anyone to be in the nook unless they had business with that specific office. One day a man was standing in the nook when I showed up, not doing anything. He didn’t look at me or his phone. He was just standing but at a distance that wasn’t immediately threatening to me. As cleaners we’re taught that if someone wants to break into the place where we clean there’s a chance they might consider our coming and going the optimal time. As soon as we turn off the alarm they might push their way in and though we aren’t the focus we might get hurt. I kept an eye on the guy in the reflection of the glass door while I unlocked it but he never looked at me. After that he showed up regularly but was always gone when I came back outside and I started to suspect that he might be learning my schedule so after entering the office I watched him thought the curtains to see what he did. He stood there for a few minutes when another person suddenly walked towards him, their hands touched for a second and then they both walked off in different directions. A drug deal. So I was right to think something shady was going on, it just had nothing to do with me.
In another case where my fear saved me I was walking my dog at 1 AM. I live in a very safe area so I’ve never been afraid to be out after dark (I never left my apartment after dark while I lived in a bad neighborhood in Leeds). I noticed a parked car on the road but didn’t think much of it because it was parked near a spot where I often meet a middle aged woman who waits to be picked up for her nightshift so I assumed her ride was just early tonight. Suddenly a young man burst out though the hedge surrounding a house, ran to the car, ripped the door open and that’s when he noticed me. He looked at me for a second then jumped into the car. The lights inside the car turned on and I saw another guy in the driver’s seat. They talked and both turned towards me just as the light turned off, then they sped down the street, into a small private parking lot, turned around and finally parked the car across the sidewalk, meaning that when I reached them I’d have to walk out onto the road to pass them. My dog hadn’t noticed anything weird and was busy sniffing the ground. I let him sniff which meant we moved at an exceptionally slow pace and the car never moved and my fear just grew and grew and I got the very strong sense that I shouldn’t get anywhere near that car. I took a split second decision and suddenly crossed the road to a grassy area between houses where a car couldn’t go. As soon as I did the car sped towards me but I was already well away from the street. The car slowed down to a crawl when it reached me and I saw the guys faces in the light from a street lamp. They looked worried. Then they sped up and I could hear them drive away at an insanely high speed. I kept an eye out for news about a crime in the area but saw nothing.
At the time I couldn’t have told you exactly what scared me. I’ve seen many young men run from their garden to their friends waiting in a car, look at me and drive away, and I’ve seen many people parked across the sidewalk because they were lost and were looking at Google maps. But looking back the first thing that I noticed was the way he looked at me before getting into the car. It was a split second too long, like he wasn’t just noticing me but thinking. It was of course also weird that they both looked at me in the car but the thing that really scared me was when they parked and there were no lights in the car. Why didn’t they look at their phones to open Google maps or find a text with directions? Why were they just sitting in darkness?
So Gavin De Becker as taught me to listen to my fear but also realize when I’m just being anxious. When I feel fear I’ll ask myself “What are you afraid of?” and if the answer is a memory or my imagination it helps to calm me down but if I can say “That man/sound/lack of sound/something specific” I know to be on guard even if I’m not sure why it’s scaring me yet. And that means I’ve also learned to trust myself a lot more. Thinking back I realize that I’ve always been right when I was afraid or suspicious of something/someone specific even if it turned out not to be a danger to me. I still knew something shady was going on and I was right to keep my distance because as De Becker says, it’s better to listen to your fear than ignore it because it’s better to be wrong and safe.
And of course this doesn’t mean that if you have bad anxiety or PTSD you should just stop treatment and let fear rule your life. Like I said, there’s more nuance to it than I can explain here, but I wanted to share because I’m amazed how much it has helped me. At first I just noticed I was a lot less anxious in general and it took some time before I realized it happened after watching a random talk from him on YouTube. That’s why I wanted to share this in case it might help others to be less anxious but also trust themselves more.
Predators have a pattern
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence was written by Gavin de Becker to help people trust their gut instinct and avoid potentially dangerous situations, by learning to recognize various behaviours/events that serve as common precursors to violence. These are called PINS - Pre-Incident Indicators.
By recognising warning signs such as PINS, individuals can better identify dangerous people before something bad happens and take the necessary precautions/actions to stay safe.
There are several types of PINs to watch out for, namely:
Forced Teaming
This is when a person implies that they have something in common with their chosen victim, acting as if they have a shared predicament when that isn't really true. Speaking in "we" terms is a mark of this, i.e. "We don't need to talk outside... Let's go in." The goal is to establish a false sense of rapport and make their victim lower their guard.
If someone keeps using collective terms like "we" and "us", implying you are a "team" when you don't know them well/have just met, ask yourself:
Why is it so important to this person that I feel obliged to do something together with them right now, when what I was doing originally didn't involve them (ie, bringing shopping upstairs to my apartment)
How much do I actually know about this person and their intentions for choosing to attach themselves to me in this situation? (ie, are they hoping to get me alone?)
Charm and Niceness
This is being polite and friendly to a chosen victim in order to manipulate him or her by disarming their mistrust.
If someone you don't know well/just met is being charming and nice to you, especially if they are combining this with the Forced Teaming tactic, ask yourself:
Why are they so keen to quickly establish a rapport with me and make me like them?
Are they looking for me to do something for them (ie go somewhere with them, let them into an apartment building they "forgot" their key to, lend them my phone to "make a phone call", give them personal information about myself that could allow them to find out where I live/work later, give them money) now that I am "on the hook" AKA engaged in a friendly conversation with them?
How do I think they would react to me politely trying to disengage/declining to do whatever they've asked of me?
Charm and niceness in predators is superficial; they don't tend to keep up the act once they are told no, and they tend to challenge your boundaries instead of respecting them.
Too many details
If a person is lying, they will add excessive details to make themselves sound more credible to their chosen victim.
A person who's genuinely locked themselves out of their apartment building by accident will most likely just say, "Hey, I just nipped out for something and I forgot my key like an idiot, could you let me into the building please?"
Someone who's focused on selling their lie, however, would probably weave a whole cover story to explain away their actions, like, "Hi, I just moved in here and I was running out to grab some meds for my sick partner but I left my key in my jacket upstairs - I normally always wear that jacket, but now of course it's really warm, so I didn’t grab it, and I guess this is a lesson in not keeping my keys in my jacket pocket, haha. Could you let me in? I don’t wanna have to call my partner to come all the way down to buzz me in, because she's not supposed to be exerting herself while she recovers, so help me out here?"
Ask yourself:
Why did they tell me so much information I didn’t ask for and didn't need to know?
Did the person's behaviour seem suspicious to me before they provided this very detailed cover story?
Why would a credible person feel the need to justify their actions to me and overcompensate to convince me of their credibility before I've even called it into question?
Typecasting
An insult is used to get a chosen victim who would otherwise ignore one to engage in conversation to counteract the insult. For example: "Oh, I bet you're too stuck-up to talk to a guy like me."
The tendency is for the chosen victim to want to prove the insult untrue.
Ask yourself:
Are they insulting me now just because I wouldn't do what they wanted?
Does proving their negative assertion wrong involve me doing what they wanted, in spìte of my own discomfort and gut instinct that told me not to do it in the first place?
Why should I care about this person's opinion of me?
Loan Sharking
Giving unsolicited help to the chosen victim and anticipating they'll feel obliged to extend some reciprocal openness in return.
Ask yourself:
Why is this person offering to help me right now?
Did I actually want or need their help, or have they just swooped in without being asked?
Does accepting their help feel like it comes at a price, or am I going to feel indebted to them for this?
The Unsolicited Promise
A promise to do (or not do) something when no such promise is asked for; this usually means that such a promise will be broken.
The unsolicited promise is a predator's subconscious projection. Ironically, in their effort to lull you into a false sense of security and make you believe that a specific bad thing won't happen to you, they are giving themselves away - because the fact that such a thing has occurred to them before you ever raised concerns about it, indicates that it was on their mind and likely their intention all along.
For example: an unsolicited, "I promise I'll leave you alone after this," usually means you will not be left alone afterwards.
Similarly, an unsolicited "I promise I won't hurt you" usually means the person intends to hurt you.
Ask yourself:
Why did that person feel the need to promise something I never asked about?
Discounting the Word "No"
Any reasonable, respectful person will back off when you tell them no. They might go away thinking you are rude and strange if they don't understand why you're setting a boundary, but they will back off. A predator will not accept rejection.
A predator will push your boundary, test how serious you are, and try to coerce you into changing your answer even after you have given them multiple clear rejections. They may try to charm you, or turn the subject into a debate where they can wear down your resolve. They may turn angry and threatening. They may try to guilt trip you, or use typecasting to make you want to prove them wrong. They may even cycle through more than one of these tactics - whatever they think will work.
Any person who is unwilling to respect boundaries and refuses to take no for an answer, regardless of the situation, is not a safe person for you to be around.
I highly recommend The Gift Of Fear if you don’t already have this book and have been recommending it to every woman I know since I started reading it.
I have a message for women who feel forced to defend their safety concerns: tell mister I-Know-Everything-About-Danger that he has nothing to contribute to the topic of your personal security. Tell him that your survival instinct is a gift from nature that knows a lot more about your safety than he does. And tell him that nature does not require his approval.
- The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker
