Natalie Bulger  0:02

Intimate partner violence is complicated. It's ugly. And it happens to people we love. And that's exactly why we need to talk about it. And that's what we'll do today on part one in this conversation with guest Sarah Ludwig.

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This episode contains discussions of sexual, physical, and psychological violence. If this is something you are currently navigating or healing from, please give yourself permission to sit this one out. It is okay to pause, skip, or come back to this episode when you're ready. If you need support, reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

Or text START to 88788. You can also chat at thehotline.org. They're available 24-7.

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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Motivation N'at where we take hot mess to high potential. I'm Natalie, your host, and today I am joined by Sarah Ludwig, who's gonna tell you all about herself in a second because I cannot do her resume or her experience justice. But know that today's topic is probably gonna be one that's a little tough for some folks if it resonates with your experiences or what you've been through. So just wanna make sure we double up that warning. I know you probably heard one on the intro leading into this, but today we are talking about domestic violence and sexual violence and the impact on victims and their villages and things like that. If you find this triggering at any point, we do wanna make sure to encourage you to please look out for you and yourself during this process. If you're bringing up things about people that you love or anything like that, take your time, hit pause. Take that deep breath that you might need. Do know we're gonna have lots of resources linked and mentioned throughout today's episode and we very well may end up in a two-parter. There is just so much here to unpack that I think Sarah, when you and I had our prep call, we were like 40 minutes in and we're like, this is just the prep. So this is something I know — having been in DV situations and sexual violence situations myself and now watching individuals that I love going through these — it has been very hard to navigate. What do boundaries look like? Where do we try to help? Does it help more or hurt more? And I reached out and said, is there anyone that can talk about this topic in a way that I can do it justice and bring awareness? And Sarah, you were brought forward. We've been kind of Venn diagram-ing each other's circles for a while, but I think you are the perfect person for this conversation. So I'm gonna task it to you. Tell us a little bit about who you are, how you got into this area of focus, why it's so important, all of those components.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  3:17

Now I'm a little intimidated. That was a really nice introduction. So I didn't start here. This was something that I was very, very fearful to be touching as a therapist. I knew that I wanted to do something related to victimization and trauma. So I pursued a specific program that had a trauma focus. And so I knew that's what I wanted to do, but it wasn't until my time spent over at Blackburn Center that I really, really dove into it. I wasn't really even comfortable having conversations about any of this stuff and took on the title of sexual violence therapist. So it was really intimidating at the time. And after doing the work with sexual violence, intimate partner violence, domestic violence at Blackburn Center, it really just became such a passion for me. Originally was interested in forensic psychology and knew really early on that I needed to be on the survivor victim side and years later this is where I'm at and I love what I do.

 

Natalie Bulger  4:30

Which may feel weird for people when they hear that, right? To feel like, I love — and it makes sense, but it also is contradictory. I love helping people that are in these situations that are so traumatic in many ways and so difficult. And sometimes, I'm sure we'll get into this, they go in paths that, as the therapist, as whoever, you're just like, okay, that's not what we were hopefully aiming for. So it also can be frustrating. But to have someone — and I guess this is a little bit of our first tangent, we'll have not a whole bunch of them — but to be a good therapist in this area, you have to have that strange kind of passion and love for it. So what are the components of this that really speak to your heart? Is it the support of the people you're working with themselves? Is it watching how things develop, is it being a part of the long conversation? Because we're in a world where the stigma around this, it's still very there, but it is changing. And I know you're involved in a lot of that advocacy work, but anything that stands out?

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  5:39

Yeah, so really, really difficult question. A very loaded question. I think that in trauma in particular, we have to be really, really cautious about causing damage for the people that we potentially work with. I've always kind of been called to the chaos a little bit. I'm very outspoken about being neurodivergent and being kind of into a challenge. And I approach the work with populations of individuals who have been victimized in whatever kind of a way as a real privilege and opportunity for me to lead them in a direction that is going to have them feel fulfilled, not create more damage. And this is really one where the ethics and knowing what you're doing with this population — which I'm pretty sure is part of why you brought me here — is so crucial, because what might seem really well intentioned and out of love can really put people at risk and make people feel really unsafe. There are a lot of different reasons why I love to do the work that I do, but really I want everybody to live their best lives and be happy, and there is such a significant problem with the stigma around all of this. So if I could even just help one person find another option or support one family member, I could go on about why I love this forever.

 

Natalie Bulger  7:30

Well, I think the first situation that you and I chatted about when we came on was — you know, I've got a social work background and never practiced, but I've been in a lot of situations where there's addiction conversations and the response is, I won't love you to death and I will cut you off — if you love the addiction, we'll go that route, all those pieces. And the very first thing you said is it's different when it comes to this. And it wasn't one of those like shame on you for taking that approach when you ran into a situation like this, but I think we don't know what we don't know. And if we're so used to just saying, hey, I'll cut you off, I'll cut off a parent who's toxic, I'll cut off whatever that might be — how is it different in these situations where there's victim violence?

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  8:17

Sure, yeah, absolutely. It's really, really complicated. And I think in the field, if you don't know, you don't know. So it's not one of those things where you have a loved one who is in an intimate partner violence or domestic violence situation and you just spin a wheel and then they go to get help anywhere. And we'll talk about specific resources because even in the field if you don't seek this out, you are not going to learn how to do this and do this well. So it's really hard to find avenues and opportunities for growth outside of victim service providers, which we'll talk about as resources. It's really, really difficult to get the correct guidance for helping individuals with intimate partner violence and domestic violence.

 

Natalie Bulger  9:04

So the difference when you're the village of support and someone has come to you — you're aware of the history that they have with whatever individual this is they're involved with, and they're continuing, as we know in DV and sexual violence, to go back and go back and go back — and you're just like, all right, I'm done. I'm just going to cut you off. I'm not going to talk to you anymore. Because if it is a drug addiction, if it is something of that nature, that is generally how we respond. But in this case, and I think the explanation you gave me made a lot of sense, is about that isolation piece that I know will be a thread through this. But yeah, a little more on that.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  9:45

So thank you for bringing me back. So it does complicate things. When we have addiction involved in the equation, it's not this kind of straight and narrow — we are not going to enable — you can't do that, because the name of the game with intimate partner violence and domestic violence is isolation. So the more that an individual can learn that their parents aren't great, or maybe even little comments like your mom's annoying, or I don't really care to take the kids over to so-and-so — these little comments start to build and accumulate and people tend to steer away from really supportive relationships. So the isolation is going to happen as a natural given. And then you have the addiction aspect of it where you have to try and find some balance of not adding to the isolation, but also not enabling. It is a delicate balance that even finding the right people that know what they're doing have to really think and adjust to each individual situation. So how do we not enable and how do we not isolate? And it's going to look different for every individual, but it's challenging. It's really, really tough. And a really great control tactic is the use of drugs and alcohol. So there's a correlation there.

 

Natalie Bulger  11:12

Talk a little bit about that because this is — I guess it's probably the one stigma that has been broken down a little bit — where it's not that we go seeking abusive relationships in life and then we're just happy in them, but it is something that is a slow build over time. Not only just those comments, but the component of it'll never happen again, or the love bombing that follows, any of those things that create that love is blind kind of conversation, which ironically we put this romanticism around sometimes. But it's not in any way. So what does that process sometimes look like? From I met this person, they're amazing, they're great — to you start to see the signs. What are the signs? You start to intervene. You start to get the pushback. Walk us through that kind of timeline.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  12:10

Well, a conversation I have with people pretty frequently is — going back to this idea of stigma — it's like, I must be weak. I must be stupid. How did I end up in a relationship like this? All these different things. And a lot of the times what you will find is people that end up in relationships like this are often really empowered, like really strong individuals. There are certain risk factors that can occur. Going through a vulnerable time in your life can really create an opportunity for somebody to get in that maybe necessarily shouldn't have. We can also come from families where things like this become normalized, or have a sexual abuse history, get out of the household and end up in an intimate partner violence relationship because there are some similarities with that power and control dynamic. There are a lot of reasons that people end up in relationships like this, and you don't go on a first date and somebody tells you how ugly or disgusting you are or punches you in the face. They're not going to get a second date. So initially, a lot of the times these relationships start out really passionate, really fiery, really exciting — so many good things. And then what ends up happening is the bad thing happens. So then a cycle starts to occur. Everything's really passionate and really great. And then someone says a really nasty, mean comment in front of family members or something and the person gets really embarrassed. And they're like, well, that wasn't really a nice thing to say, but boy were our first couple of dates really lovely. Or after the fight happens, or the bad thing happens in the cycle, it is so passionate and so exciting and all of these different things that it's really, really hard in those moments when the bad things happen to not quickly go back to the passion, the love bombing like you had said. We really have a hard time seeing the negative for what it is because we go back to how good it was, this idea of how great it was. We do not know that these people are going to do these things. And in fact, we might find ourselves more susceptible to people like this from our past, or we might seek out individuals with really similar personality traits or power and control issues.

 

Natalie Bulger  14:37

And I think when you mentioned it can be the people you would never expect — the person who always has something smart to say when you're out with them, or they've got that top-notch job, or they have that perfect Instagram life, we'll probably touch on social media in a minute — all of those components and then all of a sudden something slips. And you're like, wait, did I just hear what I think I heard? And I think, when those first few things get said and the people around them have that moment of what? What happened? There becomes this unintended judgment moment of just kind of being caught off guard. Like, I didn't expect you to say that. What is the how does that get internalized by the other people? The person who maybe was testing the waters — just to see, was this really strange? Is this something you experience too? Sometimes that is what it is, just exploratory at first. And depending on that reaction, I guess that's the first step of that isolation, right?

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  15:59

Well, it is, and I also like to go back to your point about how we know what we know, things get normalized. I think about doing work with sexual violence and a lot of it being this complex, long incest situation, which is very, very common. People don't talk about it, but it's unbelievably common. And I think about situations like that where a lot of the times individuals will end up in another power and control issue after they've left the household — they finally made it out of the household — because it's so normalized. It's not until they're in different circles or around different people that they're like, wait a minute, this is not how you're treated? So there's even that element there of you could meet a friend and not know anything about their history. Could be work friends and not know. And that might be how men have treated women in their history. So a lot of it gets normalized. And then in terms of somebody witnessing the thing that crosses the line in front of others — is your question about the person in the relationship or a loved one witnessing it?

 

Natalie Bulger  17:22

It's both. So the person who's in the relationship — that's their first potentially interaction now with their support team, or who's been their support team. And when intended or not, the first moment is this judgmental kind of like, what are you talking about? Or I can't believe you let him or you let her, because it's not gender-free. The situation is by any means. But so it's that piece. And then from the support person's side, it's a little bit of like, what do we do next? Where do we go from here? How do you even handle that shock value? Or when you go home later in the day and you're like, wait, is that what we were really talking about? Because there's the immediate and then the long term.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  18:14

Hard in the moment, because sometimes people mess up. You know, like you have a couple drinks or something and somebody says something inappropriate or whatever. So it could be something where it's like, John must've had a lot to drink. Initially, our first response — whether it's sexual violence or intimate partner violence — is social norms. We want to be polite, we want to follow the norms, so a lot of the times we're chalking things up to maybe they had too much to drink. Maybe it was a mistake. So it's not always easy to know in the moment that it's more than that. Gut instinct is very important. I think we need to listen to that. What that would ideally look like would be privately talking to your loved one, saying, hey, this didn't seem right. Am I seeing what you saw? Because this didn't sit right with me — and not doing it in front of them, because that could create safety issues for them. But it's hard to know in the moment.

 

Natalie Bulger  19:13

Sounds like when those things happen, there's no harm in going back and correcting and asking — because assumption can be just as damaging potentially, or maybe we did hear it wrong. Maybe the whole story didn't really come out and we only got bits and pieces of the conversation. I do — before we get too much further — I realize that we haven't really defined what intimate partner violence is and what sexual violence is. We've got psychological, verbal, physical, emotional — all those things. From your expert's viewpoint, how do you define it, and what are the things that qualify for those different categories?

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  20:03

It's hard because a lot of the times when people think of intimate partner violence and domestic violence, they're thinking of physical abuse. And being on this side of things and sitting down with a lot of survivors, a lot of the times — I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I've heard like, I wish I just got beat up. Which is like bananas to even think that to begin with. Things get normalized. So we look at the stereotypical image of that, which is like hitting and black eyes and different things like that. What a lot of intimate partner violence and domestic violence actually looks like is somebody having power and control over another individual. And that can look like a lot of different things — putting people down in front of other people, especially publicly embarrassing them, saying things at the dinner table that are offensive or inappropriate about their partner or somebody else that they love. The isolation piece — it's these little tiny digs that push people further and further away from their loved ones. Sexual coercion is one of them — pressuring people to do sexual acts. And this is still under the umbrella of intimate partner domestic violence. Forcing drugs and alcohol. Pets is a big one — threats to animals, dogs, cats. Control of children, custody-wise, saying bad things about the other parent. All of these things can be normalized as a toxic relationship or considered toxic traits, but really, this is what a lot of intimate partner violence and domestic violence looks like. Yes, all of the other things — hitting, kicking, outward sexual violence — but a lot of it is the financial abuse, the checking everything that people are doing, leaving the home and leaving just enough gas maybe to get down the street. There are just so many ways. It's such a big umbrella, at least for domestic and intimate partner violence, and it all boils down to power and control. Sexual violence is the same. Power and control is what that boils down to.

 

Natalie Bulger  22:47

And because of that big umbrella — another two-part question, so I'm glad you have your pen and paper — is the component of: do the victims even realize they're a victim? And do the abusers realize they're abusers? Because we talk about normalizing, and it's normal to experience certain toxic things for people that have only grown up around that. But I also think from the other point of view, if people are internalizing the abuser's perspective, they also may think it's very normal as well, if they've not been corrected. What are your experiences around how people realize it, and when the light bulb does or doesn't go off? Does it ever go off on their own? Or does it take someone to point it out?

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  23:37

It really depends. Working in a place like Blackburn Center, it's gonna be more upfront because there is a reason that they're there — some type of victimization. Walking through the door, it's either sexual violence or intimate partner violence. When you're working in a different context, it's different because you're getting people with all different kinds of reasons that they're coming to you, and a lot of the times they're coming to you for something else and you ask them some questions. A lot of the time it looks like the control stuff. They'll say things like, I was giving my partner my phone. And I'm like, well, what do you mean? And they say, I don't have anything to hide. And that's not what we're talking about. It's the fact that the partner is going through your phone. So a lot of the times the surprise comes in when the conversation is more focused on the control aspect of it and they're like, oh my goodness. The other thing that also occurs — which is really messed up in its own right — is that a lot of times people come from worse situations. I've sat down with people who have said, I've always been told that the grass was greener on the other side. And then I went and it wasn't. I'd rather be in a relationship with somebody who is controlling and abusing me than living on my own or having to do shelters or whatever it might be. Sometimes it's like, well, at least he's not raping me. It could be worse. My dad was like this, this guy only hits me. I can handle that. So it really, really, really depends. And then in terms of do abusers know that they are abusers — the answer is yes. I think it can get a little bit blurry whenever we come from families where abuse is normalized. Age is going to come into that too. But whenever it comes to adults, something that we discussed a little bit in our pre-meeting was this idea of narcissistic abuse, which will probably come up at some point in our discussion. We want to be really, really careful about calling people who are abusers narcissists, because at the end of the day, abusing people is a choice. It's like whenever we think about sexual violence and drugs and alcohol. Alcohol does not create behavior. It might make behavior happen more easily or even create an excuse, which we see in intimate partner violence all the time. But it absolutely does not create this behavior at all. Abusers know what they're doing. And in fact, like you said about being able to be kind of schmoozy, being able to appear really well on the outside — that's what these people look like. In sexual violence, it's not someone driving around in an unmarked white van with candy. These are usually handsome, powerful, good-looking individuals. And the more power that you have in the community, the more attractive you are, the more believable you are — and the more likely that the person you are abusing is going to be discredited.

 

Natalie Bulger  27:17

It was great. And I think another caveat that I'd love to hear your awareness on is the flip-flop piece — same-sex relationships, men not being the abuser — even though in many cases, because of hetero relationships and simply kind of our size dynamic, or historically the power of who had the money. But it's changing. Are we seeing more situations where, because we have legalized same-sex marriage, there's more conversation? Because it's not that it's new, people just weren't maybe seeking the same amount of help for it. And men who are victims in relationships — how are we navigating that shift? Because that's one that, from my own knowledge of what my husband's been through in the past with a stalking situation, they don't wanna talk about it. They're just, nope, it'll go away if I ignore it long enough or I just keep my mouth shut.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  28:26

Yeah, stalking is a whole thing that's really hard to get law enforcement to take seriously sometimes. And domestic calls are not calls that law enforcement, a lot of the times, are pumped to take. A lot of the times they're getting repeat calls for the same household and people end up leaving with harassment charges on both sides. The legal side is another meeting in itself. In terms of same-sex domestic and intimate partner violence, is there any specific question you have about that in particular?

 

Natalie Bulger  29:24

I think just bringing the component of this isn't only just men versus women in marriages or even romantic relationships. You can see this in friendships too — there's whole ID Network shows on friends being violent against each other and ultimately leading to some really horrific stuff. Beyond just kind of where our mind instantly goes from a stereotypical standpoint — where else do we see these intimate partner and different types of abusive relationships?

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  30:04

Everywhere. If you view it as a power and control dynamic — which is what it is, and it's the same thing for sexual violence — it is everywhere in every relationship demographic. You're going to have moments where certain things are going to be cared about more than others. Black and brown people are not gonna get the same treatment that lighter-skinned or white individuals are going to get. They're gonna have different outcomes with the police. Rates for abuse are going to look differently for Black and brown individuals. The LGBTQ+ community is at higher risk. It's going to be across the board, but power and control dynamics are going to be in every single oppressed group, just like they are in the mainstream. And with sexual violence too — people will say, well, they only abuse females, or they don't, my son's fine around them. It does not matter. It is about power and control. It doesn't matter if you're a six-year-old boy or a fifteen-year-old teenager or a three-year-old. It is a power and control thing. It's not about seeking out a specific type.

 

Natalie Bulger  31:39

Yeah, well, and we've mentioned and sprinkled in a few of the risk factors. Just if you've grown up in a situation like that — now we've touched on if you're part of a marginalized or oppressed community, there may be a higher risk. What are some of the other risk factors? And I'm even thinking about the ability to get out of a relationship — the financial piece you mentioned. So there's the risk of actually finding yourself in a relationship with that dynamic, and then there's the added risk of being able to actually end that relationship and get onto a new path that doesn't then repeat again.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  32:36

Absolutely, yeah. It's one of the hardest things, sitting down with somebody who's been trying to leave a relationship for a long period of time. Because by the time they've made it to you — especially working at a place like Blackburn Center — most people in their family that love and care about them are over it. Done, I'm not dealing with this, they're a burden, why won't you just leave — whatever, like all of that mentality. So it's really, really hard because no one wants to deal with them anymore and they get further isolated in that aspect. The things that really put people at risk: how you were raised, the family of origin that you came from, what's normalized and not normalized, vulnerable moments in life which we all have — where maybe we are more susceptible to bringing in certain relationships that maybe we wouldn't at other points in our lives. The financial piece is massive. There's so much why don't you just leave — leaving takes money, leaving takes resources, leaving takes planning. You don't just go and get a PFA. A PFA at the end of the day can be helpful, but it really is a piece of paper. And sometimes going to get a PFA puts people at higher risk for violence than it does to not. So it is so complicated. There's a million good reasons to stay and nobody just picks up and leaves, because if they did, we wouldn't be here having this conversation.

 

Natalie Bulger  34:27

Well, let's go back to the stalking piece because as we're talking about the ability to leave, there's a component that in some cases goes, even if I leave, I'm not free. I'm not away. As you mentioned, a PFA is a piece of paper. How many times have we heard that they're not enforced or by the time you call, it's the last on the list of responses. And it's not violent outwardly. It is violence psychologically in many ways, and often can lead to something beyond that. But stalking as a kind of precursor or a consequence that folks are afraid of — because it can happen on both ends, right? Ahead of time, during, after, tracking your phone, all of those pieces.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  35:18

Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up because that comes up a good bit — apps, tracking apps, air tags, other things like that. We have better ability to be able to find things like that now, but there are a lot of apps and things on the phone that people can use to know exactly where you are at all times. There are apps designed for parents to use for kids that adults are using to follow and track and keep tabs on their partners or people that aren't their partners. The thing that's really challenging with the stalking too is that it's such a psychological element. What all survivors and victims have in common is somebody is taking power from them. And there's nothing more disempowering than not being able to do anything about someone following you around. It's very hard to prove. There's no violence happening. If they're not on your property, it's very much like sexual violence and intimate partner violence — all under this umbrella — really, really hard crimes to prove. A lot of the times the recommendation looks like keeping harassment logs. And that is time consuming. And if you even get to a courtroom, who knows if anyone's even gonna care or take a look. It can really create a hopeless feeling for people.

 

Natalie Bulger  36:53

And if there hasn't been a threat of violence — and this is what we learned firsthand, and Josh knows I'm talking about this situation, he actually agreed to do an episode on it at some point — but on our first date, an air tag popped when I got into his car. And it was someone that he had an on-again, off-again thing with, and she had put an air tag on his car, tracked him the whole way into Pittsburgh. He found it on the ride home because I thought it was a briefcase. I was just like, oh, someone's got something in the car. You don't even register. And he called her out on it. She admitted to it. He went to the police. They said, there's nothing we can do. We can call her and tell her to leave you alone. Up until that point, he admits he joked that she seemed to be everywhere. He was like, she must be following me. And he goes, now I realized she was. And he never let on, but you could tell he was rattled. He ended up — we've mentioned Blackburn Center for those in southwestern Pennsylvania. Sarah, I'll have you mention what that center is. But Alice Paul House is what we have here in Indiana, PA. And that's the only place that knew what to do, that said yes, you can get a PFA. But when we went to court, they were blunt. They said, well, she's never threatened to hurt you or kill you. You will not get a PFA. We can get a civil no-contact order, which is what we did. But it was like, are you kidding?

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  38:26

You can have stacks of harassment logs and it doesn't go anywhere. It's bananas.

 

Natalie Bulger  38:34

And so in that case, I can tell where hopelessness comes in. So if you are someone and you are like, my God, I finally have enough, I'm gonna get out of this, there's clearly someone's doing this to me — and then the system, which is very broken in so many ways, goes, just kidding. So you go, well, I'll fall back onto what's comfortable then. And I don't want to burden the people around me with this.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  39:04

For sure. Or we go back to the idea of stigma. A lot of the times people will get into a new relationship and at least an orange flag is when somebody's like, man, my ex, they were crazy. And then maybe that's true. But what ends up happening — and I've said this many times — is that they were crazy until you were. And then the next one, and the next one, and the next one. Not saying that we need to be amicable or friends with exes, but that's more of a green flag than they were crazy and this, that, and the other. There can be a lot of stigma for the individual in a relationship like this that they don't want people to know. It can be embarrassing. The legal system part of it is one of the most challenging aspects. And what things end up looking like — at least on my end, and even for family and support systems — is safety planning. A lot of the times it's playing the long game. One of the most dangerous parts of a relationship can be whenever people are leaving. So what your gut instinct might be to say — why don't you just call the police and get a PFA or why don't you just do A, B, and C — it might actually be safer for that individual to stay for a few more months, which sounds insane, and really make a plan, in order to make a really good solid plan to get the heck out of there.

 

Natalie Bulger  40:48

So the two dynamics that I wanna tease out on that — as the loved one, I think at least for me in my mindset, it's always been tempting to say, okay, we'll start you a savings account for when you're ready, but you only get access to it if I believe you should have access. And, right — you're going from one power shift to the other. How much of an improvement is it really? And then the other piece being, we're talking about safety planning — the likelihood of mortality in these situations versus long-term, I almost want to say disability, depression, like inability to cope — that harm is not always, to be quite frank, death. It may be a loss of self or other pieces. First piece being the one power to the other power and how do we safety plan? And then the second piece being, well, what does safety look like? Because it's not cookie cutter.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  42:05

No, these are really good. And it never is cookie cutter. It can't be because what works for you isn't going to work for me and vice versa. Every situation is different. Some of the worst has to do with kids in custody and divorce, and pets. Pets are one of the biggest reasons that a lot of people have difficulty leaving because they're afraid the animal's gonna get hurt and they don't have anywhere to put the animal. And they're so used to having control placed upon them that family members will say, I'm taking you out of my will. You're not getting the inheritance. We're not gonna be getting things for Johnny and Sally for Christmas. And all that does is further isolate and disempower a disempowered individual. We do not want to be making choices for them. The last thing we want to do is take more power away. It's going to push them further away. We want to be available. We want to be there in case they call. It's like trying to be as non-judgmental as you possibly can. And it's so hard when it's an adult and somebody that you love because you want the worst for the bad guy, or the person who's doing the thing. And it doesn't always look like that. Sometimes these people can have really good parenting moments and be really good at other things. And the kids would be devastated. It's just so complex, but we want to make ourselves available, be non-judgmental, because if they have a moment where they feel like they're ready and they need help planning, we want them to call. And if you're making threats about taking them out of your will or whatever it might be, they're going to go towards the abuser. You're not helping. One of the things that you brought up that I wanted to touch on too is this long-term lasting effect after a relationship like this. One of my favorite pieces of clinical work to do — which I don't get to do enough of — is when people get out of a bad relationship and then get into a good one. And it's so much fun to teach them what new norms are and like, this is boring. No, it's not boring. It's because it's not going up and down all of the time. This relationship isn't boring. It's consistent. It's predictable. It's stable. One of the things that's really challenging is that even after we end a relationship like this, let's say the perpetrator is actually in jail — which is not usually the norm — and we know that we are safe and we can do life — our bodies still get really stuck. We still have a hard time being able to trust. We might need therapy, we might need things like EMDR to help heal from some of these things, because even though our rational brain knows that we are safe, our limbic system, our body, is still trying to keep us safe. So that can create a lot of issues in healthy relationships, because all of these really heavy toxic things have been normalized. And we need to remember that even though they're safe, they might still be doing things that don't make sense because their body is not caught up yet. And then on safety planning — safety planning is a huge spectrum. Safety planning can look like — this one's gonna sound really wild — not locking yourself in a bathroom. I know that sounds crazy, but there's a lot of hard surfaces in a bathroom. If you know that this individual is physically violent, the last place that you want to hide is in a place with a porcelain tub and a porcelain sink. So safety planning can be as upfront as that. Safety planning can also look like checking your phone for different apps. It is this whole giant spectrum, done at all different levels of a relationship — minimizing lethality, like going into a closet instead of hiding in a bathroom, or doing some of these maintenance things like checking apps on a phone, only doing planning at the library, getting on a VPN, getting birth certificates and social security cards and putting them in a lockbox, giving them to a family member, maybe having someone open up a bank account so that you can send some cash over. It really, really looks different for every stage and every individual, but it can range widely. The same thing with the kitchen — there's a lot of things you could get hurt with in the kitchen. Going into a bedroom is going to minimize traumatic brain injuries, things like that that can be really, really lethal.

 

Natalie Bulger  48:05

And those are the things I think we don't think about. And even as you're talking about being in the kitchen — even someone defending themselves, the lethality increases if for defense I can take a knife. And then you end up with a victim who's under scrutiny for injuring an abuser, which we've seen time and time again in the news. So those pieces definitely resonate.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  48:29

I want to add something. If we're talking about trying to recognize it a little bit more and get a little bit better of an understanding of it, one of the things that we did not mention — which we probably don't have time for — is strangulation and lethality.

 

Natalie Bulger  48:48

No, let's touch on that. Because if someone here is wondering, do I need to seek help now? Or am I in that early safety planning of just needing to start having a conversation? There are different urgencies to which support you get. So let's touch on the strangulation piece and then let's get into what are my urgent available resources and what are some of the ones that I can ease into over time, because there is a difference in the velocity of how you're moving through this kind of severity situation.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  49:26

And you're so right with that. That's why in the resource conversation, it's so important to be going places where this is not new to them, because it needs to be assessed ongoing. It's not something where you can just drop the ball on it. We need to be assessing at all times what is the best choice, because what the best choice is this week might not be the best choice next week. You have to really see what's going on in the moment to make a good decision. The strangulation part I just wanted to bring up — and you're spot on about the urgency part of that. What we know about strangulation is that it is a massive, massive predictor of lethality. So if you are somebody who is surviving — let's say the first attempt of a strangulation within a relationship — your chances of death by homicide by your partner go up by 750%. It's an urgent matter. And it's one of those things where things can kind of get blurry, especially when we talk about certain behaviors and relationship dynamics being normalized. Where I'm going with this is in the bedroom, right? With sex. That is where a lot of issues can come into play with this. It comes down to consent at the end of the day. There's no amount of strangulation — to hurt somebody especially, or even for sex — that we know to be safe. Period. You're not a medical doctor, and even if you were a medical doctor, there's no stopping point of saying, nope, we need to just tone this down a little bit. Even on the sexual end of things, it does not matter. The lethality when it comes to intimate partner violence and strangulation — if you hear somebody who's saying things like that, that is an urgent issue where they need to get set up with somebody just to have some type of availability of resources. In our state we have a lethality assessment that police officers are supposed to be doing on domestic violence calls, and the whole purpose of that is to assess for lethality. Strangulation is on that. And it gets them connected to a victim service provider because of the increased rate of lethality. It's super serious. It's always a red flag. It's not an orange flag. It's not a yellow flag. It's a red flag. And yes, there are some things that happen in the bedroom that involve some things like that, but the difference is consent. Even if there are power and control dynamics happening in a healthy kind of sexual way, there's always consent. That's the difference. There are rules, there are boundaries. A lot of things go into these kinds of behaviors in the bedroom that are all dictated by respect and consent. So it's very different.

 

Natalie Bulger  53:02

No, so let's say someone's listening, their ears are perking up, maybe they're sending this to someone that they love and they're like, hey, just skip to time marker 50. I just want you to hear this thing. And they need to know, where do I go today? From a national perspective — you're in a small town, maybe you don't have a police department that can respond quickly or anything like that — what do the different urgent resources look like? And then, what are some of the longer-term, more sustainable support options that folks can look into?

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  53:38

Yeah, absolutely. You can always contact the Domestic Violence Hotline. You just put that in — you can do a national hotline. I really like finding local providers, though. The reason for that is that every county is different. The way that things are done looks differently. The court, the legal system is different even from Westmoreland County to Allegheny County outside of the Pittsburgh area. Each county will have one. Like you said, Alice Paul House is out in Indiana. I think they might even serve more than one county. It doesn't even matter if you are going to a county that you do not live in. They will take you. It's like a little bit stepping on toes, but no one cares at the end of the day because it is serious and we need to help people. In this area I've mentioned Blackburn Center, Pittsburgh Center for Victims, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. But if you literally put into Google domestic violence hotline and you call that number and say where you are located, they will find you your nearest domestic violence or victim service provider. The reason I say that is that places that are treating intimate partner violence and domestic violence are also treating sexual violence and victimization across the board. You're going to be able to find help under that umbrella. That's definitely the place to start. What's really lovely about places like that — at least I can only speak to our state — is that these services are at no cost. Free therapy. And this is free therapy for any survivors of victimization, but also for family members. So if your sister is in a domestic violence relationship, you would be eligible to receive services to help work through your own things, maybe learn about safety planning, get educated about the legal system in your county at no cost. That's the same for kids, everything like that. A lot of the times they also have legal services where you can get free legal counsel from attorneys that work in-house. They have legal advocates that hang out at the courthouse and help you fill out PFA paperwork. They attend court hearings. It is such a valuable resource that people don't know about.

 

Natalie Bulger  56:24

And I think — the more that we utilize services like that when necessary, hopefully the more that they can continue to grow and build. Because if you are a Black or brown person in a rural area of Pennsylvania, there may not be someone at that county that understands some of the dynamics of your situation, or in a same-sex relationship, or if you're non-English speaking. But this is where we as the people we love can advocate for funding for those services. We can advocate for what those needs are, and then those can be a part of some of the things we look for in that longer-term support piece. So let me get to that contracting for safety in this moment and then find that right match for the right support for the right path. Those longer-term pieces — there's victim funding, I think you had mentioned available in at least Pennsylvania.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  57:32

Yeah, every single state in the United States has it. It's the Victim Compensation Assistance Program and we call it VCAP. We have a really nice VCAP in our state in Pennsylvania. And basically there's a sexual assault-specific one, which is really, really fantastic. In our state, you don't need to report for sexual abuse to be eligible for those funds. You fill out the form, you send it in, you don't need to say who the perpetrator was. You can provide as much information as you'd like. And that goes towards any out-of-pocket therapy costs, whether it's copays or maybe you want to see a provider and you have Medicaid insurance and you're having a hard time finding a provider that focuses on this. You're able to see anybody because of that. And then there's also a VCAP for other types of victimization that's not just sexual violence. That one's a little bit more complicated, but all of these victim service providers have people that are trained to help you fill out these forms. The money that's put into this bucket is funded by people who break the law. So use it.

 

Natalie Bulger  59:04

Yeah, and if you can hear the siren in the background — I was like, the siren was coming out to tell us it's time to hear where we go with some of this, because there is a component of urgency. I think that the world of social media has isolated us just as a society more and created more opportunities. Technology, as we mentioned from the tracking apps — all these things are in this changing dynamic where there's a lot of extra help, but there's also a lot of extra harm that can come associated with it. So Sarah, we're gonna come back and have part two of the conversation. The message I'll leave on — and then I wanna hear your closing thoughts on this piece — is no matter any of this, whether you are the victim or you are the supporting person and you're listening and you're like, oh, I could have done something better or I could have sought help earlier — guilt and shame are power components of this control conversation. And not just for the victim, but for all that are around — I didn't do enough, or I didn't get involved, or I did isolate that person. So not leaving this conversation with that feeling. The goal of today was awareness and education. Did you know some of the nuggets that were shared? What are indicators, what are lethality components, what are resources that are available? And to sit on that and digest it a little bit. When we come back around, because I know as the family loved one or whoever it might be, that guilt and shame is the push and pull. It's like one day I'm like I don't care, and the next day I'm like my God, I've abandoned everything. And then you're back to the boy who cried wolf and all that. That dynamic that battles within us. That's kind of my note to folks that are listening — please walk away from this with where can you find more information, hearing about how complex this truly is. This isn't in your mind if you're just kind of like, my God, that's so much. It is this complex. And hopefully looking to maybe educate yourself a little further or those around you, and then come back for the second part where we'll go a little bit further. But Sarah, what are your kind of closing thoughts on today's initial chat of this really hard to talk about topic that likes to live in the shadows — and when we bring it to light, I think makes us all question a little bit about who we've been, what we're doing, and all those pieces.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  61:40

For sure. I think it's really important to have these conversations. I think that we need to make these conversations easy. We need to be talking about this. It is such a normalized thing that comes with such a stigma. You know somebody who's in an intimate partner violence or domestic violence relationship. You know somebody who has some type of sexual assault history if it's not yourself. One in four females by 18, one in six males by 18 for sexual assault. Everybody is affected by this. So let's make it easy to talk about. With your guilt and shame comment — it is so powerful, and in a very not-positive way. We don't want to guilt and shame ourselves. We also don't want to guilt and shame our loved ones. That is not going to get them to leave the relationship. You think they already don't know how bad it is? That's their life. What about your kids or what about — they've already thought about that. So don't guilt them. And then yourself — if you don't know, you don't know. And if you're in the field and you don't specialize, you don't know. So if that makes you feel better, take that. Put that feather in your cap. But guilt — let's leave that at the door. And then the other thing, just to kind of normalize not knowing what the heck to do with this — domestic violence doesn't play by the rules. That's why couples counseling doesn't work, for a lot of different reasons. Because it's not about couples counseling. It's not about working on a relationship. Whenever everybody's on a level playing field and we're doing the normal thing, expecting the normal outcome, then things might change. But it doesn't play by the rules, it doesn't work that way. So what you think might work for your mom and dad or this family member or a friend or your own marriage — in a power and control dynamic, it's not going to work. Your thinking might be a little bit too healthy to help this situation. So if you don't know, you don't know. And I hope that this gives some people an opportunity to just start talking about it like what you ate for lunch yesterday, because it's that common.

 

Natalie Bulger  63:59

And that's how we get societal change — by not stopping talking about it. And we can touch on that next time around. If this conversation has resonated with you, share it with someone that it can create a difference in their life, or simply internalize it a little bit yourself. As Sarah said, you probably know someone in this situation and you don't even realize it. So listen out for those moments, have that follow-up of maybe I do want to check on them, maybe I do want to call. And just having that open opportunity to be there. Thank you everyone for hanging in there and listening to this kind of heavy conversation. It is one that is filled with so much information that we are definitely still just touching the tip of the iceberg on. Way more there, Sarah. Thank you so much for your time and expertise. Check the show notes for those resources and those links if you need them or someone you know or loves needs that information. And come back around, probably next week, for part two of the conversation — we will get into how you can support and look out for yourself in the same aspect, because we're all dealing with our own burdens that we carry and we can't be everyone's savior, but we definitely can be a part of the solutions that lie ahead for us. Thank you, Sarah, and thank you everyone for listening.

 

Sarah Ludwig, LPC  65:24

Thank you.