Losses Unacknowledged:

Coercive control doesn’t just take away a sense of safety or stability; it robs children and protective parents of so much more. There are many losses, and these losses permeate so many aspects of our lives. 

We need to understand that grief is beyond mourning the loss of a loved one; it’s about grappling with all the intangible losses too. And when it comes to coercive control, the grief is complex and unrelenting. It’s like trying to find your way through a maze with no map and no end in sight. This is beyond challenging in the circumstances of coercive control because the grief is disenfranchised. 

Disenfranchised grief is a grief society doesn’t readily recognize or “allow.”

Just like you couldn’t imagine that the coercive controller could have such malicious intent, many of those in society who do not implicitly support you often have one of three reactions: 1. They also cannot believe that the coercive controller could have such malicious intent. They cannot truly empathize—it would be too painful to imagine—so they minimize your experiences; and 3. They are victims and survivors too, and they are in denial. 

Unfortunately, this sets up protective parents and their children to be more isolated. We’re told to “move on” or “get over it,” as if grief were something we could just shake off. However, for protective parents and their children, grief is a constant companion. 

Again, and also, this grief is further unacknowledged, even by us, as something our children have experienced, and our children often do not know they are experiencing it also. It’s hard to fathom grieving something that they have lost—a healthy parent who loves them unconditionally and who they can be entirely authentic with—and grieving a protective parent they may have been turned against—when they do not even recognize these things have occurred. 

Our children are exhibiting their trauma and their fear, but often they do not even know they are grieving. And all too often, protective parents may not even recognize their own grief, never mind the grief of the child. Acknowledging this grief, even if only our own, helps us to see our children through the lens of coercive control; their experiences of loss are much the same yet perhaps more intense because their grief is with someone or perhaps two people—if they have turned away from the protective parent—that they are supposed to be able to trust and rely upon. 

When our children are exhibiting challenging behaviors, we must recognize their losses as a result of coercive control. Lois Tonkin explains that grief doesn’t go away or get smaller. We can only grow around our grief—and show our children that we are growing around this grief—so they can grow around their grief too.