There is a moment when the world tilts. A moment when the person you love, trust, and have built a life with turns against you. The moment when words become weapons, when control becomes suffocation, when the space you call home is no longer safe.
For survivors of domestic violence, the path to escape is rarely straight. It is a labyrinth of fear, societal judgment, and impossible choices. But what happens when, in the course of navigating that labyrinth, a survivor is no longer seen as a victim—but instead as the one causing harm?
Lisa Young Lawrence, a social worker and professor, has spent decades listening to stories that don’t fit within the neat lines of victim and offender. As she recounts, she started her career co-facilitating groups for women who had survived abuse. But in those groups, she witnessed something society refuses to acknowledge—some women were using force, fighting back, and, in turn, being criminalized.
“They were not in crisis shelters. They were coming to us, living in the community, trying to heal. And yet, some of them had started harming their partners physically. Some in self-defense. Some in response to years of coercion and control. Some because, in their desperate attempt to survive, violence felt like the only option left.”
The binary of “victim and abuser” does not leave room for stories like these. In societies eyes, there is only one acceptable survivor—the silent, bruised woman, crying in the back of a police car. But reality is much messier. Women who fight back, who resist, often find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
“A judge once told us,” Lisa recounts, “If you don’t create programming for women who use force, I will either stop sending men to abuse intervention programs or start putting women in groups with men.” That was the breaking point. If the system could not acknowledge that women who use force are not the same as men who use abuse, then the system would destroy them. And so, Vista was born—a JBWS program designed not to punish, but to understand. To make space for the complexity of survival.
“We asked the women: What worked for you in this group? What didn’t? What did you need that you didn’t get?” The curriculum evolved from their answers. It wasn’t about shame. It wasn’t about punishment. It was about recognition. It was about acknowledging that healing from harm and addressing harm caused must happen together.
But this shift—this refusal to see the world in black and white—is not easy. Society clings to the idea that real victims do not fight back. That to deserve help, one must remain helpless. That anger, resistance, or survival instincts disqualify you from protection.
Coercive control is rarely seen, rarely understood, and yet it is the backbone of so many abusive relationships. It is not about physical violence—it is about domination, the slow suffocation of autonomy. It is checking the odometer to ensure she didn’t leave the house. It is taking her paycheck, controlling her bank account. It is dictating who she can see, where she can go, what she can say. It is making her so afraid of what will happen if she resists, that she doesn’t. Until one day, she does. And then, she becomes the offender.
“Are you afraid of your partner?” Lisa recalls hearing this question used as a litmus test for victimhood. “But fear is not the only measure of danger. Ask instead: Do you dread what happens if you step out of line? That is where you will find coercive control.”
We must dismantle the binary that dictates who is worth saving. We must build systems that understand the full, complicated, heartbreaking truth: that survival is messy, and sometimes, survival fights back.
Resources:
National Domestic Violence Hotline Website
To learn more about this topic stream this episode of Unsilenced: Real Conversations About Abuse
