Isolation
Isolation is often the first step an abusive person takes with their victim. What this means is they cut off the victim's support system by removing them from their friends, family and other possible sources of support. In this way the victim has only the abuser's point of view to go off of. Sometimes, isolation ends when the abuser feels they have perfect and complete control of their victim, though usually the abuser still demands that the victim keep their encounters with others to a minimum. Isolating the victim causes them to feel alone, helpless, vulnerable and completely powerless. These feelings work in the favor of the abuser to keep their victim under control. How an abuser goes about isolating their victim tends to vary with each person, though the results are usually the same. Some people will outright forbid their victim from talking with others. Using such things as verbal harassment and physical abuse to aide in getting obedience from their victim. Some skip straight to physical abuse saying things like "If you hadn't talked to Joanne today, you wouldn't have given me such trouble and I wouldn't have to do this!" or others in a similar vein.
For me, the isolation did not start right away. I run mailing lists for bdsm, a chat room on IRC, a large web site for BDSM and one for myself and poetry/writings, I love writing letters to my friends and talking to them on the phone. At first, Jack's opinion of all those things was quite positive. He would tell me how proud he was of my web site, my writings and the efforts I put forth. He supported me in my decision to overhaul the web site completley using graphics that I made myself. He would help me do the final drafts on my new articles; looking for typos, grammer mistakes and things like that. He said he would help me make the LnR site a business. Teaching me more in depth web design things, and helping me with the start up costs and setting up shopping carts and things like that. He had me print out every page that was on the site both as they appear when viewed, and the html that created them. He started going over those pages with me, pointing out where the html could be different, easier to use. he gave me many different books on web design and running an online business. he and his wife used to run a lingerie business off the web and coupled with real life lingerie parties and catalogues. I really enjoyed his support, and was grateful for all of his help. He joined my discussion list and helped me keep things on topic, and keep people from flaming or fighting. He would join in on the discussion nights in the channel, helping me run things there, come up with new topics and keep the discussions on topic. He told me again and again how proud he was of me, how my intelligence made him feel proud especially when I accepted his collar because then he owned me. He said I was a great asset to him. I liked that. I liked knowing that he knew how much my web site meant to me. That to me, I viewed it as a job, even though I did not get paid for the work I put into it. I love helping others, and I love writing. With the web site and discussion lists I could do both of those things at the same time. He told me I was very talented and he had never seen anyone who could explain so many things about BDSM in different ways, and adjust the explanation to suit the person I was speaking to in order to make it more readily understood by that person.
Eventually he pulled back from these activities. I put a post on my discussion list. One that went into some detail about an incident between him and I. It wasn't even a negative incident, just something that was on topic for the discussion at that time. Someone had asked if any subs had ever done this and I said I had and gave my example, how I felt and all that. He jumped all over me. Telling me that I was airing his private life on the list. That he didn't like that. He didn't want me to post anything personal at all and on and on and on. At first he would say those things calmly and quietly. So, to please him, I would censor my posts and not put anything real personal up there. Which made posting to the list almost useless for me, and in some ways curtailed the person I am. But I could understand what he was saying. Eventually though, it reached a point where anything I put on the list was viewed as airing his private life, in his eyes. He started yelling. Calling me back stabbing and things like that. Arguing with me over every post. Punishing me physically for daring to post at all. Telling me it was a waste of my time. That it was useless. At first, I continued to participate in my lists, struggling to find a middle ground between my goals and his rule of no personal facts on the list. For a while, he stopped yelling at me for posting things and I figured I had found that middle ground. Eventually, he started again. Telling me that I was spending too much time at the computer, I was not contributing to the family, I was ignoring him, I was wasting my time, and I was not serving him properly because I was online. So I cut my online time down dramatically, stopped posting as much, and did everything I could to do more around the house and try to please him. This seemed to work for a while and I settled into a routine. I had 2 hours on line in the evenings, that was it. I started doing other things to fill my extra time, cross stitch, writing, journaling, cleaning the house, and stuff like that. He seemed happy for a while. Then the harassment started again. The same complaints and insults. This time he finally said it outright that he did not want me online at all. He did not want me running lists, or discussions, or working on the web site. To him, it was a complete waste of my time. At first I refused to give it up completely. My friends were online and because so many of them were living so far away from me, online was really the only way I had of speaking to them. He would put my friends down, saying they were only using me as a crying pad, someone to complain to all the time. Eventually I got tired of the circle jerk arguments and stopped going online almost completely. My channel on IRC pretty much died and stayed that way for the next 8 or 9 months. My lists got extremely quiet, though once in a while I would toss out new topics because email was ok for very short periods of time, but IRC was a complete no no. I couldn't spend alot of time composing the same long well thought out responses that i used to make, but I could at least toss out topics from time to time. Eventually, the time periods between topic tossing grew longer and longer, the list got quieter and quieter. It got to a point about 10 months into the relationship where I was only checking email once or twice a week, instead of at least once a day. I was never on my channel, so the cservice people on undernet purged it from their bot, and a friend of mine (intoit{N}) who is a cservice op made sure it got put back in immediately.
I remember that I used to make phone calls, not alot, but once in a while, to friends of mine. We'd talk and laugh and joke around. After those phone calls, Jack would pick a fight with me. Accusing me of manipulating my friends into hating him, or engaging in a pity party for one, and other equally vicious things. Eventually I stopped calling my friends and they stopped calling me because of that.
The first few times he saw me sit down to write letters to people, he made fun of them. said I was archaic and desperate for attention from anyone. That I was probably writing about how rotten he was and how unhappy I was and stuff like that. I offered to let him read the letters so he could see for himself that this was not what i was doing. He refused, of course. Eventually I got tired of the insults and stopped writing letters as well.
With the exception of the outright order not to get online anymore, the isolation was completed using harrassment, insults, and bullying. It reached a point where I literally had no one to talk to and I was so afraid to try and talk to others because of how he would react. I just got so very tired of his arguments. I completely gave up working on the web stie and I had only completed half of the overhaul, so for a year it looked horrible with different graphics on every page. It lost visitors because it wasn't updated.
Interestingly enough, whenever I got desperate enough, I would sneak online to talk to a friend or two. Or I would sneak a phone call to a friend of mine named David. When I presented the problems and arguments which were occuring, I presented them as I had displeased Jack. That I was the one at fault and sought their opinion on how I could do things better and make him happy. I was already taking the blame for everything and never seriously considered that there was a problem with Jack, moreso than a problem with me. I think these desperate attempts at outside interaction may have played a part in my ability to stay detached enough that when it came down to my life, I could finally leave. None of the few people I was able to talk to from time to time ever called him abusive. Though, they were thinking it. They knew something was wrong because of my complete abandonment of the things that were important to me, and my withdrawl from being online at all.
Being isolated hurt me badly. I was so confused by Jack's sudden turn about on my online activities. he went from supporting them, understanding their importance to me, and helping me set and achieve goals, to hating everything and everyone I talked to. Any Dom that spoke to me was "out to take me from him". Any sub I spoke to was trying to talk me into just leaving. I tried many times to discuss this with Jack, but no matter what I said or how I approached the subject, it always ended in a fight. The fight always ended in my apologizing for getting online at all, and for displeasing him. Taking all the blame and saying he was right, that I had let him down, that I had broken his rules, and then I would accept whatever physical punishment he chose to give me. Though many of those times, instead of hitting me, he would just go sleep on the couch. Denying me his presence, something he knew hurt me to no end, until I admitted that I was wrong to talk to my friends.
Though when all was said and done, and I did return to being online, I learned who my true friends were. They were still there, waiting for me, and hoping/praying that I would eventually see what was going on and leave on my own. Knowing full well that I had to realize for myself what I was doing before I could leave. Knowing they couldn't tell me that he was abusive because I wouldn't have believed it. And the few occasions any of them made any implication to something being wrong with Jack, I defended him 100%. I think back to some of the things I said in defense of him and I cringe.
So that's how he managed to isolate me. Once the isolation was pretty much completed, the other insults and abuses increased in frequency and intensity. I can see that clearly now. I hurt so bad over ignoring my friends, but my desire to satisfy jack was so strong. And everytime he told me I let him down, or displeased him, or disobeyed him, I was crushed and in tears.
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