Agencies committed to helping victims of domestic violence have been using the Power and Control Wheel, created in 1984 by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP). Members of the Project worked with women who were victims of domestic violence to “document the most common abusive behaviors.” For more details about the Wheel, visit the FAQ section at www.theduluthmodel.org

From the website: “Battering is one form of domestic or intimate partner violence. It is characterized by the pattern of actions that an individual uses to intentionally control or dominate his intimate partner. That is why the words ‘power and control’ are in the center of the wheel. A batterer systematically uses threats, intimidation, and coercion to instill fear in his partner. These behaviors are the spokes of the wheel. Physical and sexual violence holds it all together – this violence is the rim of the wheel.”

The abuse and violence perpetrated against a local survivor, who will be known as “Claire” in this article, fit those cited within the spokes of the Power and Control Wheel. Keep in mind this is just a snapshot of what happened during her years with her abuser.

Wheel spoke: Using economic abuse – definition: Preventing you from getting or keeping a job; making you ask for money, interfering with your work or education, taking your credit cards without permission, not working – victim must support them; keeping your name off joint assets.

Said Claire: “He would call me repeatedly at work, or he would come to my workplace and throw rocks at the windows. Another time, he drove fast around the parking lot doing donuts … He eventually got me fired.”

“He showed up on the first day of my new job, which happened to be connected to the place where my son was at his first day of childcare. He jumped into my car and held me against the driver’s seat, demanding a hug and kiss (he had been released from jail that morning after doing a 48-hour stint for violating the protection order). When the principal came out to see if I was alright, he ran off into the woods. The whole school had to go on lockdown until they found him,” Claire recalled. “I remember thinking that no one was safe from him; that visit could have led to the deaths of so many children. The school resource officer let me know that I would ultimately be responsible unless I could 100% guarantee that he would not return to the school with a gun. I couldn't make that guarantee, hence the lockdown. Not a great start at a new job.”

Wheel spoke: Using coercion and threats: Making or carrying out threats to do harm to you; threatening to leave or commit suicide; driving recklessly to frighten you; threatening others who are important to you; stalking.

“I thought if I just did what he wanted he wouldn’t hurt me. One day I was driving the car, doing about 60 mph, and he was in the passenger seat laughing about something on the radio. I nudged him with my elbow – like a yuk-yuk gesture, you know, that was funny – and accidentally spilled his coffee,” recalled Claire. “Suddenly he grabbed me by my ponytail, hit my head into the (door) window – and then threw the rest of his coffee at me … this was three months into the relationship. He scared me into submission.”

Claire recalled another time he stood over her with a metal broom threatening to hit them. She still recalls pleading, begging him not to do it, not to hurt his child. “And he actually thought about it … but still smashed it on my head.”

“He followed me everywhere. One day while I was pumping gas I started looking around and there he was sitting in his car a short distance away. He would follow me, watch me from a short distance just to let me know he was still around; that he knew what I was doing all of the time.”

“He threatened to commit suicide if I left him. Once he tried, but he called a friend who got him taken to a hospital.”

Wheel spoke: Using intimidation by making you afraid by using looks, gestures, actions; gestures to reinforce control; standing in front of a door or exit.

“Once I stood up to him, I pushed him and right away I knew I shouldn’t have. He came at me and put his hands around my throat and started strangling me. I remember thinking, ‘This is it. This is how I’m going to die.’ But he let me go. I never tried to stand up to him again. I thought if I just did what he wanted he wouldn’t hurt me. But he would do it again – it was his M.O. His abusive move was strangulation. All he had to do was put his hands around my neck ... just letting me know he could kill me.”

“I tried to get away. I ran out of the apartment, got into my car in the driveway, but he just jumped on the hood of the car, then the roof and then stood behind it so I couldn’t leave.”

Sometimes he would follow Claire when she was driving and try to run her off the road.

Wheel spoke: Using isolation: controlling what you do, who you see or talk to; limiting outside activities; saying no one will believe you; not letting you go anywhere alone and Wheel spoke: Emotional abuse: putting you down; making you feel bad about yourself; playing mind games ...

“He made my family and friends so uncomfortable just by being in the same room with us. He would just sit in the room, not talking, just staring, and glaring, at them. When they would leave they would ask me if I was OK … I felt so isolated. Alone. Everyone said ‘He will kill you.’”

“After the baby was born he would sometimes take the car seat with him to work so I couldn’t leave the house.”

The final attempt on Claire’s life came after her ex was released from a 30-day jail sentence. She recalled his family calling to warn her that he was irate and that they believed he was coming for her. Claire and the child were alone at her parents’ home in a remote Maine location.

Claire’s ex told her he was going outside to smoke a cigarette, but she waited to open the door fearing it was a trap. When she heard the porch door open and close she decided to open the door, knowing he could still be in the house. In or out of the house, she would have only a few seconds to try to get to a phone. Before opening the door, Claire made a bed of towels for the infant and placed him in the bathtub.

“So I laid my baby down for what I knew could have been the last time – I feel sick just thinking about that moment – and I opened the door. Sure enough, my cell phone was on the floor. I grabbed it, closed the door, locked it, called 911 and whispered my location to the dispatcher.”

Claire could hear his footsteps coming down the hall while she was still on the phone with the dispatcher. She went silent, then tried to whisper her answers about whether she was alone or was there a child and were they in danger? On the opposite side of the door her abuser could hear her talking to someone and became enraged.

“He began pounding on the door all over again – this time saying he would kill me. It must have hit him that he needed to get out of there, because all of a sudden I heard his tires screech and knew he was gone. When I went outside to meet the sheriff, I found my sim card in the driveway. I realized that the whole move of leaving my phone for me had been for show,” Claire said, “a ploy to get me to open the door. This time, he was locked up for six months, which ultimately gave me the opportunity to get away and leave the state.”

Today, 10 years later, Claire said she can go day-to-day pretty chill, not looking over her shoulder, but she added that it takes a long time. She admitted she was just like other people before it happened to her – “I thought, ‘Why don’t they just leave,’ not knowing leaving can be the most dangerous time – statistically it’s when most of the homicides occur. Now I know from personal experience how hard, and dangerous, it is (to leave).”

Claire said it took seeing the Power and Control Wheel to realize her ex’s actions were “a choice he was making.”

“Plenty of people have had horrible childhoods, suffer from substance abuse or mental disorders and they do not hit, threaten, strangle, or isolate the partner they love from friends and family,” said Claire. “I realized when I saw the Wheel that he was in control of himself, that he knew exactly what he was doing. It wasn’t until then, when I started looking at things with a critical eye did I realize just how deep I was in it. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your background is – it can happen to anybody.”