The book
It Can Happen to Anyone: Why Battered Women Stay, 3rd Ed.
My eyes locked onto that title like laser beams. Could this book represent answers to questions I held for a lifetime? And blame?
It wasn’t lost on me that it was written not by men, but by two extremely accomplished female researchers:
Alice D. LaViolette, MS, MFT
Ola W. Barnett, PhD.
The first was a long-term advocate, expert court witness, and consultant in domestic violence issues. The second was a distinguished professor of psychology at UCLA, with research including the topics of batterers, battered women, and dating violence.
It was the first half of that title that REALLY drew me, because it was the first time anyone suggested that my mother wasn’t weak, at fault, or “different.” That maybe she just fell into a trap she couldn’t climb out of.
The second half of that title clinched my decision to buy the book because it implied that there were logical answers for why my mother stayed with my father.
I was already on the trail of explanations given my research into Dad’s abuse tools and especially understanding about intermittent reinforcement, trauma bonding, and the brain chemistry changes that drove those things. But this was the missing link — the research that showed that a person who fell victim to trauma bonding WASN’T ANY DIFFERENT THAN ANYONE ELSE!”
THIS was a book I had to read.
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