been listening to your podcast for a while now and I love the content and the brutal honesty.
As an attorney who fought against COVID mandates, I follow a lot of dissenting medical and legal
voices and read a lot of great stacks. But your posts and podcasts are amongst my favourite.
Thank you for all you do. Legal Glass, thank you so much for that lovely comment and thank
you for subscribing to my sub-stack. Helgi, hi Amid, all the best and lots of love from
Iceland. I've been researching all this stuff since around 2009-ish and I have to say that
your podcast is one of the best in the space so far and I fully support your change to start
charging for every episode. I didn't even know that you had to pay well before. If you're ever in
Iceland, please come by and visit me in my brewery in Hela. Wow, well I hope I do get to visit
Iceland and I'll definitely give you a shout if I come. And Joe, I believe you're one of the
few out there that is not controlled by ego, arrogance, pride, money or coercion. It is truly
humbling to discover how much of our lives are based on lies which we failed to question. And to
everyone else who's signed up and become a supporter on Spotify and on sub-stack, I just want to say
thank you so much and welcome. You're part of a wonderful tribe and you keep this show alive
and I'm most grateful. Okay, let's get into the show. You are listening to the Doc Malik
podcast. This show is 100% independent and fully funded by listeners like yourself.
So, if you wish to support Ahmed in all that he is doing, then please subscribe to his channel on
Spotify or his sub-stack, or simply buy him a coffee with a one-off donation, links to which
can be found at dot malik.com. Now, let's get on with the show. Folks, I'm really excited to
share this with you. I'm launching my two retreats this summer, a time to reconnect.
Over the past few weeks, I've been talking about what I believe is the real pandemic,
the pandemic of disconnection, not just physical, but emotional, psychological and spiritual. So many
of you have written to me telling me you feel it too, surrounded by people, but yet somehow still
alone, wanting deeper conversations, more honesty, real connection with people who understand you,
finding your tribe. And the truth is many of us are searching for spaces where we can just
be ourselves again, where we can speak openly, laugh freely and not feel like we are walking
on eggshells all the time. That's why my friend Kasia and I have created the connection retreat.
After the success of the two retreats I ran in 2025, I wanted to go a little bit deeper,
create something really special that's not just a weekend away, but a genuine experience of
reconnection. Connection to yourself, connection to others, connection to nature, connection to
truth. Over three days, we're going to share meals, movement, nature, conversation, play.
A lot of people don't play anymore. And real time together, no masks, no performance,
just presence. At the very beginning, Kasia and I made a very simple pinky promise to do
this with integrity, honesty and heart and to create something really truly meaningful.
We'll be running the two retreats this year from the 26th to 28th of June and from the
4th to 6th of September and the countryside in Hartfordshire just outside London. It's going
to be small intimate groups. So if you feel the call, we would love to welcome you.
You can find full details and book your place via my substack and the website is
substack.com. Look for the newsletter. It is time to reconnect. The connection retreat is here.
In about a week, the retreat will be open to all, not just my paid subscribers,
and you'll be able to find the booking details at docmalic.com. Sometimes the most
important thing we can do is simply come back to ourselves and to each other. Let's love
Doc Malick. Call you Tim. Yes, you most definitely can.
God, I've had quite a few Tims actually. So I had Tim beat the reset. You ever heard of him?
I haven't. But Tim's a really strong, powerful name, I reckon.
But yeah, it's not the most powerful name in my head. If I was to conjure up
the most powerful masculine name ever, Tim. No.
Anyway, so Tim beat the reset as an Australian. That's why I'm mentioning him. You should look
into him. He's a great guy. His podcast is coming out today. It's the second time he's been on
and he's, and it was Tim beat the reset. You know, the great reset. Yeah. And he's,
he's talking about how you can preserve your wealth and the BS of money and
how you should invest in silver and gold. Anyway, his account reached 100,000 on Instagram
and they just canceled it. Like literally just canceled it or no appeal, nothing. And he's clearly
doing something right because, you know, he's ruffling feathers. He's upsetting.
And then I've got another Tim. Hopefully he said the word G'day at least two or three times
at his, um, spill. I don't think he did. He was here in the studio. He was visiting
and he popped by. Yeah, he is. G'day. And how are you today? G'day to you too.
Although it's good evening for you, isn't it? Yeah, that just rolled off the tongue for you too.
I'm not, I'm not. Sharks in the water. Anyway, listen, that's random. I know. I think that
was from neighbors. There's sharks in the water or something like that. Anyway, I lived in
the UK for a couple of years and I guarantee you there were two things that always came up.
One was a G'day and the other one immediately following it was, do you watch neighbors?
See, I'm only talking about watch neighbors because I had to get up to it.
Yeah, mate. I, I used to watch neighbors as a kid. Don't ask me why. It was just a thing we did.
And I used to be like so jealous of you guys. You had all these beautiful blue skies
and in Glasgow where, you know, I was born and brought up, it was just great,
perpetual great. And you watch neighbors and everyone's in the sun.
And they got their, you know, blonde hair and in the beach and in the water and the blue sky,
blue water. I'm like, yeah, whatever. Let's go down to Greening Beach where it's a gray beach
with gray water and gray skies. Awesome. No, neighbors is a very accurate reflection of
daily life here and no, it's not that I'd like it to be. I've heard the skies there aren't
quite what they used to be. So I worked out in Sydney for six months and I loved the big
sky. Like you had clouds, but they're so high up. And you had the most beautiful sunsets and
sunrises and, you know, and now like someone in Sydney was telling me like he can't remember
the last time they had a nice blue skies perpetually gray and they've got chem trails and
everything. Have you noticed that? It's not that bad. I don't think. I think we,
we tend to have more sharp, like it's, it's a nice day for a day and then it's
happy for a while. Then there's another nice day for a day and then it's happy for a while.
It didn't back in the 90s. So it was like every day used to be absolutely.
This is what I mean. So there has been a change of some sort. Anyway, some people might be
wondering why your camera is off. Do you want to just tell the audience like what is the
issue? Why, why are you not willing to show your face? Like, I think this is relevant
to what we're talking about. Yeah. And that there's a couple of reasons for that one
actually. One is it's not about me, but that that's the first reason like this topic, which is
about supporting male victims. It's not about me. It's about, you know, how do you support
male victims along that particular journey? The second is God damn ugly, aren't you? It's
blue hair of yours. It's too much, man.
And then being Aussie is the mullet, you know, the whole lot.
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. What were you saying? The second reason is what?
Genuine fear. So I would prefer my ex-partner who, you know, I'm sure we'll get into this
as we, you know, progress had no, no awareness that I run this group.
And unfortunately, I do have a slightly unique look, not with the blue hair, not the mullet.
It's the nose rings. So like, why do you live in fear? Like one of the things I always say is
we should never live in fear. We should never be fearful, like fear no one but God.
That's true. But it's not just me. I have kids as well. And there's no way that I want this to
start to shadow across their particular journey. So I've tried to shield them
as much as humanly possible throughout their entire life from, you know, and they can probably
get into this. But when we were in that relationship, you know, getting out of that
relationship, try to shield them from that as much and try to not even raise the topic with them
when they ask questions because they do necessarily ask questions of why we separated dad, what's
going on dad. And I'll have conversations with them, which are, you know, things were a bit
difficult that won't go much further than that. Okay. Well, listen, I want to just say
I'm a great believer that human beings are pretty much the same everywhere. I mean,
there are differences, cultural, religious, for sure. I mean, there are some differences,
but fundamentally at our core, we're freaking the same. And the same applies for male and
female. I mean, again, there are differences on hormones and all that kind of stuff. I
appreciate women and men are very, you know, men are from Mars women are from Venus. But
again, our fundamental wants and desires are the same. And we're human beings first and
foremost. And when we're talking about things today about male victims, that's not to say
it's only males that are victims females are victims too. But I think the reason why you set
up your group is that there's a lot of attention and support for female victims and recognition
for female victims, but not so much for men. Is that right? It is. And when I went looking
for support myself, more often than not, I'd get either we're not here for you by response,
which is, you know, I go knocking on the doors of all the usual groups going, hey, I need help.
I need to figure out what I need to do. How do I get out of this? And the response would be,
are we really set up for women and children? Or there'd be no response whatsoever, and
it'd be just like talking into a void. And then in Australia, in particular,
when you go looking for resources, the first thing you almost always find is you was a perpetrator.
Men are perpetrators. Men are perpetrators. Men are perpetrators. And this narrative
persists everywhere. There's a very famous men's group that operates here in Australia.
It's the kind of primary phone line you call. And you type in, you know, male victim,
and you jump onto their website and you get the male victim page.
And then the first eight things that they tell you about is, here's how to manage your stress,
here's how to manage your anger, here's how to stop screaming and yelling. It's like, no, no, no,
I'm the male victim here. How do I find support and resource? So I was really very, very lucky
in myself because I ended up by pure chance coming across to psychology. It was also a bloke
who understood male victimization, coercive control, and he really helped me through that process.
And when I popped out at the back end of all of that, you know, broken and shattered as you do
as you go through that process, I kind of wouldn't know. If I, you know, was the one guy who
had pure luck and came across psychologists who helped, I can guarantee there's a lot of other
men out there that were just as lost as I was when they're in the middle of it, which turned out to be.
So you just, okay, you've just published, I get that totally. You've put, and you know,
a lot of my listeners will know I was kind of in a not very healthy first marriage. And
Sam, I don't want to go into it too much. I don't, I don't want to, I don't want her to
hear this and get upset and then come for me because that's the kind of person she would
be and would do. But it was painful. It was a very painful marriage and, you know, people,
people always make it look like it's the guy that's the bad guy and is the horrible, aggressive man
and it's all his fault. And even when I am, you know, we ended that marriage, I lost pretty
much all my friends. They couldn't understand how this sweet, beautiful young lady could be
the horrible person. It had to be me. I was like, great. So, you know, I had to start all over again
with my friendship group and everything. It was like, it was quite an eye opener. Anyway, so let's
talk about. So carry on. No, I was going to say, it's quite, quite sad. What you described is
exactly what I went through as well. And I'm very sorry you had that experience.
And I think there's a nuance in there where you yourself also support that narrative when you're
in the relationship about, oh, no, everything's okay, because you are fearful over how she would
react if you start to talk about other people, about what's going on. And you feed that narrative
going on and I'd like, you know, everything's okay. And you know, I know everything's great
at home and this is wonderful. And you'd convince yourself of that as much as you possibly could
along that way. And when you do start to talk to people, men in particular, when they start to
talk to people, there's this sense of assumed agency that a man has. So if he was in that
relationship, you just go, well, he must have chosen it. He must have, you know, been okay,
it must have been something, you know, perfectly within his agency to choose, because he has
more inherent power than a female. So if he was in that relationship, it must not have been that bad.
Whereas that's not true at all. More often than not, you're, for one of a better term,
gaslit, coerced, convinced that you belong in that position, and it's not great at all.
When I, so I just, so I was going to just say, so yes, yes, partly, yes, you're right
about me and my relationship in that sense, I agree. One, I went into that relationship
with very poor self worth. And that's childhood trauma. And so I never thought I was good enough.
I didn't think I was lovable. I didn't think it was worthy. I thought I was always going to be
rejected and abandoned. So that's not a good place to go into a relationship. I'll be honest
okay. And then when you meet someone who can then, you know, abuse you and coerce you, if you're
like that, then you're going to take it. And you know, you know, anyone with decent self worth
would be like on day one, I'm not putting up with this bye bye, you know, but I put up with
it for those reasons. But another reason I want to just tell you is way back because, you know,
I got married, it was a long, long time ago. And at that time, I was a Muslim. And, you
know, I was quite a practicing Muslim, not freaking fundamentalist, but you know what I mean? Like,
you know, I believed in Islam and, you know, everything. And there's good things in it. There
are good things in Islam, you know, just like there's good things in every religion, you know,
it's a fact. I just I gave up with organized religion. Actually, thanks to the first marriage.
And I just believe in God now. But I think every religion still has good things in it.
So the one of the one of the passages that, you know, I remember reading in early my marriage
was Surah al-Bukhra 2.187. And it goes like this. And it's talking about married couples.
They are a clothing, a covering and garment for you. And you are a clothing, covering and garment
for them. And what this metaphor was meant to signify that the spouses provide mutual
protection, comfort, modesty and intimacy. And you act as a shield for each other's faults
and a source of beauty and closeness. You know, and I remembered that very carefully. I was like,
you don't go airing your dirty laundry with everyone else, not even. And when you're in an
abusive relationship, you kind of get isolated. So you get isolated from your French, get
isolated from your family. And then you don't want to talk about these problems because
then you think you're, you're, you're just weak, pathetic, failing. You just want to work harder
making the relationship work. And then sometimes you spend your whole lifetime trying that and
getting nowhere. And sometimes, do you know what, something breaks and you go, I've had enough.
And that's what happened to me.
The, um, that awakening moment, which is, you know, something breaks and you have an
awakening moment is really hard for a lot of people. And it's typically the first step on a
journey that's just as equally hard. Like getting yourself out of that environment is probably
one of the hardest things you'll do. Yeah. Especially when it's psychological abuse.
And as you said, you're being convinced that you are no good, you're useless,
you're the source of all problems. And you have to break that conditioning post your
awakening moment. And it's, um, it takes a level of effort, I think, that is hard to appreciate
and hard to understand. Because when you look at it from the outside, you just go, why don't you
just leave? Like, why don't you just leave? I would never have put up with that. Like what's
going on? And you don't necessarily realize it's actually, it's the old frog in the pot
kind of scenarios more often than not, where, um, these relationships might have started off
looking absolutely fantastic. Oh, beautiful. You know, and myself, for example, um,
my ex-wife, absolutely stunning woman, absolutely stunning woman still is today.
And people would go, Jesus, mate, you're winning at life. And that's what I genuinely
thought along the way. Um, and then it takes time. You know, that, that abuse slowly
starts and you kind of test, she used to test to see how far she could take it. And when it went
a little bit too far, then suddenly she was going, Oh, you know, sorry, sorry, I'll make
them, you know, make everything better and all that kind of stuff. And then it gets worse and
worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse at the time. And, um, I don't know how
it's for you, but I know when I was getting to the back end of that relationship prior to my own
awakening moment, um, things were occurring that I would never in a billion years have
accepted it the first year. Yeah. But in year 10, it was just normal. It was just completely normal.
Year 10. Year 10. Wow. And it was just normal. It was just, um, oh, you know, you know, she's,
I used to do this thing. Um, I used to call it going nuclear where, um, she would have this,
um, I'll give you a silly example. So, uh, she wanted her cup of tea made in a particular
way. So the way her cup of tea had to be made was you have to be standing right next to the kettle
and the moment the kettle boiled, like the millisecond the kettle boiled, you have to pour
it into the cup with the tea bag, then you have to set a timer for exactly three minutes,
then take the tea bag out exactly, uh, three minutes after, not a minute, not, you know,
10 seconds too late or 10 seconds too early, then put it, you know, right amount of, uh,
milk in it and then go hand it to her immediately straight away. Don't delay.
And that's how I like, that's how I like my teammate.
Of course. You know, it's the only way to do it. I swear. The only thing I would say
the only thing I would add is that the, the, the, while it's stewing, while the tea bag
stewing, I like to put a lid over the mug so it doesn't lose its heat and says,
so I think she's a bit slack. I'd be a little bit more.
Very, very slack. Yeah. Um, but if you didn't do it exactly that way, um, all hell would break
loose. You'd go nuclear and going nuclear would be pure rage where absolutely anything and
everything would, um, so the way you stand, the way you smell, the way you kind of walk,
you know, everything you could possibly think of, she would just be screaming and yelling about
like, you know, just destroy everything that you possibly couldn't, you know, have, uh,
wait. Um, and that would be, yeah, okay, that's just another day. Yeah.
The, the, at the time for me, it was like, okay, that's just another day.
Nothing unusual about this. What's, what's the way that, because it being slowly built up
over the decade until it got to a point where it was just another day.
Wow. Right. Let's talk about your book then. Let's, you know, coercive control
and every tactic explained. Can you just talk about it? Like, what are the tactics?
What are the coercive controls? And are you sure you just weren't being a dick?
Did you deserve all this? I mean, tell us, tell us.
Yeah. So I'll talk about the book. Um, I'll predicate it first because, um, when I was
in my own recovery journey, um, like you had started earlier on, where you said,
I, I walked into the relationship with childhood wounds and with some insecurities.
Um, when I started my own journey for healing, um, a lot of the material I was reading or kind
of was like, oh, she did this, she did that, she did this, she did that. And it would muddle
up kind of conversation around triggers versus, um, the way you would start to behave like
forning and fighting all this kind of stuff and what the actual person did.
So, um, my first protocol with this book was to break it down and go, no,
I really need to get a really crystal clear understanding of what did she do?
What did it hit within me? Like, what was it? Was it my childhood wounds? Was it, you know,
poor conditioning? Was it, um, cultural understanding like happy wife, happy life?
What was it that she hit within me? And then how did I behave afterwards? You know,
was I forning? Um, was I fighting? Um, was I just giving her more and more time and more
and more effort? So I ended up with this, um, framework I designed called TTI.
So tactic trigger and impact. And, um, it allowed me to really start to break out, you know,
what exactly was she doing? What behaviors was she doing? What was, you know,
high criticism look like? What did gaslighting look like? What did rage look like?
What did parental alienation look like? What did, you know, and, um, enabling legal bodies look like?
What did maternal superiority look like? I could actually kind of make, um,
make that clearer for myself without getting muddled up around and I was forning and I did
this and I did that. And it was because of my childhood wounds and all that kind of stuff.
So I ended up writing it. Um, I think there's like over a hundred tactics in there
of coercive control. Um, normally is just me kind of working through what the hell happened
in, in my life. And this started well before I started to stand again.
And, um, from there, I started to build it into a real clear taxonomy and let me actually get this
crystal clear because when I got looking for material on it, it's really not that very
clear exactly what the person does and why it works and then how the person behaves afterwards.
So I structured that out. It took me, um, uh, a decade and a bit to live
for what the better term, um, and about three years to write. And there's, um,
probably only one tactic in there that I haven't personally gone through
from a coercive control perspective. So it's all predominantly my lived, lived experience.
Um, supplemented by my therapist at the time, um, who's sorry, he's still my therapist,
uh, who helped me kind of make sense of what was going on in my life.
Um, and my work that I do with violence and abuse. The intent is to support
clinicians and legal practitioners to be able to better understand, um, coercive
control and family violence. It's written from a male lens. So, which is quite deliberate,
deliberate. That's what I understand. That's what I know. So a lot of the way it's written says,
you know, she did this and then he did this as a response. So it's, is that kind of pronounced
all the way through. Um, and a lot of the, you know, helping understand why it works is
all from a male lens. You know, it works because there's these cultural expectations on men.
It works because, um, males tend to come in with these types of mindset.
Can you give us some examples then? Can you give us some examples then?
Yeah. Of the tactics that they use. Just break it down.
Yeah. So I'll give you an example through a TTR chain. So a classic example is, um,
I'll go something soft. So stonewalling. So, you know, the abusive person will
stonewall you. So stone, stonewalling is they, they refuse to engage. And, um, that's
in an abusive environment is typically a tactic to get your victim to start to
fall. So on a TCI chain, it's, um, they are stonewalling. It triggers within you a
fear of abandonment, which is typically a form of childhood wound. And as an impact,
you start to fall. You go, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What do I need to do?
What do I need to do to kind of get everything back together? So that,
that's a kind of classical, um, TCI chain. Um, then you might have things like, um,
maternal superiority, where it kind of establishes, um, I am the mum. I know best for children.
You are a dad. You don't know best because you're not maternal. So that's a form of
maternal superiority. And it triggers in the men, um, the cultural conditioning around
similar types of narratives. And the impact is you withdraw. So I will withdraw and I will,
you know, defer to you when it comes to parenting. That's, that's another class.
Keep going. Keep going buddy. No, seriously, don't stop. Keep going.
You want me to keep going through the whole book?
Um, people, look, can I just say something? Guess always worry. Oh, if I give all the
information in the book, no one's going to buy the book. It's the opposite. The more
information you give, the more trusted you are as a source and more people want that as a book,
then trust me, I know I've had so many people on my show that do this. The more you talk about it,
the better. If you keep it just like, Oh, I'm going to just give a little snippet. It's not
no, keep going. Tell me more. What are the examples? It was more, I've got well over a hundred
of these things. Ah, you don't need to do a hundred, but give me, give me a good 10.
Yeah. So then if I, I'll do them off the cuff rather because I actually got the book
today, um, believe it or not, it came in the mail today. So congratulations.
I'm very, very excited. Um, but if you look at say, um, let's go a really obvious one,
which is reactive abuse. So reactive abuse is something that, um, most men are familiar with.
So reactive abuse in the TTR chain is a stacked version. So you will be insulted,
for example. So that's a form of, um, active abuse. Uh, insults themselves will tend to trigger, um,
a response in you where you, you'd get upset. You go, Hey, this, this is, um, damaging to my
sense of self worth and your impact will be, no, I'm going to respond, um, in a particular way.
And that might go to you a few times. Um, and they'll continue to do that for a while until
you get to this point where you go, no, if this and that you start screaming and yelling,
and then they flip the street and go, I never did this. You're the one who's screaming and yelling.
You've got anger management issues. Um, so that's a classic one that tends to come up quite often
with men. Um, and then another one would be that, that one sounds familiar. You're bringing,
you're bringing back some memories. Uh, my ex-wife used to do this thing. It's called
Davo. Um, which she was absolutely excellent at it. So Davo is, um, a staff version where you've
got a number of different tactics all at once. So you've got it in sequence. So they'll deny,
which is the D and Davo, then they'll attack you, then they'll reverse the victim and offender
role. So you'll come to them, for example, I'll say this to my wife, for example, and go,
Hey, I really didn't like the way you're insulting me in front of my friends. And then
I never did that. So that's denial. And then attack, which is you always do blah, blah, blah to me.
And then reverse the victim and offender. I'm so upset by what you did. You never apologize for
anything. And before you realize what's going on, suddenly you're apologizing for having,
having done this thing. And, um, my ex-wife was, uh, I have never met someone who's more
adept at Davo than my ex-wife. You know, flipped around and apologizing for things constantly.
Um, but then go back to some of the tactics. So minimizing, um, your thoughts, opinions,
and values as this is a very common tactic as well. So if you raise a topic and say,
I think we should do X, then a, uh, abuser will tend to minimize that.
You don't know what you're talking about. Um, oh, look, this isn't really your
era of expertise. You don't know what you're talking about. Leave this to me. I will do it.
And that tends to trigger a fear response because you know how that conversation tends to go,
and you'll just defer. Okay. I'll leave that for you. Um, and then you'll have, uh, other
tactics like, um, threats. So let's talk threats for a second because threats are really,
really fascinating ones where, um, an abuser will, um, threaten you with punitive action.
Um, I will take the kids. I will do this. I will do that, um, as a response.
And especially for parents that that threat becomes quite significant.
And it triggers within you. Um, obviously this year of loss, um, I'm going to lose
my kids and you go back to, you know, morning, what, what do I need to make this
and the problem with those types of threats is they tend to be quite incredible. Um, and then,
um, the other one, I'll tell you about this one, I meant, because I think it's, um,
um, it's, I'm sorry. Um, restriction of space and, um, liberty denial. So restriction of
space is, um, an abusive partner will tend to, um, dominate a house and dominate the, the face. So,
um, in my house, for example, uh, there was no safe space that was mine. So she had the living
room. She watched the TV. I was never allowed to sit down and watch the TV. Um, I would be
relegated to this kind of small little area within my office, but then she'd kind of
dominate that as well, which is, oh, this is the only clean room. I've got to do this and then,
you know, kind of dominate that. So restriction of space. And, um, you would end up with, um,
this sense of, you know, getting, uh, less and less agency. Like I, I don't have, um,
uh, place within my own home. Like this isn't my house. I don't have a place to hear.
Um, I go where I'm allowed to go and I go where I'm told to go. Um, and it creates this
kind of impact of, um, uh, difference. So I will defer to the abuser or go where I'm allowed to.
Um, or liberty deprivation. So liberty deprivation, most, most common example of that is sleep
deprivation. So, um, an abusive person, I'll get into, I'll, I'll shift topic in a second, but
um, my, uh, I didn't have a bed to sleep in, but many years I used to have to sleep in the
camp and, um, should do this thing where she would come and smash it in at like
two o'clock in the morning and just start screaming. And, uh, it would create this
environment where you, you would never get a proper night's sleep because even when
she didn't do that, you were still hyper vigilant while asleep. It was still hyper aware.
Like you'd have the ears up. You'd be half kind of looking out to living room because
that's where I used to sleep. Um, just keeping an eye out on, oh, can I hear the footsteps
coming? You know, can I see, you know, can I see her coming? Um, do I need to get myself, um,
super awake, um, at that particular point? And, um, uh, you do this thing where, uh, if you,
I'm going to shift out of tactics for a second and just talk about this, where, uh, if you
weren't instantaneously awake and responding as calm and accurately as possible, when you got
woken up rudely at two o'clock in the morning, then all hell would break loose. Yeah. So
you'd create this, uh, hyper vigilance or form of hyper vigilance where you would always be
aware what was happening around you, um, and always be performing at 110%.
Even when you were trying to sleep, you'd always have to be ready to perform.
Um, otherwise all hell would break loose. And those times, by the way, this sounds very familiar.
Anyway, carry on. Um, I'm very sorry for that. That's all right. It is what it is.
It is what it is. Hey, you know, there's this thing, I'm going to shift the
topics of that. It's okay. Um, when I started speaking up about what was happening to me,
um, I had a couple of things that happened. I don't know if this happened with you as well.
Um, I would talk to some guys and, um, they would struggle to have the conversation and then
they would vanish from my life. So, you know, I'd open up and they go, oh, that's rough,
mate. And that would be the last time I ever spoke to them. Then I'd have these other guys
I'd speak to who almost always said, you're describing my life right now.
Um, and I had that conversation more often than I ever expected to have once I started opening up.
And I'll be talking to these people going, oh, this is what's happening. You know, I'm,
you know, I'm in a really rough place at the moment. Um, you'll have to bear with me. And
they go, I hate you, Tim. Um, that's where I'm at right now. Um, I don't know how to make
my way out either. So if you figure out, let me know. Did you have the same?
I didn't speak to that many people at all. I didn't speak to anybody until I decided
I've had enough. And the first person I spoke to was my dad.
How did he respond?
He was very supportive. I didn't want to go into it too much. But anyway,
yeah, he talked about him and his relationship with my mum.
And he was like, you need to get out. So anyway, I just want to quickly, I've got so many questions
now. Um, that was a really good rundown of some examples, by the way. Um, I might come back to
you some for some more, but it's just, they're fascinating. And I think they're really insightful.
But do you think men tend to be, when men are abusive, they tend to be more physically
abusive and women more psychological? Or are they all the same? And they come in
different shapes and forms?
Yeah, short answer to that is I don't know. The longer answer is
men tend to express more physically than women. And I know when they do get,
even if they're a victim, so victim and or perpetrator, they tend to express their
emotions in a much more physical way than women do. So when a man is a victim and he's been through
hell, you know, he'll tend to express that in a very angry way. Same with a perpetrator as well.
But I don't know the answer to that.
Yeah, I don't know either. I mean, I'll look my, I was a victim of physical abuse as well.
I'm sorry to give my ex could get very angry.
More angry than I've seen any guy get angry. Anyway, but I know equally, someone whose husband was
very manipulative and using the exact same tactics you're describing.
You know, deprived her of money. Never did any work around the house,
dashed at her all the time, said he would do things, but then didn't and denied that he ever said he
would. You know, all these psychological tools that you're just describing like very similar,
you know, someone confided in me that like, yeah, that's where X was like. And I'm like,
and it's like, I don't know, like, I think, yes, society just expects men to be the
bad guys in every relationship and abusers. And, you know, there's a lot of
talk about supporting women. And I think it's right because I think for a long time,
women were treated very badly in society. That's that's a fact. But you can't argue
that's the case in the last few decades. I mean, I think women, women have got plenty of rights
and men have been on the receiving end. There's a war on men. There's a war on strong men.
And Jason Kristoff, who's just been on my podcast at a documentary called Planet Mind
Control. And he talked about three major agendas that are pushed in by Hollywood and TV. And the
third, the third one he talked about is emasculating men and, you know, making them weak,
pathetic, helpless, hopeless. And I think that is the case. There is an agenda. There's an
attack on men today. They do not want strong male figures. And strong male figures doesn't equal
toxic men. I actually think strong men are are really good for society because they're good. They
have integrity. They have morals. They're protective. They're caring. And it's actually
weak men who are cruel and abusive. Anyway, so going back to to the women thing and men,
you know, I just feel like right now a lot of people who are women might get upset hearing
this, but there is a subgroup of women who are very sympathetic and they are mothers.
Yep. So I've had I've had several mothers talk to me about how their baby boys, you know,
who are in the 30s are being abused by these very attractive, beautiful women.
And, and, you know, and they open up their hearts to me and they're and I want to cry
because I've got a baby boy. And, and if I and if my baby boy went through the abuse that
I did or any of the abuse that, you know, I hear these mothers tell me about, ah, man,
my heart would weep. I'd be like, I just wanted to be happy little boy. I mean, my baby boy is
such a love, such a good boy. And, and these little good boys turn out to be good men.
I was one of them. I am one of them. I'm sure you're one of them. But these mothers have
confided in me and tell me like, you know, awful, these women, because they're
bitchy. She goes, I'm not allowed to see my son. I'm not allowed to see my grandchildren.
So they get, they get cut off. They can't see their children. They can't see their son.
And when they do get to see them, they're not allowed to show affection. One person was
saying, I'm not allowed to say I love you to my son in front of her because she gets upset.
And you're just really bizarre, controlling, manipulative kind of thing. But yeah, I'm,
I think when you're a mother and you see your little baby boy getting abused,
you go, you get it. You see it. Do you know what I mean?
You feel helpless as well as a mother because you're desperately, you tend to desperately
want to try to help. And when you do, especially when they're really lost in coercive control,
the son will tend to actually reject you because that's the narrative and script that
they've been preconditioned with by their abusive partner. When I am, I'll tell you
about this because when I first launched Stand Again, I had three types of people who reached
out to me. The first was women who were pissed off that I was doing this. And to be honest,
I would respond to them and say, Hey, look, you know, this is an agenda issue. I'm just here
to support men. And they would go, Yeah, okay, fair enough. But they'd actually go, Yeah,
okay, that's fair enough. The second group was mums. And I had so many mums reach out going,
How do I reach my son? I know he's lost in an abusive relationship. He's been isolated from us.
I'm trying to reach out to him and he keeps rejecting, rejecting us. I can see what's
happening like he's being financially controlled. He's being screamed and yelled at. He's being
told that he is absolutely useless and pathetic. But he's not his good boy. I love him very
much. And every time I try to help, I keep hitting either roadblocks, she keeps either
blocking or twisting it. Or he actually pushes back and goes, No, no, you're not good for me.
And she'll be like, I don't even know where that came from. Like, where did that even come from?
So I ended up writing a book just on that topic as well. So I got another book out,
which is called reaching him, which is specifically for mothers as well, to help them
figure out what they need to do to kind of get into that right. Because I know from myself,
and I don't know about you. But there were points when I was in that relationship with my own wife,
where if anybody had actually told me, Hey, this isn't good for you, I would have actively rejected
it. I would have gone, No, no, no, you're wrong. And I would have actually shored up with my
wife and gone back to her God, Oh, you wouldn't believe what so and so said. They said,
this, this isn't this, because I would have been at that point kind of born and kind of make
all that, you know, she was truly on board and she would have been right there beside me,
making sure I was excluding my family, which I already had, you know, isolated myself from
my family. So I think there's this odd little belief, I think, where people think women
don't care about men as well, and about the suffering for male victims. And I actually
don't think that's true. Because almost all of the women I've spoken to as a through stand again,
have all been extremely supportive of helping men and they themselves can see the disparity
going, Why isn't that so in Australia, there's no funding for male victims of family violence,
I'm fully self funded. Whereas, female victims, there's lots of funding out there, you know,
they're throwing grants all over the place. But again, it's not all women who go,
they don't exist, it's no such thing as male victims, we're not going to support them.
There's a hell of a lot who do. Do you know what percentage of, by the way, I want to talk at some
point as well about solutions, like when you're this guy. And actually, I think so much of
this talk applies to women as well, women might resonate, Oh, my ex, my, my, my male partner
was a husband was abusive, like this, my boyfriend was abusive. So I actually think
a lot, there's so much crossover. But you know, you know, we'll talk about the solutions in a second,
but looking at the percentage of people abused in a domestic relationship, do you know how many
are women and how many are men? Is it 50 50? I'm going to give a personal opinion here.
Yeah. Whatever stat is out there, I don't believe it.
Okay. So in Australia, it's one in three. So as in one in three, male, male victims.
I don't believe it because, and this is this is a personal opinion, you have to test this with
research. Men don't talk about it. Very rarely do they talk about it. Men tend to not want to
show that they are weak. So again, they, they, you know, hide their shame by not,
not raising a, I'm an abusive relationship. They'll tend to just go, I've solved the problem
by moving on. I'm not raising it. Yeah. The second thing is, which I think is really critical
is the way victims tend to be identified is all done through a female in. So the tells that the
the presentations are all written from the way that you would expect a female victim to respond
is different to the way men tend to present when they're victims. Men tend to present completely
differently. They might present with anger. They might present with complete shutdown. They might
present with, I'm in problem solving mode now. Yeah. I'm now in problem solving mode.
That's not the way female victims tend to present. Men don't present with huge amount of
fear either, which is really, really interesting. They'll tend to go, I was, went through this
situation and now I'm trying to figure out my way out, but they don't show fear because
from very, very young age, men are told not to show fear. So they don't show the fear,
whereas fear is a key indicator of being a victim. So personally, I don't believe the stats.
I suspect that if we actually revisited the way that we assess who's, who's a victim and
who's a perpetrator and assessed and made sure that we were actually crystal clear about what
a male presentation looks like as a victim, I think those stats would be completely different.
I think it's something to go, holy shit, I'm a language. There's actually a hell of a lot more
male victims than we realize. Folks, if you've enjoyed this conversation, please share it with
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