Jul 25 2023
S2:E7 Didn’t Think It Could Get Worse
The song in this episode is Nightmares by Keyland.
Documents and Resources for this episode are available here: https://panic-button-episode-7-show-notes.tiiny.co
Episode 7 “Didn’t Think It Could Get Worse” follows the survivors of Jim Luman after their breakups. Nails in your driveway? DHS showing up at your house? A professional complaint filed on you at the Board of Nursing? The abuse never seems to end, even when you leave.
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TRANSCRIPT
Colleen McCarty 00:00
The contents of this episode includes topics that cover separation abuse and legal abuse as well as violence against women, and potentially bestiality. It's not suitable for children under 18.
Heather 00:21
So after I left him, he made a formal complaint to that I worked nursing. So I had to go and sit in front of the board and answer to everything that he said I did. There was a HIPAA concern, because I looked at his files, which I was consulting, so whatever, um, there was a, an accusation that I was guilty of Beast reality. There was, there's like six things. The number one thing that stands out is he said that I cut the GPS locator off of my state car. I left that office, I drove to our state garage, went to the mechanic and said, Tell me my GPS is working. He in fact, told me my GPS was gone. They looked back. My GPS was disabled in October. So he took that GPS off my car in October, I don't even know where the damping is, I wouldn't know how to take the thing off. So this was before we got married, that he cut this locator off.
Leslie Briggs 01:28
That was Heather, Jim's fourth wife. Extracting yourself from an abusive relationship is difficult, even when you have an incredible support system and everything falls in place. But with Jim, he makes every effort to interfere with manipulate and threaten other aspects of your life that make it much more difficult to leave. And with Heather, you can see he tried to get her nursing license taken away. It's a form of coercive control, post separation, abuse, Colleen Do you want to tell us what legal abuse and post separation abuse are?
Colleen McCarty 02:09
Yeah, so there are some kinds of abuse that are so covert and misunderstood even now that we're just as a society starting to build a language to even talk about them. And two of the types that are particularly prevalent in Jim's cases are legal abuse, also called litigation abuse, and the second one is post separation abuse or also called separation abuse. So firstly, legal abuse and domestic violence relationship refers to instances where the abuser is using the legal system to manipulate or exert control over their victim. And this can range from frivolous filings of lawsuits protective orders, falsely accusing the victim of crimes, manipulating custody agreements or arrangements and potentially withholding financial support. The abuser can use legal means to further isolate the victim from friends and family, such as by falsely obtaining protective orders, or making false complaints to government agencies like in our state, it's called DHS, like making child custody or saying that you're not parenting your child appropriately. Right. And then the second one host separation abuse is particularly in domestic violence relationship where the abuse continues after the victim leaves. And this can include harassing the victim through phone calls, text messages, social media, stalking, making face, sorry, making false accusations to friends, family, or law enforcement and using custody arrangements as a means of control. It's also like, using threats against someone's life, against their children's lives, threats or future violence to try to keep someone from leaving. Because we know that once someone does leave a relationship like