Smartphones are for Convenience – of Abuse! - The DV Walking Wounded
***TRIGGER WARNING!*** This blog article references physical abuse! Please proceeding reading with caution!
Do we always need to be reachable? How did we ever function prior to smartphones or cell phones? I do remember, once upon a time, and it was glorious! I felt fancy free and untethered…well, sort of…
Now, I DO like being reachable since I have an autistic child and since I have a toddler grandson — so don’t get me wrong. I’m playing devil’s advocate since Facebook and Messenger are “down” today…I DO NOT like my creditors calling while I’m working, but I do enjoy paying my bills on the fly, online, while eating my lunch at work…as well as perusing social media.
I do, however, think that the current smart phone technology makes it easier for abusers to track and torture their victims, as well as it makes it easier for them to [relationship] cheat (and seek out new, unsuspecting supply TBH). They can track the victim’s smartphone’s IP, they can monitor cell phone numbers called, usage, and websites visited. They can secretly disrupt their victim’s privacy to control their EVERY move. They can even block numbers from family members, further cutting them off.
I remember before I had a cell phone, however, that I had to give my Abuser an itinerary (not even joking) of what stores I’d be visiting and when, in order to go grocery shopping. Inevitably, when shopping at our Walmart Super Center, I could guarantee that my Abuser would call the customer service desk and have me paged. Every. Dang. Time! He wanted to make sure I was where I said I would be. Basically, I had five minutes to get all the way across the store to get on the phone to verify or he’d get in the car and come find me. I’ve received a few beatings for not hearing the page or getting there on time. He’d then hop in the car and fly 80 mph to Walmart, search the parking lot for my car (I have parked in the same general area for as long as I can remember), then literally run through the store until he found me. On one particular occasion, he ran up and blind-sided me with a close line punch to the side of my head. I didn’t even see who or what hit me, as I was busy shopping, but an onlooker did. It knocked me into a grocery shelf and I went down and went slightly unconscious. He was there picking me up alongside another Walmart employee, acting concerned. Once I saw him, I knew exactly what had happened! I guess the onlooker pressed the issue and Walmart made him leave the store. He was outside talking to a police officer, when I wheeled my groceries out. I took my time putting groceries in my car, as I knew what would be waiting for me at home. I got my groceries put away before he got home, as well as my kids fed. I received the rest of that beating and was black and blue for weeks, all over. Walmart never pressed charges and no one ever checked up on me.
He was ALWAYS the person who controlled the cell phone plan…always! When he was an over-the-road truck driver, he would call and if I didn’t answer immediately (because I was working, I didn’t hear it, I was in a bad area, I was cooking and the phone was in the other room in my purse, I was driving, I was asleep, etc — take your pick of legitimate reasons), he would cut off my phone by suspending the service, then call our oldest child and talk to me via their phone, outlining the lesson I was supposed to be learning. It was $40 of our money, every time he did this and then reinstated the service. The final time he did that, I told him if he did that again, he’d NEVER know where I was or what I was doing. I think I may have called his bluff…
He has hacked my phone, in that he demanded my password (which he ALWAYS had because I never changed it) and would post on my social media, after locking me out of it. My friends and family got to the point that when “my” posts were all lower case and had no punctuation, they KNEW who the author was! I’m on my third account, due to my first two getting reported (due to his ranting postings and my family’s fear for my safety). I did go on a year and a half hiatus between the first and second accounts, because he “suspected cheating.” The second account became a “together” account, but one he never used. He secretly had a FB account at that time so he could solicit women freely. THAT is another story for another day…long story short, he claimed to have been “catfished” and his identity stolen…whatevs…he was doing the cheating he accused me of!
So, have smartphones REALLY made things more convenient or “more complicated”? I think it’s just made victims more accessible to abusers. I believe the abusers adapt how they control based on what tools are available to them, honestly. I enjoy teaching people how to keep themselves and their children safe, because these predators — they know how to get what they want. I will give kudos to “burner phones”…they’ve saved me on more than one occasion!
Love and light! <3
