Ceasefire isn't Safety

What domestic violence survivors know about living under unpredictable power

That unease you feel during this ceasefire? That’s what late-stage domestic violence cycles do.

Photo by Sven Verweij on Unsplash

The phone rings. A new client: she wants help for chronic anxiety. We set the appointment.

In our first session, as I explore support systems and family dynamics, the details tumble out.

Threats.

Rages.

Demeaning insults.

Breaking her things, throwing objects, punching through the wall beside her head. The barely contained violence constantly threatening to bubble over into direct physical harm. Punches pulled back inches from her face.

And then the posturing: I should have done it. You deserve it. You’re lucky I took pity.

This fear she’s feeling? That’s not Generalized Anxiety Disorder. That’s chronic stress of unresolved, ongoing trauma. There’s no amount of breathwork or cognitive reframing or mindfulness that will cure anxiety from an ongoing threat. And so, the work has to shift.

There’s a common cycle in domestic violence relationships. It involves a tension-building stage, explosion (the physical abuse), and a honeymoon stage, in which the abuser shows contrition and attempts to woo his partner back with flowers and apologies and promises. As the couple settles back into their “normal,” the tension begins to escalate again.

But what isn’t well known is that as domestic violence relationships continue, the honeymoon stage contracts until it disappears altogether. What is left is a ping-ponging between active threat with violence and the tension of fearful waiting.

And this tension isn’t exclusive to those directly threatened. Children living in homes where violence is threatened between parents live with chronic traumatic stress. When an unrestrained, violent person is in the house, nothing feels safe.

Once you’ve seen (or experienced) this pattern up close, it becomes difficult to unsee. Not just in relationships, but anywhere power, volatility, and intermittent restraint coexist.

If you’re feeling uneasy and anxious this week rather than relieved at the ceasefire, there’s nothing wrong with you. That is the natural effect of the sudden shift from threats of total societal destruction to passivity from someone reminding us they still hold enough power (and not enough restraint) to swing back to deadly violence without warning.

It may not be where you anticipate. There’s no way to know when to expect it. But you know the potential is always there.

And so your nervous system has no choice but to remain on alert. At an instinctual level, to shift into parasympathetic restoration means to become defenseless and vulnerable. Your only defense, it feels, is hypervigilance.

And your body pays the price.

Constant hypervigilance, tension, and anxiety quickly reveal themselves in sore muscles, tension headaches, and churning stomachs. Over time, the somatic red flags morph into chronic illness, hypertension, immune suppression and disease.

“I can handle it,” domestic violence victims tells themselves. “I love him… Maybe he will change… He doesn’t mean it…” Under these rationalizations is a fear of change, a fear of the very real risks of resistance. Often a deep, emotional loyalty to an idea of him that once made sense. It’s easier not to look at the full picture, not to admit the patterns and cycles of what’s truly going on.

Change is hard.

But we must make change. Whether the abuser is in our homes or our government buildings; whether punching holes in walls or demolishing whole wings of a house he inhabits but does not own.

Because abusers always escalate.

Because the illusion of changing him is fantasy.

Because the cost is too high – in your breath, in your sleep, in your bones.

And no one can heal while still under threat.

Commitment-free support.