The Family Secrets Collection brings together two Samantha Leary Psychological Thrillers—Whatever Happened to Maggie Mae? and Alice Was Here—exploring disappearance, manipulation, coercive control, and the lasting damage left behind when the truth is buried. Because a disappearance is never just an event. It is the final chapter of a much longer story. And in both of these cases, someone was determined to control the narrative. Samantha Leary Psychological Thrillers: Family Secrets Collection is now available on Amazon. For Mature Audiences Only. Another case from Samantha Leary #SamanthaLeary #SamanthaLearySeries #SamanthaLearyWorld #FromTheWorldOfSamanthaLeary #SamanthaLearyChronicles #SamanthaLearyBooks #SamanthaLearyMysteries #SamanthaLearyThriller #PsychologicalThriller #CrimeFiction #DetectiveFiction #ProfilerSeries #DarkMindGames #TrustNoOne #PeopleKillPeople #SecretsAndLies #MindOfAMurderer #TruthIsNeverClean #hiddentruth #MurderHouse #newbooks

Podcast Episode: Crime Time With Samantha Leary—The Shape of Control The Shape of Control: How Surveillance Becomes Psychological Confinement | We Are Wise Thinkers Another case from Samantha Leary #SamanthaLeary #SamanthaLearySeries #SamanthaLearyWorld #FromTheWorldOfSamanthaLeary #SamanthaLearyChronicles #SamanthaLearyBooks #SamanthaLearyMysteries #SamanthaLearyThriller #PsychologicalThriller #CrimeFiction #DetectiveFiction #ProfilerSeries #DarkMindGames #TrustNoOne #PeopleKillPeople #SecretsAndLies #MindOfAMurderer #TruthIsNeverClean #hiddentruth #MurderHouse #newbooks

“[For victims of coercive control] any decision- to return to school, take a job, seek legal assistance, start a diary, buy a new bra, even to cook something new- may be interpreted as a sign of disloyalty, independence, resistance, and worse, and so is permeated with a sense of dread of a corresponding constriction of freedom. Women’s fear that their stolen moments of autonomy will be detected, invaded, and evoke physical or other reprisals can be so intense that they pre-censor “dangerous thoughts” that might lead to independent action and harm.”

“Literal confinement is common enough in coercive control. […] As frequently, however, men deploying coercive control prevent escape and exposure through a spatially diffuse pattern of rules, stalking, cyber-stalking, surveillance cameras, beepers, cell phones, and other means that effectively erase the difference between confinement and freedom by extending surveillance and behavioral regulation to all those settings where victims might restore their identity or garner support, including work, school, church, service, family, and shopping sites.”

“In contrast to the forced access involved in capture crimes, the privileged access partners maintain to their victims is the most important explanation for why abuse is ongoing, even when partners are separated. Privileged access reflects five interrelated factors: the presumption of intimacy; the personal knowledge that intimacy affords; claims to exclusive possession or “property rights”; the material benefits associated with possession; and the failure of outsiders to effectively intervene. […] Property rights are also expressed more generically by a controller’s insistence that he set the terms for every encounter. If a woman tries to walk away from an argument or refuses to get out of bed in the middle of the night to review her faults or tries to separate, she is reminded that the lecture, interrogation, sex, her job, or the relationship “ends when I say it ends.” The ultimate expression of property rights is the right of disposal, illustrated by the statement that frequently precedes femicide, “If I can’t have you, no one will.””

I think when it comes to cutting people off who have hurt your friends, but the friend who has been hurt by that person stays in contact, specifically when it comes to interpersonal/dating violence/coercive control/harrassment to let your friend do what they need or want to do to process it without being dissapointed or angry with them but instead being completely honest about what has happened, what is happening, what they deserve, how you will be there for them, and the very likely possibilities of what might happen.