Independent, strong-willed, insightful people can become victims of domestic violence too. Abuse is one of those things that truly knows no boundaries. All it takes, in my opinion, is being vulnerable at the wrong time, to the wrong person. The reasons for such a vulnerability are vast.
I've never discounted the life's work of LaViolette. However, I disagree with her premise for a great many reasons. In my estimation, abuse should not ever be defined by a victim's reaction. Yet, that was her validation for disregarding Travis' fear - he didn't react like 'most' stalking victims, even though many don't pursue restraining orders or contact police for various reasons.
Slashing someone's tires, sending threatening emails 'warning' off prospective mates, snooping through another person's texts and social media, sneaking into someone's house to spy on them, taping phone sex that's dripping with manipulation, stealing a person's journals, 'verbalizing' a threat to enact physical violence against another, moving to be closer to someone - post relationship, threatening to expose a person's secrets to others, watching an ex through their windows, likely cyber-stalking that ex, past evidence of explosive episodes, a history of violence, and perpetual victimization - these are all examples of a manipulative, obsessive and controlling personality - that Alyce either did not know or resolutely ignored while reaching her hypothesis. They're all examples, when put together, of behaviors very consistent with an abuse perpetrator.
Further, I do not believe someone can be labeled an abuser by infrequent and isolated incidents of anger alone - especially out of context, in writing. I have not seen personally, nor has anyone testified to, the controlling behaviors that are synonymous with an abuser. Travis did not move Jodi in, propose, isolate her, restrict her access to employment and/or travel, stalk her when she moved back to California - even by proxy, and actually suggested she date others.
I want to believe LaViolette means well and is simply skewed by her decades of experience to see something that may well exist only in the mind of an adept psychopath. But I voraciously disagree that while highlighting abusive behaviors many non-abusers are guilty of, ignoring the very common markers in abusive relationships that are lacking if one is to believe Jodi's accounts, and negating or minimizing controlling behaviors on Jodi's part, she is the standard bearer for intimate partner violence awareness.
That said, while I do disagree, I would never wish her harm or ill will either.
lease:
