Reframing Heard/Depp from the Coercive Control lens — She is the victim.
There is so much chatter about all that Amber Heard did wrong. Heard — an ambassador for women’s rights and outspoken domestic violence advocate — taunts Depp for fleeing an argument, telling him: “You are such a baby. Grow the f**k up Johnny.” It really does not sound very “victim” like, and it is hard to have sympathy for that type of behavior.
I get the confusion. Honestly, there are so many nuances to these types of toxic relationships. It is like making our way through a tangled web. And a web it is, a web of the coercive controller. Even the most astute of us miss the signs. And oftentimes it is easy to confuse the victim with the offender. Coercive control is the foundation of most domestic abuse and is when one person has power and control over another. It includes psychological abuse such as manipulation, intimidation, gaslighting, and oftentimes isolation. It may include legal, financial, and sexual abuse and use of the children as pawns.
In the case of Heard/Depp, if we look beyond the violence that occurred by both parties, one person maintained power and control in the relationship, Johnny Depp. Firstly, Amber was twenty-six, and he was forty-six when they met. This, along with his fame and fortune, highlights a probable power differential. Amber testified to her own experiences of feeling “controlled” and it became apparent through additional witnesses, that Depp has a history of controlling and jealous behavior. Amber testified to sexual abuse and we all now see clearly that the threat of “global humiliation” and the need for retaliation came to fruition. The financial abuse a subsequent result.
It is obvious Depp is a partner who exerts power and control in a relationship. He threatened Amber well before her 2018 op-ed. After she received a restraining order in 2016 and subsequently filed for divorce, Depp texts, “She’s begging for total global humiliation… She’s gonna get it.” This is Post Separation Abuse (PSA), coercive control that intensifies after separation and occurs in 90% of relationships where coercive control is present.
But to some of you this may seem twisted considering that we heard clearly from Amber’s own mouth, “I’m sorry that I didn’t, uh, uh, hit you across the face in a proper slap, but I was hitting you, it was not punching you. Babe, you’re not punched.” This quote depicts an angry, demeaning Amber. I get it, Amber behaved badly and was physically violent. But not all victims behave well and after years of being controlled, how can we expect them to behave well? If we understand the implications of trauma — when someone feels entrapped in a relationship — victims oftentimes, eventually defend themselves. Unfortunately, some call this mutual abuse or reactive abuse — which I take issue with. Here’s why: If someone is coercively controlled then defensive behavior does not make it mutual abuse. It is defensive. It is what we expect from victims. In the case of Amber and so many victims that I have worked with, she was often triggered by Depp’s controlling behavior. When people are triggered, they may fight, flee, freeze, or fawn. (See Bessel van der Kolk’s book on how people react to traumatic events: The Body Keeps Score). It just so happens that Amber apparently, often responds to her triggers in fight mode. It is not pretty. It is not likeable. But as she said in the trial she dealt with “years of controlling behavior.”
If Depp was the victim, he certainly is not behaving like most victims. Most victims do not want things to get worse…think Gabby Pettito and her multiple apologies and her cool and collected boyfriend (murderer). Amber wrote a letter “I’m sorry I hurt you,” “I can get wicked when I’m hurt.” Depp’s response to his behaviors were, “I can’t say that I’m embarrassed,” regarding disclosures in the trial, “because I know that I’m doing the right thing.” No taking responsibility, no apology.
When Amber was given a restraining order against Depp for physical violence in 2016 and subsequently filed for divorce she attempted to put an end to any conversations about their personal life, stating: “I was begging Johnny to not make me prove what I’ve had to sit on the stand in front of all of you and prove.” Victims typically take a long time to come forward, victims want the assault (verbal and otherwise) to end. Offenders of coercive control enjoy the entanglement. Therefore, we often see them engaged in long drawn-out court situations, for example in child custody disputes, or in this case, a public trial with a negative social media campaign.
Finally, the texts sent from Depp to Amber are blatant abuse — they are beyond minimizing an event or calling someone a baby, they are about his attempting to retain power and control over her. By now most of us have heard how he calls her a “worthless hooker,” jokes about how he’ll “smack the ugly c*** around” and “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead.” The worst and most evident of coercive control is Depp’s rant in their kitchen: “Shut the f*** up…Don’t f***ing pretend to be authoritative with me. You don’t exist.”
Not existing, annihilation, is exactly what a coercive controller wants. Coercive controllers want to have control over their victims and if their victim pushes back, they will do whatever they can to demoralize the victim in an attempt to have them lose who they are — to diminish them as a person.
Depp and Heard both have trauma histories. People deal with their trauma differently. Amber’s behaviors seem aligned with someone who felt trapped in a controlling relationship and in difficult moments behaved with significant anger. Depp’s behaviors may seem similar. However, when we take a closer look through the lens of coercive control — we see a pattern of behaviors that clearly indicate a need for “power over” another — a characterological trait that is not just a reaction to trauma, but abusive. These behaviors include revenge, the ultimate weapon of the coercive controller.
