Already, we’re preparing the ducking stool for Amber Heard
By: Katy Preen
Tags: Relationships, Psychology, Abuse, Domestic Violence, Celebrity

Already, we’re preparing the ducking stool for Amber Heard

It’s difficult to extract the truth, but there’s a familiar pattern.

Opinion pieces denouncing Heard and portraying her as the abuser in her former relationship with Johnny Depp are springing up again, with the takeaway that finally “the truth” has been uncovered. But has it?

These hot takes are based on the myth of the perfect victim, and the misogyny that condones abuse in the first place. And there is a lot of similarity between the treatment Heard is receiving now, and the recognised patterns of abuse.

When someone is accused of domestic abuse, it’s rare for them to immediately ‘fess up. They’re going to deny everything and claim their partner’s a great big liar, and that they’re the real victim. It’s a tried-and-tested method with a high success rate — because most abusers are men, and society values their word above that of anyone challenging their authority.

It also reflects the imperfect nature of abuse. Although there are patterns in abuse, humans don’t follow an exact script. Sometimes a relationship is mutually abusive, sometimes victims fight back. Sometimes people stay in abusive relationships, and act seemingly against their self-interest. There are a million-and-one things we could blame the victim for, and we always do. Perpetrators, on the other hand, have no shortage of character references and people defending their reputation.

So when an abuser trots out the inevitable DARVO, instead of recognising it as the diversion and blame-shifting that it is, we take their claims seriously and our initial belief in the victim’s testimony is diminished. That’s why perpetrators do it. The problem is that in a situation where both parties are saying the other one is the abuser, people tend to take the side of the person they like/trust the most. In our patriarchal society, it’s often the man.

Either party could be the real offender, but the rhetoric around victims’ believability leads us to seek out the perspective of the ‘other side’. We’re biased towards accepting a contradictory version of events; it feels like a plot twist, which is a little bit exciting. We feel like we’ve uncovered new knowledge, we’ve solved the problem, it all makes sense now. Or does it?

I recognise a lot of the behaviour exhibited by Heard’s ex-partner, in the tactics my ex used to silence and isolate me. First off, Depp is suing Amber Heard over an article she wrote about the backlash women face when they speak about domestic violence. His actions are literally a backlash to the article she wrote, which seems to prove the entire point of the article. But even worse is the fact that he calls her article defamatory when it doesn’t even mention him.

Even any potential allusions to Depp’s alleged abuse are tenuous. The article is more about society’s, and Hollywood’s, reaction to what she said than it is about the abuse Heard claims to have suffered. This to me looks an awful lot like Depp protesting too much. And my ex did this to me. He cyberstalked me and claimed a couple of articles I’d written on surviving domestic abuse were an attempt to paint him as an abuser, and therefore constituted abuse by me.

I didn’t mention him (and he’s a complete nobody, so no-one would notice if I did), and nor did I talk about anything that could identify him or was even slightly descriptive of things he had done. I was writing about how to look after oneself and how to leave an abusive relationship. Still, he persisted. He was going to sue me, deny me access to my child, tell everyone I knew that I was a liar and an abuser, turn my support network against me, etc, etc. It was exhausting and frightening having to deal with this barrage of threats and conspiracies, when I was trying to make a fresh start.

And the threat of court action was particularly daunting. He knew I didn’t have the funds to employ a lawyer, but he did. In the British legal system, money is power. And many abusive men use the court system to further abuse their victims. To take someone to court over an article that doesn’t mention you, adds nothing to what the public already know about you, and is about something else entirely, is an egregious demonstration of power. Its purpose is to silence, not to set the record straight.

Then there’s the discrepancy in the stories over how Depp lost the tip of his middle finger. Depp says that Heard threw a bottle of vodka at him, and the impact took the tip of his finger off. Heard says that Depp injured himself while throwing stuff during a fight. What’s undisputed is that he used the bloody tip to write on a mirror words to the effect that Amber was cheating. However the injury occurred, I think we can all agree that writing derogatory statements about one’s wife with one’s own blood on a fucking mirror is not a normal behaviour.

My ex deliberately injured himself and then told everyone that I’d attacked him. We had an argument because he didn’t want me to go out and comfort a friend going through a difficult divorce. I’d fixed myself something to eat, so that I could head out and offer some company. My ex went absolutely nuts, blocking the way out of our house and accusing me of having an affair with my friend, who he also insulted and called ‘gay’ (so why would he be interested in an affair with me? That’s abuser logic for you).

I was so pissed off that I chucked my plate on the floor to try to regain some control over the situation. When you’re in a desperate situation, you do desperate things. It was not a particularly sensible thing to do, but I wanted to lash out, to make it stop. My ex ran over (I didn’t throw it at him, just onto the floor in front of me), picked up a piece of broken plate, and used it to cut himself all the way down his forearm, right in front of me. Then he said “I’m going to tell everyone you did that”. And he did, and people believed him.

People didn’t exactly take my ex’s side, but they didn’t challenge him — because if they did, he’d make their lives a misery as well. He’d use his power and influence to wear people down, make them uncomfortable, put their livelihoods and relationships at risk. No-one dared side with me, because he would destroy them, just like he had done to me. In the offending article, Heard talks about the way that others protect abusive men, because their survival depends on these men not being exposed.

This is exactly what happened with my ex. I lost virtually all my friends because they didn’t want their lives ruined like mine. They didn’t want him turning up at their houses making threats. They didn’t want malicious complaints sent to their employers or their children’s schools. My colleagues treated me differently and they’d all heard my ex’s highly embellished account of the great evils I’d allegedly committed… but they’d also seen the way he spoke to me on the phone and in person.

They didn’t want anything to do with that shitshow, and while I desperately needed just one person to have my back while I was dealing with all this shit, I understand why nobody wanted to do it. My ex had a way of making careers disappear. I know other women who’ve made the mistake of dating powerful men in their industries, and the same thing has happened to them. These men seek out junior women who aren’t wise to their shit, and won’t be believed. And they know they’ll be protected by the complicity of those who can’t afford to be in their bad books.

Whatever happened in the case of Heard and Depp, there is an asymmetrical narrative that mimics the way our society believes and supports men at the expense of women. There is also a ton of documented, fucked-up shit that has been directed at Amber Heard since the allegations were made. The silencing, threats, and shunning she has received are predictable and appalling. They also make it look like somebody has something to hide. Why spend so much effort trying to discredit and harm someone if you’re as innocent as you claim? Why defend allegations of abuse with even more abuse?

We should pay attention to this case, because it’s not the nice, simple story of a villain and a victim that we all want to hear. But commentators are treating it like that. Ever since it was discovered that Heard had also acted violently, the script has been flipped. Suddenly we forget the allegations against her ex, and focus only on what she has done. But we can see the roles being reversed, and the blame being shifted from our position outside of the relationship, confirming the insider knowledge that survivors have.

Both parties have done wrong, but so much focus has been on the credibility of the female party, just like it always is. There are no winners here, and it shouldn’t be about ‘winning’. But domestic abuse is about control, and the last thing abusers want is their victims escaping it and talking about it. They’ll do anything to stop them, and society plays along. Watch this case carefully, and be aware of the narrative being spun.

Who has really been harmed by Heard’s speaking out? Because she is not getting the fame and fortune that victims are supposed to come into for ‘selling their stories’. It sounds like she’s experiencing an absolute nightmare, and that’s a familiar tale in these cases too. Whatever went on during the relationship, there is asymmetrical power being wielded now. There’s only one individual threatening court action over an issue that isn’t about them, only one individual with the power, connections and influence to silence the other, and only one individual writing messages in their own blood. This whole thing has literally become a horror show.