LISA ARTERTON
Coercive Control & Post-Separation Abuse Specialist
You left.
But somehow, it didn't end.
Maybe you left six weeks ago. Maybe you left six years ago.
Maybe you thought getting out would mean you could finally breathe.
Except he's still in your phone. Still in your inbox. There are arrangements for the children. Contact. Money. Solicitors. Court. Cafcass. Professional meetings. Messages you read ten times before deciding whether to reply.
Children who are struggling. Decisions where every option seems to have a consequence and amongst all of that, you're trying to be a mum, go to work, make dinner and remember the bloody PE kit!
This is the bit I work with.
I'm Lisa Arterton.
Coercive Control & Post-Separation Abuse Specialist.
Sometimes the thing making you anxious is still happening.
When you arrive in traditional therapy anxious, overwhelmed or struggling with boundaries, its very easy for the work to start looking inwards and there can be a place for understanding trauma and how our previous experiences shape the way we think, feel and respond. But I also understand coercive control. That changes the lens.
You don't struggle
to set boundaries because
you don't know how.
You know what happens when you set one.
You're not reading an email
fifteen times because
you're an overthinker.
You've learned that seemingly small words can carry a lot
underneath them.
!
You're not frightened because of your childhood. You're frightened because you've experienced his reactions before.
Sometimes the work isn't
about communicating better
with someone who uses
communication to control,
destabilise or pull you back in.
I understand the internal stuff.
I also look at the external stuff.
Because sometimes, something really is happening around you.
FREE DOWNLOAD
If You Are Still Inside it
Sometimes the advice given assumes we're dealing with a safe person.
Set a boundary
Speak your truth
Stop people pleasing
Tell them how you feel
But when you're living with coercive control, post-separation abuse or court pressure, the safest response isn't always the most emotionally expressive one.
Sometimes silence is protective, compliance is strategic and restraint is not weakness.
I created If You Are Still Inside It for women navigating exactly that reality.
Then there are the children.
Maybe your child becomes anxious before contact.
Maybe they're angry when they come home.
Maybe they can't sleep. Maybe their behaviour changes.
Maybe they're telling you things you don't know what to do with.
Maybe they're refusing to go.
And you're caught in the middle, trying to work out:Do I encourage them? What do I say? What do I document?Will anybody believe them? Will anybody believe me?You might also be terrified that someone will look at their distressand decide you caused it - that you're too protective, or that you haven't encouraged their relationship enough.
This is where context is important.
What is your child like ordinarily?
What changed? When?
What happens beforehand and afterwards?
What have they actually said?
What have you observed?
Is there a pattern? What do they need?
You can't understand a child's behaviour without looking at what's happening around them.
You do not need to arrive with it all organised.
Please don't spend three weeks preparing to work with me.
You don't need the perfect chronology.
You don't need to have sorted six years of screenshots.
You don't need to remember every date.
You don't need to know which incidents are "important enough".
You can arrive with the mess.
The messages. The fear. The anger. The confusion.
The enourmous amount of information you've been carrying around in your head. The:
I don't even know where to fucking start.
That's okay. We work out where to start together.
"I felt less alone inside something
that no one else seemed to understand."
~ S
"Your work helped me to stop doubting
myself & stay in what
I knew to be true"
~ J
"...I stopped feeling like I was the problem
....I didn't need to explain myself because
you already understood the impossible"
~ L