Timeline of Violence

Time exists to stop everything from happening at once – if it didn’t exist, it would all be over in a single moment. The first time I experienced violence, at the hands of a non-family member, was when I was 6 years old; a gang of much older kids whipped the back of my legs with electrical cords and ropes, as myself and a friend walked (and then ran) back home from soccer practice; it sucks growing up Jewish in a city divided on sectarian lines (Glasgow) – you end up getting assaulted by both the Catholic and Protestant populations. When it first happened to me, everything was a complete shock; the assailants seemed to come from nowhere - I was completely surprised and had no idea how to respond: everything seemed to just happen at once. As I grew older, and witnessed, as well as experienced, more violence I began to realize that violent acts don’t just happen, they play out along a timeline. I’m by no means the first person to recognize and understand this, or come up with the idea that there are distinct stages to violent assaults, however in this article I want to share, my understanding (based on my experiences, as well as informal and formal research into violence) of the Timeline of Violence, and how this can help us effectively respond to violence, when we are targeted.     

As most people read this they should be in a Non-Conflict phase/stage – if you’re not, you should put down the phone or device that you are reading this on, and start to make a dynamic risk assessment of your situation. Unfortunately, this non-conflict phase is one that many people want to quickly return to, even when a threat/danger is present that stimulates an adrenal response e.g. I have heard many people say, that when they are out and they feel scared, they use their mobile phone to call a friend and as soon as they hear the calm voice at the end of the line, they feel much safer. The problem is, they’re no longer in a Non-Conflict stage, they have just entered the Conflict-Aware phase of the Timeline, however they don’t want to admit or recognize this (this is a normal human response to danger: denial). As soon as you become adrenalized, you move along the Timeline, from being in the Non-Conflict phase, to the Conflict-Aware phase. Rather than denying that you are in a potentially dangerous situation, you need to determine whether the danger/threat in the environment is real, and whether it is targeting you.

After I was assaulted by the group of teenagers, I never viewed the presence of groups of teenage boys the same; these were people who were capable of causing harm and serious injury to me, and had no qualms about doing so. Initially, I became hyper-vigilant. Any time individuals in this particular age-group were present, my over-focus on such assailants left me blind to others, who were my same age (and equally merciless). This is something that we need to understand about the way our fear system works; it can become hyper-sensitive to certain threats and dangers that really don’t contain harmful intent towards us – the teenagers eating fish and chips together and talking amongst themselves weren’t a danger to me, it was the ones who were kicking an old can around and looking for something to do, etc. There is a danger in not recognizing the differences between the two groups, and moving into the Pre-Conflict phase of violence, unnecessarily. It is not good for our bodies to become adrenalized when it is not necessary; the cocktail of hormones, which make up adrenaline, take a heavy toll on the body. If it isn’t necessary to enter the Conflict-Aware phase/stage of violence, we should avoid doing so.

When we become adrenalized and move from the Non-Conflict phase/state to the Conflict-Aware one, our primary task should be to ascertain whether the danger we have perceived is real. If you are walking home late at night, and your fear system alerts you to the fact that there is somebody walking behind you, possibly in step with, or gaining on you, you need to determine if the person’s movement is attached to yours, or if it is independent. In this moment, you are making a Dynamic Risk Assessment to determine whether you may remain in the Conflict-Aware phase, or have in fact moved into the Pre-Conflict phase. When you make such an assessment, there can be two possible outcomes: your situation either is a high-risk one, or one that contains unknown risks. The fact that you entered the Conflict-Aware state/phase means that there is the possibility of danger, so you are unable to determine that your situation is a low-risk one; it is one that contains unknown risks that you need to investigate.

Once you determine that the threat is real and directed towards you (for example, you believed you were being followed and when you crossed the road the person followed), you have entered the Pre-Conflict Phase of Violence. There are certain tactics you could employ here: you could attempt to disengage, you could try to de-escalate, and/or you could try and verbally or physically confront them, etc. When aggression and violence is directed at you, you need to respond, rather than continuing to deny and ignore it. When I saw the group of teenagers take an interest in me and I felt uneasy, I should have recognized that I’d effectively moved into the Conflict-Aware stage, and when I saw them move towards me (Synchronizing their movement with mine) I should have picked up that I was now in the Pre-Conflict phase. This is where you need to make an effective decision, to try an avert moving into the Conflict Phase. I should have recognized – at the time I fatalistically knew, but did so anyway – that running wasn’t an option; they were bigger, faster and looking for sport. This is why understanding the motivations behind violence is so important. There are some situations you can de-escalate, some that you can disengage from, and some that require a physical response. This is something that you need to determine in the Pre-Conflict phase.

Sometimes an assault can’t be deflected, disengaged, or de-escalated and you enter the Conflict Phase; the fight itself – as an adult it is often easier to avoid this than when you are a child or teen. However, there will be those who won’t want to be diverted from violence and/or find a non-physical solution to a disagreement or a situation. In such situations, you should be fighting for survival rather than ego. If you’ve been able to recognize the movement along the Timeline, you should also be better prepared to deal with this, and in most instances be able to attack pre-emptively, etc. After the Conflict Phase, you move into the Post-Conflict phase. In some instances, you may escape with little consequence e.g. it took 7-10 days for the cuts on my legs to heal, and my life was never at risk, etc. However, in others, you may exit an incident requiring both medical and legal assistance – do you have an attorney you can call, or know where the nearest hospital in the environment is, etc? Planning can go a long way in helping you determine how to act and behave in this phase of the Timeline.

Most violence against an individual doesn’t just happen, and when we look back on an assault that we may have experienced, we can often look back and understand the different phases that we went through. If we can understand these as we experience them – rather than afterwards – we can determine courses of action that will allow us to either avoid them, or better prepare ourselves for the fight itself.