Jenny is a 25 year old girl who has been having difficult time at home. It is noted her in history that her father, who raised her, had a short temper and got angry often and in Jenny’s words “…some times he would just flip. You’ll never know why” and “when he’s angry somebody is gonna get it….” Jenny doesn’t like this violence but she can’t remember a time during her childhood when her father was not like that.
2 years ago she met Andrew, a 27 year old athletic male, who works in the same office as she does. Andrew started off by being an ideal boyfriend. He was always in a good mood and pleased to see her at work. They spent as much time together as possible particularly on weekends and some evenings after work.
Andrew has a lot of male friends and “lots of girls fancy him” because “he is a good looking guy”.
After a couple of months into their relationship Andrew started telling Jenny off when she talked to other men at work even though the conversations were innocent. Jenny’s friends talked to her about this, but, Jenny was adamant that he loved her so much he didn’t like her talking to other guys and that this was sweet. Then Andrew became moody if Jenny wanted to see a female friend after work so she stopped meeting up with her friends and cut off contact with her family because they did not understand the relationship she has with him.
Andrew began texting her more than 20 times a day even though they were at the same work. During the evenings if they were not together he would text her every 10 to 15 minutes asking what she was doing and who she had been talking to and what they were saying. Jenny thought he must really love her to keep doing this.
About a year into their relationship Andrew and Jenny moved in together, which when she realized that he used cocaine and opiates. He told her that is was not a problem and asked her if she wanted to join in. Jenny was against substance use, especially since she saw how her father got after drinking. Andrew started yelling at her and telling her she was not any fund unless she chose to do drugs with him. He would hit her and yell if she refused what he was giving her stating that she was ungrateful and not the person he fell in love with. Eventually Jenny gave in and started using opiates. Before she knew it she need the drugs to function and reports that without them she get really sick. Andrew was the only that supplied drugs to her and often required her to have sex with him before she was allowed to get high.
One Saturday morning Jenny forgot her phone at home when going shopping. When she went home, she had more than 50 missed phone calls and infinite texts from Andrew. She immediately called him apologizing for having forgotten her phone but he was furious shouting. She told Andrew that she will make it up to him.
Andrew: “So you’ll make it up to me? Heh”
Jenny: “Yeah, I promise you. I’m really, really sorry.”
Andrew then slapped her and said “This is so you never fxxking forget again and isn’t anything like how much you hurt me.” He then grabbed her and they had sex. Afterwards all seemed to have calmed down. Jenny thought of how much her face hurt and how much Andrew should have felt hurt.
Ever since then Andrew has become increasingly demanding and finds any reason to punish Jenny hitting her, or embarrassing her in front of coworkers. Afterwards they always talk and Andrew tells her how much he loves her and how he wants her to himself and feels irritated when there are other people around her. Many times she thinks about how difficult Andrew can be but finds comfort in how much he loves her. She thinks “He loves me really so much, otherwise, with all the girls wanting him, why should he care?”
The intensity and frequency of Andrew’s anger has increased and so has the persistence and efforts of Jenny to appease him and to “make it up to him.” Until 3 weeks ago when she told Andrew that she is 2 months pregnant. Andrew starting shouting at her and asking whose baby that was, and used his belt to beat her up. She ran away from Andrew’s place and went back home. She had not told anyone at home about her violent relationship with Andrew and he presented as a good caring young adult. He convinced Jenny to return stating that he would be different and wanted to be a family, noting that a baby changes However, due to severity of her shouting 2 days ago, one of Andrew’s neighbors reported the couple to police for domestic violence. But, upon the arrival of the police both Andrew and Jenny denied any violence, and mentioned they just had a normal disagreement between couples.
The police could not take any further action but given that Jenny is pregnant they have referred the case to family and children services. The report from department of children and families notes that Jenny tested positive of opiates at the time of the investigation. As part of the current safety plan, Jenny was referred to you for a substance abuse assessment.
Use this information to answer the following questions
What are the red flags throughout this story of Jenny?
Do you see a pattern similar to the power and control cycle and if so describe what you see throughout Andrew and Jenny’s relationship?
What are possible risk factors involved for Jenny and unborn child?
Please provide a couple of questions you might ask Jenny during the assessment to determine the presence of domestic violence?
What might be your treatment recommendations based on the information provided in the report?
