Surviving the (Romantic) Suspense #4: Home Defense

As a romantic suspense author, I spend a lot of time writing about ladies in peril. And by that token, I have to get them back out of it. So I'm going to use one day a week to talk about self defense and protecting yourself in various ways.


When it comes to protecting yourself (and your shtuff) at home, the idea is to make it more of a hassle than it's worth for somebody to break in. This means you don't want to get an alarm system and then say, "Hokay, done!" You want to have multiple layers of defense in place so that anyone looking to break in has to put in that much more effort and take that much more time - therefore giving them more opportunities to get caught.

A security system is a good idea. At minimum, a sign from a security company can act as a possible deterrent.  Good locks are unfortunately not particularly useful; someone looking to get in your house is more than likely just going to break a window and either climb in or reach around to unlock your door. Good windows are very useful; hard to break windows are fantastic, and using the right kind of curtains is more important than you think. Don't give someone the opportunity to walk right up to your house and stare inside. Hang thick, opaque curtains.

Consider a dog. Just having the threat of something annoyingly yappy can help, as can the warning that barking will provide. Noise of other kinds can help too - if you leave on the TV or radio, it creates ambient noise that makes the house feel less empty.

Of course, none of these methods are foolproof, but then that's the point. If one particular method of home security worked, nobody would use anything else. The idea is to make your house seem like a difficult, unappealing target. Operate on the more is more principle. Whatever you choose to do, do a lot of it. Make your house such a pain in the butt that nobody can even be bothered to attempt to wade through the thorny bushes and storm the gate.

Surviving the (Romantic) Suspense #3: The Freeze

As a romantic suspense author, I spend a lot of time writing about ladies in peril. And by that token, I have to get them back out of it. So I'm going to use one day a week to talk about self defense and protecting yourself in various ways.

When you are attacked, you will freeze.

This is true no matter your level of skill or experience. If somebody attacks you when you weren't expecting it, your brain will stop for a moment and struggle to figure out what's going on. It's called the OODA loop:

Observe
Orient
Decide
Act

You can get stuck on any one of these, but many people who are completely inexperienced with combat freeze up on Observe or Orient. Remember, your brain isn't working the way it usually does when you're attacked. It's very easy to seize up on "There is a person hitting me" or "Why is this person hitting me?"

Professionals are able to train themselves to go directly from Observe to Act. They see a punch coming at them, and that's their "go" button (something we'll talk about later). But unless you plan on becoming a violence professional of some kind (and unfortunately, even then, it's not an exact science - police officers and martial arts experts who have only ever trained, and never experienced real violence, often freeze up too in a real scenario) the best thing you can do is to be aware that the freeze exists.

Why does that help? Well, most people don't even realize that this will happen to them. That means that they don't have the opportunity to remind themselves, "I'm frozen. I need to act. I need to do something." Don't underestimate how helpful doing anything can be in a fight, particularly against someone who has perceived you as easy prey. Many criminals will back down if you show that you're willing to put up any fight at all. So repeat it to yourself and save it somewhere in the back of your mind: You will freeze. Break the freeze. Do something.

Surviving the (Romantic) Suspense #2: Why you never want to defend yourself

As a romantic suspense author, I spend a lot of time writing about ladies in peril. And by that token, I have to get them back out of it. So I'm going to use one day a week to talk about self defense and protecting yourself in various ways.

You never want to need to defend yourself.

If you're ever at the point where you actually need to fight an attacker, you are working at a severe disadvantage. Your opponent has a plan - you don't. Your opponent has the advantage of surprise - you're working several steps behind them. Your opponent has probably struck first and may have weapons, and even if for some reason you were carrying a weapon, it's unlikely you'll have the time to get it out.

There are a lot of self-defense classes out there that offer training in mostly martial arts. While I'm not saying these are a bad idea, they're a lot more useful in terms of cardiovascular fitness than they will be to you should you ever be attacked.

A class situation, operating under rules and limits, is completely different than an attack that takes you by surprise. And your own capabilities are different during this kind of fight - your adrenaline will kick up past the point where it's useful, you'll probably develop hyperfocus, and you won't be able to think with the same logic that you normally use. The chemical cocktail that affects you during a fight will make each person act slightly differently under its influence. Some common side affects include loss of peripheral vision, degradation of fine motor skills, and an obsession with irrelevant thoughts.

The only way to reliably overcome these disadvantages is through training (and even then, there's no magic bullet, so to speak). Presumably you aren't getting training for special ops, or you wouldn't be reading this blog right now, you'd be out there throwing boats around and ripping trees up from the ground. That means that your best bet is to avoid situations where you have to defend yourself.

If a situation looks strange to you, leave. Don't worry about hurting people's feelings or acting odd - have you ever heard stories about soldiers who come home and hit the deck when loud noises go off, like books dropping off a desk? They've learned the hard way that it's better to be safe than sorry. Follow that example, not often nonsensical social rules. Trust your instincts.

Surviving the (Romantic) Suspense

As a romantic suspense author, I spend a lot of time writing about ladies in peril. And by that token, I have to get them back out of it. So I'm going to use one day a week to talk about self defense and protecting yourself in various ways. Hopefully it will be useful; possibly it will even be amusing!

This week I'm going to highlight something pretty basic (read: boring) but very useful. Did you know that if you need the police but you're not in the middle of an emergency, there's other numbers you can call? This is important because it clears up traffic and backlog times for people who actually are experiencing emergencies.

311 is a non-emergency city services number that a lot of cities in the US and Canada have available. In addition, every city and town has their own particular non-emergency line that you can find using their website.

The rest of these you have to find for your individual city or town:
Anonymous Tip Line
Anonymous Text Tip Line
Child Abuse Hotline
Hate Crimes Hotline
Corruption Hotline
Crime Solvers Hotline

My favorite is the Crime Solvers Hotline. Sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? Like you'll call up and turn into Encyclopedia Brown or something.

Make no mistake, this is serious business.