Appendix: Resources and Help · The Machinery of Compliance

The book has argued that the record is the counter-mechanism. The people who can help you build one, leave safely, or simply get through the next hour are the other half. This page does not list them. It tells you how to find them where you live, and what to ask for once you have. It is not a substitute for local advice. Take only what you can use today.

Two things about this page. It carries no telephone numbers, and it belongs to no country. Numbers change, and a number that has changed reaches you at the worst hour of your life and returns nothing; the directories named below are maintained by people whose whole work is keeping them current, which is not something a printed page can claim. And the machine this book describes runs everywhere, while the services that answer it are local — so what follows is the shape* of the help that exists and the name to ask for, rather than a list that would be right in five countries and wrong in the rest. Ask an advocate for the local version. There is almost always a local version.*

Read this first: reaching help safely

If the device or account you are reading this on may be monitored, do not use it to contact any of these services. Reach them instead from a device the other person cannot see or reach — a public library computer, a trusted friend’s phone, a workplace machine. Most organizations in this field assume their sites will be opened by someone who is being watched, and build for it: a visible quick-exit button that dumps the page instantly, and a warning that computer and phone use can be logged. If a site you reach has neither, that tells you something about how seriously it takes the risk you are taking. Browsing in a private or incognito window, and clearing history afterward, reduces but does not eliminate the trace — dedicated monitoring software sees past both. When in doubt, use a different device entirely. Treat this book the same way: a printed guide to leaving an abusive relationship, left where a controlling partner finds it, is itself a trace of your intent — keep it somewhere it will not be seen, or read it somewhere else.

Immediate danger and domestic abuse

If you are in immediate physical danger, call your country’s emergency number. Every country has one and you already know yours — which is why this page does not print it, or any other number.

For everything short of that, these directories find the service where you are. They are free, they are maintained, and between them they cover most of the world:

Find A Helpline (findahelpline.com) — crisis and abuse lines by country, filterable by what you need, including services for men and for LGBTQ+ survivors.
The NO MORE Global Directory (nomoredirectory.org) — built with the United Nations and the World Bank; domestic-violence helplines and shelters by country.
Hot Peach Pages (hotpeachpages.net) — abuse helplines and shelters in over 110 languages.
The WAVE network (wave-network.org) — national women’s helplines across 46 European countries.
Lila.help — a directory of gender-based-violence helplines by country.

What you are looking for, whatever it is called where you live, is a free, confidential domestic-violence or gender-based-violence helpline. Most countries have one. Many run day and night. Most will speak to you if you are not sure whether what is happening to you counts — and not being sure is the single most common reason people give for not calling, which is itself a product of the machinery this book describes.

A note on who this is for. The mechanism in this book is not gender-specific, and neither is the help. Services for male victims and for LGBTQ+ survivors exist in most countries with a developed sector, and the directories above list them; if the first service you reach is not the right one for you, ask it to refer you to the one that is. That referral is routine and costs nothing.

The single most useful step: an advocate

Almost everything else on this page is safer, and works better, when a domestic-violence advocate helps you sequence it. An advocate is free, confidential, and does this every day: they help you build a safety plan, time the financial and digital steps below so they do not tip anyone off, connect you to shelter, legal aid, and address-privacy programs — and, because they can later testify to what you told them and when, they become part of the record itself. The directories above are the door to one. If you do only one thing on this page, make it that call, from a safe device.

Mental health and crisis

Chapter 41 makes the point that some of what feels like character or fate is a treatable condition, and worth showing to someone qualified. That is a slower conversation. If the trouble is the next hour rather than the next year — if you are not safe with yourself — there are lines for exactly that, and you do not have to be in crisis to call them.

Find A Helpline (findahelpline.com) lists free, confidential mental-health and suicide-crisis lines by country, and is the fastest route to the one nearest you. Most countries have a national suicide or crisis line; a growing number have a short, memorable number for it that an advocate, a doctor, or the directory can tell you.

Two things worth knowing before you call. You do not have to be at the edge to use these services — “I am not coping” is a complete reason. And if what is happening to you is also being done to you by another person, say so: the crisis line and the domestic-violence service are different doors, and the people behind them will route you to the other one if that is the door you needed.

Digital safety, stalkerware, and surveillance

The book’s point that surveillance is often still live during separation applies here directly. These are the specialists.

Coalition Against Stalkerware (stopstalkerware.org) — how to detect hidden monitoring software, and, importantly, what not to do, since removing it can itself alert the person who installed it.
NNEDV Safety Net Project (techsafety.org) — practical guides on phones, accounts, location tracking, and tech-facilitated abuse, written for survivors and advocates.
EFF Surveillance Self-Defense (ssd.eff.org) — step-by-step guides to passwords, metadata, secure messaging, and building a personal security plan.
Access Now Digital Security Helpline (accessnow.org/help) — free 24/7 help for people at heightened risk, in ten languages, reachable at help@accessnow.org.

Tools that can help — from a safe device

Use any of these only from a device the other person has never had access to. Changing security settings or removing monitoring can itself alert them, so where you can, plan the timing with an advocate first.

Check for hidden trackers. If you suspect an AirTag or similar tracker, recent iPhones and Android phones now warn you automatically when an unknown tracker is moving with you over time; AirGuard (airguard.seemoo.de), a free open-source app for both, scans across brands. The alerts depend on a tracker being separated from its owner, so they catch a great deal but not everything.
Log incidents securely. Bright Sky, a free app from Hestia and the Vodafone Foundation, offers a disguised, secure incident journal and a directory of local services — a safer place to keep a record than the notes app on a phone someone else can pick up.
Lock down your accounts. On iPhone, Safety Check (Settings → Privacy & Security → Safety Check), built with domestic-violence organizations, lets you review and instantly revoke who can see your location, messages, and accounts, with a one-tap exit. Google Security Checkup (myaccount.google.com/security-checkup) shows which devices are signed in. Turn on two-factor authentication, review location sharing, and untangle shared or “family” accounts — all from a safe device, and aware that revoking access can be noticed.
Reduce what can be found about you. People-search and data-broker sites are where a stalker buys an address. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse keeps a free directory of brokers and their opt-out links (privacyrights.org/data-brokers); low-cost services can automate the work. Listings repopulate, so treat it as maintenance, not a one-time fix.
Get a tailored plan. Consumer Reports’ free Security Planner (securityplanner.consumerreports.org) turns a few questions into a personal checklist; Lila.help lists gender-based-violence helplines by country.
On stalkerware, do not rush to remove it. Deleting suspected monitoring software can alert the person who installed it and destroys the evidence of it. Preserve it, keep anything sensitive on a separate safe device, and get specialist help — the Coalition Against Stalkerware and the organizations above can guide you through it safely.

Communicating safely

Use an encrypted channel for anything sensitive. Signal (signal.org) is free, encrypted by default, and lets messages disappear on a timer; use it to coordinate with trusted people, an advocate, or a lawyer.
Open a separate email with a name that does not identify you, not linked to your old accounts, for advocates, lawyers, housing, and new services.
The caveat that outweighs the rest: none of this protects you on a monitored or shared device. Encryption is worthless if the other person can see your screen through stalkerware or a shared account, so use a clean device and new accounts for anything that matters. Be aware, too, that ordinary chat apps are not safe channels — Instagram, for one, removed its encrypted-message option in 2026.

Keeping your address and identity private

The remedies here exist in some form in many countries under many different names. Ask an advocate which of them your country has; these are the things to ask for.

A substitute legal address. Some countries and states run a scheme giving survivors a legal address that agencies and courts must accept in place of the real one, keeping the real one off public records. Where it exists it is usually free and enrolled through an advocate. Ask whether there is an address-confidentiality or protected-address scheme where you live.
Address confidentiality in court papers. Even where no such scheme exists, many systems let you ask, when applying for a protection order, that your address be withheld from the person you are applying against — and that the hearing be held in private. It is often a specific form or a box on one, and it is easy to miss. Ask before you file, not after.
Anonymity on public registers. Electoral rolls, company registers, and land records are the ordinary places an address leaks. Some countries let a person at risk register anonymously or apply to have their entry suppressed. Ask which registers you appear on and what each one offers.
Post and mail forwarding. Redirection can expose a new address, precisely because it tells anyone who asks that you have moved and where. Where a confidential or sensitive redirection service exists, ask for it by name, and ask whether it can be arranged by phone rather than through a form the other person could intercept.
See what is already exposed — from a safe device, and only about yourself. Check haveibeenpwned.com for accounts caught in breaches, then change those passwords and turn on two-factor authentication; search your own name on people-search sites and use their opt-outs; and use search engines’ own removal tools to request that your contact details be taken out of results. Do this only on yourself — searching the other person can escalate the risk.

Financial safety and independence

Chapter 8 describes how money becomes a leash. Loosening it is slow work, and best timed with a safety plan, because new accounts, withdrawals, and freezes can generate mail or alerts.

Build a foothold of your own. A sole account at a bank the other person has no relationship with; a small cash reserve kept with someone you trust; credit in your own name, built gradually. Remember that a joint account is almost everywhere jointly and severally owned — either of you can empty it, and each of you is liable for all of it.
Debt taken out in your name under coercion is not simply your debt. The law calls it different things in different places — fraud, identity theft, duress, undue influence — but the principle that a signature extracted by coercion is not a free one is close to universal. It can be challenged. Say the word coerced to whoever you ask, because the alternative framing is that you agreed.
Slow down new credit opened in your name. Most developed credit systems offer some way to make it harder to borrow against your identity: a freeze, a lock, a protective registration, a verification flag. They differ in name, cost, and strength, and some are free. Ask your country’s credit bureaus what they offer a person at risk — there is usually something, and it is usually underused.
Specialist help exists. Economic abuse is a recognized field with its own organizations, curricula, and, in some countries, dedicated advice lines. Ask an advocate whether your country has an economic-abuse specialist service. If it does not, a general domestic-violence advocate will still know the local banking and benefits routes, which is most of what you need.

Whistleblowers and institutional wrongdoing

Government Accountability Project (whistleblower.org) — the disclosure and protection guidance this book cites in Chapter 49, with specialist programs for national-security, corporate, and environmental whistleblowers. Their central message matches this book’s: get legal advice before you disclose, not after.

Legal help and coercive control

Find the specialists, not just a lawyer. Most countries with a developed sector have legal charities or clinics that work specifically on violence against women and girls, or on domestic abuse — and they are usually far more use than a general practitioner, because they have run these cases before and know how they fail. Many countries also have a state-funded legal aid body with an advice line. A domestic-violence advocate will know which exist where you are; that is one of the things advocates are for.
A note on the law, and how fast it is moving. Coercive or controlling behaviour is treated very differently from place to place. Some countries have criminalized the pattern itself, as an offence distinct from any single assault. Some recognize controlling and coercive behaviour within a civil definition of domestic violence, as a ground for a protection order. Some cover harassment by electronic communication, and some can compel a service provider to reveal who is behind anonymous online abuse. Some treat image-based abuse, including altered images, as a separate crime. And many places still have no standalone offence at all. What counts as evidence, what protection orders exist, and what you can safely do vary sharply by country and by state, and they are changing quickly enough that anything printed here would be out of date before you read it. The record you build is useful everywhere; how it is used depends entirely on local advice. Speak to a domestic-violence advocate or a lawyer in your own jurisdiction before acting.

If your immigration status is tied to the abuser

If you fear that leaving means losing your right to remain in the country, this is the section to take to a specialist rather than act on alone. It is sharply country-specific, it changes often, and getting it wrong is expensive in a way almost nothing else here is.

The one thing worth carrying out of this page is that the leverage may be weaker than you have been told. A partner who controls your immigration status has every reason to tell you that your right to remain depends entirely on him, and in a number of countries that is simply not true. Routes exist — under different names, with different conditions — that let a person who has been abused apply for status independently of the person abusing them, sometimes without that person’s knowledge or consent, and some systems bar the authorities from deciding such a case on the abuser’s word or from disclosing that an application was made. Other countries offer short-term leave and access to public funds while status is regularized. Others again have thin provision or none.

So the question to ask a specialist is a precise one: is there a route for me to apply on my own, without his cooperation and without his knowledge? Ask an accredited immigration adviser or a nonprofit that does this work — not a general lawyer, and not the internet, because these rules are tightened and loosened by policy more often than by legislation, and last year’s answer is routinely wrong. A domestic-violence advocate can usually refer you to one.

Recovery and rebuilding

The record is the instrument; it was never the point. The point is the life afterward, and that has its own resources.

Trauma-informed therapy helps name what happened — the complex-PTSD framing of Chapter 1 is a starting vocabulary, not a verdict on you.
Peer and survivor communities counter the isolation the whole mechanism was built to create. Chayn’s free, anonymous Bloom courses (chayn.co) are one online starting point; local domestic-violence organizations run survivor groups.
Recovery is not linear, and it does not wait for the record to be “finished.” As Chapter 49 closes: the reconstruction does its first work the moment it lets you believe your own account again.

Phone numbers, URLs, and the law change. Every detail here was current at the time of writing, but verify the number and the organization yourself, locally, before you rely on it.