The Great and Powerful: When Control Becomes the Whole Relationship

What South Carolina's proposed Mica's Law can teach us about coercive control and why sometimes we have to stop looking at individual behaviors and see the system they create.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her companions eventually stand before something enormous.

A booming voice. An enormous floating head. Smoke. Fire. Authority.

Everything about the experience tells them where the power is.

Until Toto pulls back a curtain.

And suddenly, what seemed enormous looks very different.

There is something useful in that image when we talk about coercive control.

Not because every controlling person is secretly “the Wizard.” Real relationships are far more complicated than that.

But because coercive control can be extraordinarily difficult to understand when we look only at what is happening directly in front of us.

A text message doesn't necessarily look abusive.

Neither does asking where your partner has been.

An argument about money isn't abuse.

Jealousy isn't abuse.

Wanting reassurance isn't abuse.

Disagreeing about friendships isn't abuse.

Even behaving badly during a relationship does not automatically make someone abusive.

But sometimes we keep examining each interaction individually when what we really need to see is the machinery connecting them.

What happens when someone says no?

Who is allowed to make decisions?

What happens to relationships outside the couple?

Who controls access to money?

Is privacy permitted?

Can someone disagree without anticipating consequences?

Has one person's world gradually become smaller?

The individual behavior may not tell us the story.

The pattern might.

And that is the idea behind a growing conversation about coercive control.

Here in South Carolina, that conversation has entered the legislative arena through proposed legislation commonly referred to as Mica's Law.

Mica's Law and South Carolina's conversation about control

South Carolina Senate Bill 702 was introduced on January 13, 2026 by Senators Stephen Goldfinch and Larry Grooms and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The proposal would add coercive control to portions of South Carolina's domestic-violence law. As of September 2026, the bill remains proposed legislation rather than enacted South Carolina law.

Read S.702 through the South Carolina Legislature

The proposed legislation describes coercive control in terms of a pattern of behavior that, through its purpose or effect, unreasonably interferes with another person's free will and personal liberty.

That word: pattern, matters.

Because coercive control is not simply another name for having a terrible partner.

It isn't a synonym for narcissism.

It isn't every unhealthy relationship.

And it isn't defined by whether two people fight.

The relevant question is what repeated behaviors accomplish over time.

Sometimes you have to stop staring at the Big Head

Imagine evaluating a relationship one interaction at a time.

“He wanted to know where she was.”

That tells us very little.

Maybe that's ordinary communication between partners.

But add:

He expects continuous location sharing.

He becomes angry when location services are turned off.

She has learned that stopping somewhere unexpectedly will result in questioning.

She avoids spontaneous plans because explaining them afterward isn't worth the conflict.

She has begun thinking about how every ordinary decision will appear on the map.

Now we're examining something different.

The question isn't whether asking where your partner is constitutes abuse.

It doesn't.

The question becomes whether multiple behaviors are operating together in a way that progressively restricts another person's freedom.

That is the machinery behind the image.

And it's why coercive control can be missed when we're searching exclusively for dramatic incidents.

The Yellow Brick Road is built one brick at a time

Control does not necessarily begin with:

“You are no longer allowed to see your friends.”

It can be much quieter.

A partner dislikes one friend.

Seeing that friend produces an argument.

Eventually, mentioning the friend creates tension.

Plans require explanations.

The explanations are challenged.

Going out becomes exhausting.

So the person goes less often.

Eventually, they stop going.

Nobody technically said:

“You can't see them.”

But the relationship has still changed.

The same process can occur around money, clothing, work, family, sex, medical decisions, communication, transportation, social media, or privacy.

One brick can look insignificant.

A road is something different.

This is also where we need to be careful

The language surrounding psychological abuse has exploded online.

That has helped some people finally find words for experiences they couldn't previously explain.

It has also created a problem.

We have started turning difficult human behavior into diagnoses.

Someone lies: gaslighter.

Someone is selfish: narcissist.

Someone talks to other people about a conflict: smear campaign.

Someone's friends support them: flying monkeys.

Someone alternates between kindness and anger: Jekyll and Hyde.

That isn't good enough.

If we're going to talk seriously about psychological abuse, we need more precision than that.

A person can engage in abusive behavior without having Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Someone can have narcissistic traits without being coercively controlling.

A person can describe another person's behavior publicly without conducting a “smear campaign.”

Friends can support someone without becoming “flying monkeys.”

People can remember the same event differently without anyone gaslighting anyone.

Context, pattern, function, and impact matter.

That is what this series is going to examine.

We're going to Oz

Over the coming weeks, we're going to borrow something from The Wizard of Oz.

Not diagnoses.

Metaphors.

Because Oz gives us surprisingly useful ways to talk about perception, power, fear, relationships—and eventually recovery.

We'll talk about the Great and Powerful presentation: what happens when someone's public presence and private relational behavior appear dramatically different.

We'll eventually hear:

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

And use it to examine gaslighting, including what gaslighting actually is and the enormous number of things people now call gaslighting that aren't.

We'll meet the inevitable:

Flying Monkeys

But we'll separate a memorable survivor-community term from clinical concepts such as triangulation, alliance recruitment, social pressure, information gathering, and third-party involvement.

We'll examine the relationship experience sometimes described as:

Jekyll and Hyde

while being very clear that there is no psychiatric diagnosis called “Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome.”

We'll talk about reputational aggression and what is popularly described as a “smear campaign.” We'll examine how reputation, social relationships, and group dynamics can sometimes become part of psychologically controlling behavior and we'll distinguish established research from terminology that has become popular online.

We'll talk about isolation.

Financial control.

Monitoring.

DARVO.

Intermittent reinforcement.

Fear.

Self-doubt.

And why leaving isn't nearly as simple as asking:

“Why didn't you just go?”

But I don't want this series to end with the person who caused harm.

Because recovery shouldn't require making someone else the main character forever.

Eventually, we have to get home

Dorothy's companions spend much of their journey convinced that something essential is missing from them.

A brain.

A heart.

Courage.

Yet along the way, each repeatedly demonstrates the very capacity they believe they lack.

That's where I ultimately want this series to go.

Because prolonged psychological control can leave people questioning exactly those things.

Can I trust what I think?

We rebuild confidence in perception.

Can I trust what I feel?

We reconnect with emotional experience without allowing someone else to define it for us.

Can I trust myself to act?

We rebuild agency, boundaries, choice, and courage.

And finally:

What does it mean to feel at home in my own life again?

That's recovery.

Not defeating the Wizard.

Not spending the rest of your life trying to determine exactly what diagnosis somebody else had.

Not convincing every person in Oz that your version of events was correct.

Getting your own life back.

South Carolina's conversation about Mica's Law gives us an opportunity to talk seriously about coercive control.

So that's where we'll begin.

One brick at a time.

A Note About This Series

The Great and Powerful is an educational series examining coercive control, psychological abuse, and recovery. It discusses patterns of behavior rather than diagnosing individuals. Popular terminology will be identified as such when it differs from established clinical terminology, and abusive behavior should not by itself be interpreted as evidence that an individual has Narcissistic Personality Disorder or another psychiatric diagnosis.

The Wizard of Oz is used throughout the series as a literary metaphor for exploring perception, power, relationships, agency, and recovery.