Annex A : Post-Separation Illusory Freedom, the Hostage Heart, and the Misassigned War in Coercive Control

This Annex supplements The Ambience Violence Indicator (AVI) Version 4 and the Invisible Statute of Limitation (ISL) framework without altering their substantive text. It provides doctrinal clarification of a late-stage coercive control phenomenon in which physical separation or apparent freedom coexists with continued psychological captivity.

The Annex formalises how survivors may remain engaged in an internalised struggle after exit, not due to ambivalence or consent, but due to a misassignment of the fight itself — where truth, intimacy, and self-liberation are unconsciously treated as threats while the concealed coercive architecture remains unchallenged.

This Annex is intended for courts, legal practitioners, policymakers, and researchers interpreting post-separation behaviour, relapse, resistance to peace, and apparent rejection of intimacy.