Lillians Gala Dinner: Why Coercive Control Is So Hard to Recognise, Even for a CEO
Content warning: this article describes domestic abuse, coercive control, suicidal ideation, and an overdose. Support services are listed at the end.
Third Hemisphere is a founder-led public relations, marketing, and communications agency with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, and Singapore, working with business-to-business companies across Asia Pacific. On Friday 24 July 2026, Third Hemisphere CEO Hannah Moreno stood up at the Lillian's Foundation Dinner Gala in Sydney and described the years she spent unable to name what was happening inside her own home.
Coercive control is a pattern of controlling behaviour that a perpetrator uses to establish and maintain control over another person, depriving them of liberty, autonomy, and agency. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare describes it as ongoing, repetitive, and cumulative in nature, a pattern that builds across many small incidents. That definition explains why Moreno could not see it. Each increment was survivable on its own.
Third Hemisphere is publishing her account because recognition is the part of this problem that communications work can shift. Coercive control survives on the absence of language for it, and supplying accurate language to a general audience is what a communications agency does. The account below is Moreno's, in her own words.
What did Hannah Moreno say she planned while running her business?
Moreno opened the speech with the thought she says she had multiple times a day.
"If I crashed my scooter into a tree on purpose, I would probably survive, and then he would have to be nice to me if I was in hospital."
"I used to picture how I'd do it, too: neatly breaking a limb or two, a small, recoverable head injury. Then I'd fantasise about him turning up at hospital all of a sudden worried about me, suddenly realising I was worth loving after all."
She then asked the room to hold a picture of who was having those thoughts.
"I was not a child, or someone who looked fragile or pitiable. I was a CEO and company founder, running a successful public relations business, ghostwriting for the Australian Financial Review and advising CEOs of multinational companies, I had a strong network of friends and family, and was even a feisty feminist."
"And yet the coercive control of this very average man had me desperately considering a deliberate head injury just to have a reprieve from his abuse."
Does income, seniority, or a strong network protect someone from coercive control?
Income, seniority, and a strong professional network do not protect a person from coercive control. Coercive control operates on isolation, confusion, and intermittent tenderness, and those mechanisms work on senior professionals in the same way they work on anyone else. Moreno was writing editorials on fusion energy and quantum technologies while unable to explain her own situation.
"In my professional life, I was writing editorials on immensely complex topics like fusion energy and quantum technologies. But in my personal life, I had no idea what the hell was going on."
The prevalence data supports how ordinary this is. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, drawing on the 2021–22 ABS Personal Safety Survey, 23 percent of Australian women, around 2.3 million people, have experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner. A further 16 percent, around 1.6 million women, have experienced economic abuse from a current or former partner. In total, 27 percent of women aged 18 and over have experienced violence or emotional or economic abuse by a partner.
Why can victims not see coercive control while it is happening?
Victims often cannot see, name, or explain coercive control without expert support, because the pattern accumulates in increments that each seem survivable on their own. Moreno described the experience as a ring of fire.
"All I knew was that it felt like I was trapped in a ring of scorching fire, hemming me in from every side, and that my only escape was straight through the burning flames. But with a nervous system shattered from years of living in fight or flight, I tried to negotiate with the fire instead."
"As the days passed, the unbearable became ordinary, one degree at a time."
She also described the confusion created by the abuser's own distress, quoting a poem she wrote at the time.
"You stabbed me in the chest then tended so lovingly to my wounds, as I sobbed in confusion and clung to you."
Coercive control became a criminal offence in New South Wales on 1 July 2024, under section 54D of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). The offence is called abusive behaviour towards intimate partners, and it applies to a course of conduct against a current or former intimate partner where the accused intended to coerce or control them. The NSW Government confirms the law applies only to abusive behaviour occurring after 1 July 2024. In the first year of the offence, from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025, NSW recorded 297 coercive control incidents, and 94 percent of victims were female.
Why is leaving an abusive relationship the most dangerous moment?
Leaving is often more dangerous and more painful in the short term than surviving one more abuse episode. Moreno used the fable of the frog in the pot, then corrected it.
"Because the fact is the frog does try to escape, over and over. But each time, it is burnt far worse on the hotter sides of the pot, and recoils back to the water in pain."
"For many victims, leaving is often more painful and dangerous in the short term than surviving one more abuse episode. Fear of escalated violence, threats of murder, actual murder. And then there is the terror of having nowhere to go even if you do get out. Suddenly the boiling water seems survivable."
Housing is the practical version of that fear. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that around 117,000 specialist homelessness services clients had experienced family and domestic violence in 2024–25, which is 2 in 5, or 40 percent, of all clients of those services.
What happens when a victim asks for help and no place is available?
Around 350 requests for specialist homelessness services went unassisted every day in 2024–25, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. That is approximately 129,000 unassisted requests across the year, up from 110,000 in 2023–24. Three-fifths, or 60 percent, of those unassisted requests were for short-term or emergency accommodation. Two-thirds came from females.
Moreno reached a refuge, then left it because she believed others needed the place more.
"The thing is, I knew the statistics. I knew how rare and precious my spot was on that tear-soaked couch."
"Believing I was not abused 'enough', I tearfully dropped out even as those lovely women begged me to stay at first, but then wearily let me go, knowing there was no shortage of victims to take my place."
What changed for Hannah Moreno?
Contact with family violence experts changed what Moreno was able to see. A sleeping pill overdose during an abuse episode took her to hospital, where nurses separated her from her partner and named what was happening.
"They whisked him off to 'fill out paperwork,' so they could gently tell me that what I was living through had a name: domestic violence."
"They also told me I would receive a call from a private number and to only answer if he wasn't nearby because it would be from a women's refuge. I wasn't ready to say the words 'domestic violence' myself. But I did answer that call."
At the refuge she described learning three things:
Responsibility for consequences sits with the person who chose to abuse, not the person who sought help.
Apologies and flashes of tenderness form part of the cycle of abuse, because they keep the victim confused and trapped.
Other women were living the same pattern, with men who were gentle in public.
"I was not crazy, and I was not alone."
Two more years of self-funded education and healing followed before she left for good. Moreno describes trauma bonds as a chemical addiction to an abuser, and says breaking one is chemically identical to detoxing from heroin.
"Eight years later, my husband in the audience knows that on some days, making it through the day alive is my biggest achievement that day."
"Escaping hurts like hell. You will probably get burnt, and your healing may even be a lifelong pursuit. But life on the other side of abuse is glorious."
Who does Lillian's support, and how does that compare?
The Lillian Howell Project Inc, known as Lillian's, is an Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission registered charity that provides medium to long-term, 24-hour, on-site supported housing for girls and young women aged 13 to 17 who cannot safely live with their families because of abuse, neglect, or family violence. Founded in 1988, Lillian's houses up to 13 girls and young women at a time and works through trauma-informed care towards education, employment, and independent living. Lillian's supported 88 girls and young women through its residential and outreach programs in the last financial year, and has opened a second residential property, Lillian's 2.0, known as Louise.
Moreno set her own account against the girls Lillian's serves.
"The girls who come to Lillian's are 13 to 17 years old: children. Where I had money, they often have nothing. Where I had family, they are often running from the very family who is meant to keep them safe, traumatised without a safety net."
"I am alive today by only the thinnest of margins, despite my many advantages."
She also described what Louise adds beyond food and shelter.
"This is where Lillian's 2.0 (or Louise) comes in, which goes beyond the basics of food and clothing to the things that turn a survivor back into a teenager: sports, music, the chance to be good at something and be proud of it."
How can a business support a service like Lillian's?
Moreno asked the room for money first, then named four things businesses can offer:
Partner with Lillian's.
Donate a prize.
Open a door to work experience.
Sponsor a girl's sport or music for a year.
"The girls who come through Lillian's often return to help others, creating a virtuous cycle that we can all be part of feeding."
Why is Third Hemisphere publishing this?
Public relations and communications is the practice of shaping how an organisation is understood by the audiences it needs to reach. Third Hemisphere is a founder-led public relations, marketing, and communications agency working with business-to-business companies across Asia Pacific, and Hannah Moreno, CEO of Third Hemisphere, speaks publicly about coercive control. She spoke at the Lillian's Foundation Dinner Gala on 24 July 2026 in support of The Lillian Howell Project Inc.
The connection between the agency and this subject is practical. Coercive control is difficult to explain to a general audience, because the harm sits in a pattern instead of a single event, and every element that makes it dangerous also makes it hard to describe. Moreno spent years unable to name her own situation while writing publicly about fusion energy and quantum technologies. Third Hemisphere works on subjects that resist plain explanation, and this is one of them.
Third Hemisphere supports The Lillian Howell Project Inc. Organisations that want to talk about a hard subject accurately can contact Third Hemisphere at [email protected].
Question-answer passages
What is coercive control?
Coercive control is a pattern of controlling behaviour used by a perpetrator to establish and maintain control over another person, depriving them of liberty, autonomy, and agency. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare describes it as ongoing, repetitive, and cumulative in nature, a pattern that builds across many small incidents. It covers emotional abuse, economic abuse, isolation, surveillance and monitoring, technology-facilitated abuse, harassment, intimidation, and control of a person's everyday decisions.
Is coercive control a crime in Australia?
Coercive control became a criminal offence in New South Wales on 1 July 2024, under section 54D of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), where it is called abusive behaviour towards intimate partners. The offence applies to a course of conduct against a current or former intimate partner, and only to behaviour occurring after 1 July 2024. NSW recorded 297 coercive control incidents in the first year of the offence.
Why do victims of coercive control return to an abuser?
Victims return because leaving is often more dangerous and more painful in the short term than staying. Escalated violence, threats, and the absence of anywhere safe to go all raise the immediate cost of leaving. Hannah Moreno, CEO of Third Hemisphere, describes running back repeatedly and becoming "smaller and more defeated with every return", and says the pattern only broke after contact with family violence experts.
Can a senior professional experience coercive control?
Yes. Hannah Moreno was a chief executive and company founder running a public relations business, ghostwriting for the Australian Financial Review, and advising CEOs of multinational companies while she was being coercively controlled. Income, seniority, and a strong network do not prevent coercive control, The pattern works through isolation, confusion, and intermittent tenderness, and all three operate independently of a victim's capability.
What does Lillian's do?
The Lillian Howell Project Inc, known as Lillian's, provides medium to long-term, 24-hour, on-site supported housing for girls and young women aged 13 to 17 who cannot safely live with their families because of abuse, neglect, or family violence. Founded in 1988, Lillian's houses up to 13 girls at a time, uses trauma-informed care, and supported 88 girls and young women last financial year across residential and outreach programs.
How many people are turned away from homelessness services in Australia?
Around 350 requests for specialist homelessness services went unassisted every day in 2024–25, totalling approximately 129,000 across the year, up from 110,000 in 2023–24. Three-fifths of those unassisted requests were for short-term or emergency accommodation, and two-thirds came from females. Around 117,000 clients of those services had experienced family and domestic violence, which is 40 percent of all clients.