Liberate thyself

Shattered shards still can shine…

Survivors of abuse can certainly confirm this. Or at least I can.

This is my story, and I’m sharing it with you in the hope of helping others who may have suffered through similar things. Those who have suffered, or may still be suffering, or may know of someone who is.

This post speaks of bereavement, of gaslighting, drug and alcohol abuse, fragmentation of families, sexual assault, self harm, suicide, domestic violence, loss, mental health, survival, courage and hope.

I want anyone reading this to feel reassured to the extent at least of knowing that they are not alone, there is hope, and anyone can achieve even the most challenging of feats and colossal of fears.

It’s a long post, so grab a brew and feel free to have a cig break in between of course! If you want to read it, I’m happy to know this, but of course, take your time.

It’s been a good few years since I last embraced the magic of a pen, uniting it with blank paper to create words which articulate. Writing was an outlet I cherished, it served as a hand with which my turbulent mind could grasp a hold of, with a tight grip, the hand of the written word could guide me out of the chaos, and into a lighter realm of peace and, at the very least, greater tolerance with which to brave the elements of life.

Some might argue that it is a miscalculation to turn to blaming those variables of a external world, in order to explain and make sense of why things happened, and why the writing, for example, stopped abruptly, when the author was regrettably silenced. I never thought I could be silenced. No matter how ruthless and loud the force behind such a possibility.

Then I was proven wrong. At least for a while. Life suddenly stunned me with its totally shocking array of horrible experiences on offer, as if ordered all at once on some kind of obscene and malevolent menu.

What once had just been a period of ‘normal’ traumatic interruptions, the type which life generally has to offer us all, over a span of a lifetime, had abruptly changed in an unwanted twist of fortune. It’s normal for life to have its ups and downs. Most of us can totally relate to this, and identify with the collective highs and lows all we humans tend to have to deal with as we live. Life is a victory as well as a war.

Of course, things are never truly so straightforward. It was from 2017 for me (up until present day), that trauma began to swirl like a hot spiral soup into my life’s personal recipe, so close together in terms of the spangled measures of time which separated one year from the other. Within 5 years, i reflected that I’d actually probably endured more arduous shit across that time, than many people might experience in a lifetime. And that’s without wanting to make assumptions about my own experiences of what defines ‘trauma’ as being comparable to any other person’s. Who am I to say, after all, right?

But despite acknowledging this, alongside the constant reminder that ‘there are always those worse off in the world’ (this doesn’t help, it only makes me more sad, scared and angry), I still can’t shake the strong feeling in my gut, telling me that the stuff I’ve gone through has been very much on the harsher side of so called ‘fortune’.

After enduring several experiences of sexual assault and rape, domestic abuse, the loss of my career, home, beloved Mother to Breast Cancer, falling victim to a partner who thought he could ‘cure’ my bereavement by having me take Crack Cocaine and Heroin, as anaesthesia for my darkest pain, falling pregnant to that partner, fleeing his captivity, getting sectioned under the Mental Health Act, until my baby was born, with whom I was ‘allowed’ two hours of skin to skin ‘bonding’ time with, my new precious miracle angel girl. I was so elated with her in my arms, that it felt like a million birthdays, kisses, parties, reunions and spiritual awakenings rolled into one, all at once and every second growing ever more euphoric and all encompassing.

The first ‘contact’ day I got to see my daughter again after she was born

Then, she was taken away by social services (as my mental illness had created the base of such a plan for) and placed into adoption, and I was escorted back onto the psychiatric ward, the very one of course where I’d lived out most my pregnancy and upon which I’d gone into Labour….

(Pause for breath)…

Following my discharge a month later from that psych ward after my baby was born, I appeared to suffer a reaction to this immeasurable pain, involving severe alcoholism and addiction, suicide attempts and self harm. I was sectioned again and again, nearly died several times through attempts on my life. I was eventually sent away to a long term ‘specialist personality disorder unit’ miles away from anywhere I’d ever called ‘home’. The experiences I had during that admission require a whole different article. In sum, they were ghastly.

18 months later, I was discharged and ended up being placed in a flat which was within a house of two other flats, the tenants of which were heavy crack cocaine and heroin users.

Any fellow suffering addict could be able to hazard a guess as to how long it took me to relapse. Especially given that I’d get knocks on my flat door from dealers trying to sell to me the shit that could do nothing but destroy me, and this happened constantly. If it wasn’t ‘buy this’, it was ‘give me that now or I’ll apply this bat to your head’.

In retrospect, I should have just gone for the bat to the head option. At least then that might have afforded me a few moments of unconscious but non-addictive ‘peace’.

It was through living in this wreck of a building, that I met a new partner, who I didn’t so much choose, rather had the choice forced upon me that I was now ‘his girlfriend’. Offering me substandard amphetamine in place of highly addictive Crack Cocaine, he accepted his designated assignment of my living room sofa, and for the first night, I didn’t mind his company too much.

He chatted for hours, which is not usually a pastime I am quick to dislike. I can’t usually shut the fuck up, either.

This chance union of souls evolved as the days dragged on, and I grew accustomed to his presence, despite the fact he wouldn’t even let me take a bath alone. He read my texts and used my food, bed, towels and pyjamas, and proclaimed himself to be some great ‘protector’ against the forces against me downstairs and beyond, who he seemed to genuinely believe I’d never fought a battle for myself successfully at all. It made life a little easier for a time, I suppose. Yet equally more complicated.

I spent the first months of this relationship wondering how I could get rid of him. Then, suddenly, my mind seemed to undergo some kind of discombobulating transformation whereby I began to see this new partner as some kind of ‘knight in shining armour’. As a person still stuck in the grooves of self destructive behaviours like self harm and suicidal ideation, ‘Daniel’ (let’s call him), made it his sole aim to perform the role of being my saviour and true love. He would ‘do anything for me’. I guess this was somewhat true, he did pick me up from the floor after I’d snapped a ligature i’d had tied around my neck, in an attempt to hang myself, from the bannister…He’s confiscated my sharp objects, climbed up on the roof to try get me to return to the lower levels of the building, after I’d found myself desperate to jump off.

He put me up in his place instead, and slept on the floor in the living room with me as we both drank to intoxication, and swallowed bombs of amphetamine obtained by the one and only drug dealer he insisted on ringing up every day.

I ended up paying for most of this drug debt the whole time.

Before long, he had me administering his medication daily for him, cleaning his home, submitting to his sexual demands and then driving him around the city, usually to his mother’s hostel, where he would visit her in order to sneak donated food into his possession.

Life was dreary, and it was mad, but by this stage in time, I’d gone through so much already that I could no longer recognise what ‘not ok’ was.

Mind games ensued.

‘You’re the love of my life, I want to marry you’, he’d say, alongside ‘I’ll never let anyone hurt you as long as you’re with me.’

‘If you were on your own you’d just fall back into old habits and probably die’

‘I’ll protect you’

‘You’re my world’

‘I’ve realised I need to treat you better and stop shouting at you, because I truly want to be with you.’

‘If you don’t make me mad, I won’t shout’

‘You were that pissed that I got angry and that’s why I threw plates at the TV and punched holes in the walls’

‘Say that again and I’ll knock you clean out’

‘Don’t let me get too mad, after a while I begin to take great pleasure in inflicting pain on others’

‘Trust me, you don’t know what I’m capable of’

‘I promise I’m going to change’

‘You like being strangled though, don’t you?’

‘You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me’

‘I’ll save you’

‘Are you psychotic? Take your meds now!’

‘You must have just had a flashback’

‘It was you hitting me, not me hitting you’

‘I only put you in a sleeper three times because you were wrestling me out of the door’

‘You make me so happy’

Any of these kind of statements sound familiar? Red flags as they’re rightly called.

Eventually, I was cut off from seeing all my friends and family, going out alone, having control over my own money, my own mind, my own choices, my own body.

It took me months to realise that something here was drastically, drastically wrong. I found myself spending hours scratching the insides of my ears out with sharp hair grips, ripping at my skin, moving around like a zombie, planning my suicide, staring up at the ceiling in the bedroom, depressed and desperate, wondering how the fuck I’d got here. I’d gone from an employed university graduate and lover of gardening, walks, writing, art and music, to a shell who simply lay idle in a void of sinking sand, stuck with all my belongings and my beloved dog inside his oppressive flat, tip toeing across uncarpeted concrete floors in order to simply move into the kitchen, to find more booze to numb the numbness with.

It was inside an ambulance en route to hospital one morning, following one of our ‘domestic incidents’, that I finally found some courage within myself to admit to the female paramedic: ‘I don’t know how to leave him. I am trapped, and I am suffering. I know this relationship is hurting me, but I have forgotten who I am, and how to live without him.’

She looked back into my eyes with compassion, and laid out the facts quite clearly, that if I really wanted to leave him, I could. There could be help available. I needed to hear this fact that deep down I already knew anyway. Despite this, I still ended up convincing doctors that I was not in an abusive situation, and felt ‘safe’ to go back. And he let me.

But it was this event, whereby I learned he had put me in ‘sleepers’ (strangling with pressure enough to deprive someone of consciousness for some time), and I knew that the reason his face and neck were covered in scratches, was because I’d been clawing at him as he coiled and pressed his hands against my neck. This was my true turning point, I think.

Subsequently, I began to challenge his behaviour and actions more frequently.

This absolutely increased his use of ‘gaslighting’ and coercive control, verbal and emotional abuse, technology monitoring.

It got to a point where I’d speedily march away from him several times a day when we had the sweet opportunity of walking my dog, and I publicly exclaimed: ‘F*** off, stop gaslighting me, stop controlling me, stop playing head games and grabbing me!’

And I shouted these words knowing I was in the safety of the public realm, so any retaliation on his part was far less likely due to the presence of witnesses.

(Pause for breath)

The bullshit continued for further weeks, until suddenly, after lying awake all night beside him in the bed, thinking desperately about what to do… I realised I was going to do it.

I was going to take the plunge, and leave. I knew I was destined for greater things, and I knew it was an absolute abomination to allow for my soul and personality to continue degrading day by day like this, for even a minute longer.

I reached out mentally, to ask of my late Mum, what would she say to me?

Her answer: ‘Ellie, get the f*** out of there NOW.’

For the sake of not turning this post into a short novel, and also because the process is still currently too raw and exhausting to explain, I’ll cut to the chase.

I got out. I reported some crimes, I reached out for help from my sources of support such as Domestic Abuse services like ‘DAP’. Sites like Women’s Aid have been a brilliant source of support for me. There are others too…

At first I felt distraught, confused, guilty and terrified. I was constantly missing my perpetrator, even despite the s*** and the hell. Paradoxically, I was hoping he was ok. I was scared I’d made some kind of massive mistake. Because this was real now.

I really was leaving, it was no longer just a thought or a plan, but an active reality.

One which could not be reversed even if my emotions tried tricking me into believing I had to try and undo.

Yet let me tell you now, it took just two days approximately for me to realise I’d done the right thing, and that even better, my whole self was still there, and returning, as suddenly, I started to think about my own needs and desires again, about my passions, aspirations, hobbies and mental headspace. Within days I was answering phone calls from friends again, rejoicing in the fact I could actually speak to them in full honesty, talk about anything I wanted to, disclose what had been happening to me. I began writing again, and singing again, sleeping better, and feeling relaxed. I won’t deny there were still ups and downs emotionally and physically, and I was still reliant on the alcohol I’d been using to cope. But I felt free, and I felt able to speak.

Two weeks on, and I’m feeling better than I have in years. I’m cheerful without the aid of substances again, I’m walking and sketching, talking and planning for a future I’d ceased to believe could ever again exist.

It’s now I can look back and truly recognise that what was going on really was abuse, of many forms. It certainly wasn’t just me ‘going mad’ or ‘imagining things’.

When your gut instinct tells you that something isn’t right, trust me, it probably isn’t.

Even if you can’t quite put your finger on it, if it feels wrong, if you feel trapped, if you lose sight of who you are and what YOU want…

Escape. It’s easier said than done. But once it’s done, I promise you, it will be the best terrifying thing you might ever do in your life. Save your life and reclaim it.

Let’s talk awareness about domestic abuse. You don’t deserve it, and you are not alone, I promise.

Only when we’re drowning do we understand how fierce our feet can kick.” ― Amanda Gorman

‘I’m the one that got away’

The one who got away– A song to affirm the freedom myself and anyone can find. A perfect lyrical match for the story I’m free to tell today, on Spotify- Hunter Hayes