I was just 10 years old when I stopped talking to my dad. The year was 2012, and we had just learned that my sister was pregnant at the tender age of 16. My father’s reaction was explosive – he kicked my sister out and turned his rage on my mother, beating her. This wasn’t the first time he’d resorted to violence, but something within me snapped. My once happy childhood, filled with caravan holidays and carefree street play with friends, turned bitter.
I wish I could tell you that things got better – that bridges were mended, apologies were offered, and forgiveness flowed. But the reality is that I’m 21 now, and I haven’t had a genuine relationship with my mum in over three years, all because of the impact of my father’s abuse and the PTSD it has left me with.
In the weeks following my sister’s pregnancy announcement, I spent countless hours visiting her in emergency temporary accommodation. My mother, desperate to protect me, lied to my dad about my whereabouts, often claiming I was at the park with friends. Whenever my dad questioned my absence, I’d ignore him. If he persisted, I’d lash out with swear words or shouts, provoking him to chase me to my room. The door was always locked from the outside – a chilling symbol of my fear and powerlessness.
Looking back, it’s reasonable to wonder where social services were during this time. Unfortunately, this was during the early 2010s, an era of austerity and budget cuts. I lost my social worker, assigned after my sister’s pregnancy and my dad’s outburst, because they needed criminal convictions to maintain oversight. With no monitoring, I felt utterly alone and helpless. My door was locked more frequently, and I dreaded going home.
Over the next three years, my mother attempted to leave my father several times, and I found myself couch surfing, only to always be pulled back to that locked bedroom door. The instability of our home life led to anxiety attacks, some so severe they caused me to pass out in school. I was constantly on edge, terrified of what awaited me at home. Bulimia and sleepless nights became my unwelcome companions.
Domestic violence wasn’t an alien concept to my mother. Her day job involved supporting victims. I even remember talking to her the day after England lost a World Cup match in 2010 – research shows that domestic abuse reports increase by 38% after such losses – and she was exhausted. Her work was demanding. Part of me admired her strength, her dedication to helping survivors while hiding her own suffering. Yet, the other part of me couldn’t forgive her. I saw her as enabling my dad’s behavior. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t just leave; in my eyes, she was complicit in his abuse.
Sometimes, my parents would go on vacation together, leaving me alone at home. Other times, our family would gather for Christmas, birthdays, or weddings. I would either isolate myself in my room or simply leave for days, crashing on whatever couch I could find. During this time, I resented my mother more than my father. I knew he was a bad person, but my mother wasn’t – so why was she allowing this to continue?
Now, I know that things are never as black and white as they seem. Escaping a domestic abuser is a complex and challenging task. If any of my father’s arrests – he had several throughout the years for domestic violence, pub brawls, and even once for kidnapping my sister – had resulted in convictions, our story might have been different. But there were no charges. We were all too terrified to give statements to the police, and they were too under-resourced to investigate.
Finally, when I was 14, my mother found the strength to leave my father. He had threatened to murder me with a knife and a rock, our neighbours looking on, and the police advised my mother that social services would get involved. Unwilling to lose her children, she took the difficult step to leave.
We were prioritized for social housing and moved to a new-build home a few towns over. For the first time in years, I felt safe going home. I slept soundly, experienced fewer anxiety attacks, spent more time with friends, and my bulimia symptoms eased. Relief washed over me. It felt like my nightmare was finally ending, like I could finally close this painful chapter of my life.
I thought maybe I could have a normal life, be a carefree teenager. Sadly, I was wrong.
A few months after our move, my father, in a fit of rage, broke into our new home. He believed my mother had a new partner and vented his anger by punching holes in the walls, leaving them smeared with blood. I was at work during the incident, but when I returned home, I hyperventilated in my room and passed out.
I woke hours later, my heart still racing. My safe haven had become another place I felt anxious to return to.
A couple of weeks later, my mother moved back in with my father. I felt defeated, utterly crushed. I argued with my mother, convinced she had resigned herself to a life trapped with my father. I told her that if she went back, I wouldn’t follow, and I stuck to my word.
For the next three years, I mostly lived alone in the house my mother had secured for us. I was 15. While my mother covered the essentials, I contributed to groceries and bills by working. I never took a weekend off – I was afraid everything would collapse and needed a backup plan.
It wasn’t until I turned 18 and left for university that I finally felt free. I made a decision: I wouldn’t let my life continue in this cycle of fear. I knew that speaking to my mother would mean I couldn’t truly escape, as she was unable to leave my father.
Since starting university, I haven’t seen my mother or had any real interaction with her beyond a few words on WhatsApp. I stay in touch with the rest of my family – siblings, grandparents, aunts, and uncles – but not as frequently as I’d like. They still mostly speak to my father.
I know it’s not easy, there’s constant turmoil and fallout, but I avoid asking about the details. I’m still trying to move on. And when I have, on rare occasions, responded to one of my mother’s messages asking how I am, all the pain and trauma rush back. Anxiety attacks, bulimia, sleep paralysis, and overwhelming depression – it all resurfaces.
In 2023, during my first NHS therapy session, I told my therapist about everything. He asked me to fill out a questionnaire, which turned out to be a clinical PTSD test. The cutoff score for PTSD was around 30; I scored 65. Suddenly, everything made sense. Those feelings of anxiety and fear that returned when I responded to my mother, the sleepless nights after seemingly innocuous conversations with my sister – it all clicked. I was unknowingly reliving those repressed moments of fear.
My therapist helped me develop coping mechanisms and referred me for EMDR therapy, which I’ve heard great things about.
It also helped me to accept that I made the right decision in leaving that life behind. I’ve learned to enjoy life. I can go out without fearing coming home. I can have silly conversations without constantly worrying about what could go wrong.
My grades have improved, and I have relative security through my work. No longer bound to an abuser, I hold the keys to my future. That is a profound relief.
Still, I worry about my mother. I fear that my father’s violence will one day take her life. I’m scared that I’ll never have a relationship with her again. But I’m even more terrified that, should we rebuild our connection, I’ll be pulled back to that scared child – desperate for help but cursed with the knowledge that nobody is coming to save me.
