Topic: This is how domestic abuse starts.

[Snail]

For those of you wondering what the fuck happened to me between the years of 2012 and 2015. I am now in a happy, healthy relationship living at the top of a Wood Street, but I wrote this for closure and in the hope it might help someone. Female or male. Or if you're worried about a friend. This is abuse, and it happens all the time.

This is how domestic abuse starts.

You meet someone, you hit it off immediately. He's charming, he's funny, he seems like he likes you for who you are. Maybe you're the sort of person who's been unlucky before; teenage relationships where they flirted with your mate, or he cheated on you with some girl he made friends with on MySpace (I'm fully aware of how old that makes me sound), he dumped you after you left for uni, all childish stuff but it hurt you, and that makes you more susceptible. I can say that with a limited degree of certainty, because I know it was the case for me. I met someone when I felt bad about myself, and he took advantage of me.

It starts with the texts, and the calls. You want to just watch the end of this Sopranos episode, it's your first time of watching the Sopranos and you're addicted, but you can't, you have to pause it because something deep inside you is telling you that if you don't reply to his text right now, there'll be trouble. Something deep inside you that you can't quite quantify, something you won't be able to identify until later down the line. Your mum tells you straight away that she thinks he's calling you too much. If you don't pick up straight away he'll keep trying again and again until you can't ignore it. He's into you, right? But your mum doesn't like him. You'll wish you'd listened to your mum.

Then, it starts with little chips away at your personality. When you're out, when you're at home, anywhere he thinks he can get away with it – which is pretty much anywhere. You're always wrong. You're always wrong, you're always coming across “too educated” when you try to argue against something he's said. Sometimes you feel like he's going out of his way to embarrass you in front of people, to make you feel small, but you do your best to put it to the back of your mind. He loves you, he says it so it must be true; why would he go out of his way to make you feel like that? So you let him carry on. Eventually it'll stop you disagreeing with him altogether. Funny, that.

During this time you're slowly being cut off from your friends, and your family. When you're watching Corrie with your mum you get a text from him saying that he's just seen you out in town talking to some lad. You get a sick feeling in your stomach. For the first time, you think that's a bit weird, but you don't say anything about it. You don't know why you don't say anything about it. But you don't say anything about it.

Your best mate tries for a while but you don't know what to say to her. She met him a handful of times at the start, but then it sort of petered out. You felt bad for letting her down when it came to nights out or just going to Starbucks together. She didn't know that you were letting her down because you felt like you had to. Eventually she stops messaging you.

On Christmas Day you and him go round your to your parents’, you all have quite a lot to drink, you think it's logical to just stay in your old bedroom and then go back to your flat in the morning. But no, he wants you to go back with him that night. You end up arguing with him in front of your mum. You end up leaving with him anyway. You'll never forget the look on your mum’s face when you did.

Then there's the lies. The lies he tells people, all the time, when you're right there and you know he's lying but you're too scared to confront him about it. You listen to him lie about everything: about why he got kicked out of the Royal Navy after three and a bit years, and yet somehow he was also in the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, and he “might” have killed someone but he “wouldn't talk about it”, and you watched these people lap it up. These people that didn't know him, down the pub or whatever, they lapped it up, because he was a good talker and he was charming – if you're honest with yourself, it was the fact he was a good talker and a charmer and you fell for it that got yourself in this position. You start to blame yourself.

He wants you to get pregnant. You continue to take your Pill in secret, because.

You're living together and that's when he asks you to get your wages paid into his account. You agree, for some reason. He portions out the money you've earned, as if it's your dad giving you pocket money, and asks for receipts for every single thing you've bought. When you're still working, he's unemployed, he's down the pub and he's spending your wages. Eventually you're too fucked to carry on going to work, so you give it up. You're on JSA and everything that entails and he's still taking every penny of it.

He knows the passwords to your email, your Facebook, everything by this point. He makes you delete your Twitter and demands random spot checks of your phone. It's about this point, 13 or so months in, when he starts throwing stuff at you when he's angry. It's a month or so later when you come back to the flat from a rare visit to your parents and find out that he's getting taken in for questioning relating to a rape that happened in the early hours of the morning.

You even go with him to the station, because they want to see your phone to corroborate what he's said.

But still you don't leave. You don't leave because there's vines and weeds and roots strangling the life out of you. There's this deep unrelenting lead in the pit of your stomach. And then there's the practicality of it all. Your flat has a front door, and then there's some steep stairs. You have nightmares about trying to leave and him pushing you down those stairs. Those nightmares are just nightmares, for a while.

One day, it's your birthday, and you two have what could almost be construed as an okay night out – considering he's not let you have a night out for quite a while now. But the moment you get back to the flat, the moment the front door is closed, you're pressed up against the wall with his hands around your neck. You're 5’10/11” and he's 5’9” but he's a military lad (or used to be) and there's not really much contest. He's pissed and he throws you to the floor and kicks you in the stomach five times.

No friends, no family.

You get the Police involved a few times. Once you fill out a domestic abuse questionnaire, but then you go back to him. Inexplicable, and the worst thing you ever did.

No sleep. He’ll wake you up for arguments at 5am because it amuses him. He'll drag you out of bed by your hair. He'll pull a knife on you, with the tip touching your chest, and then he'll make a pathetic cut in his forearm saying “if it's not me it’ll be you”. He snaps your DVDs in half. He smashes your phone. He throws your stuff down the stairs and breaks it, just because. He pretty much forces himself on you, and objectively speaking it might have been rape, but you're so scared of him, that you'll do anything to make him stop hurting you. If you're doing it to stop something worse happening, you guess that must be consent.

He often threatens to commit suicide when you have the balls to say it's not working. Look out for that one, folks. Fucking look out for that one.

One day when he's down the pub and he's given you a black eye, you leave everything behind; your laptop, what's left of your possessions, you go back to your parents but you still don't tell them everything that's happened. You just call the Police again, but you're too scared to press charges, too scared it won't work and he won't just harm you, he'll harm your parents.

He'll burn down their fucking house.

You just have to hope, and then somehow, eventually, you're the luckiest of lucky and he stops. There's threatening messages before you have to ring up your phone provider to change your number. Those stop, but the six months to a year of walking round your small town terrified that you'll see him, constant panic – they still happen.

Your relationship with your best friend won't be rebuilt for two years, when you're sat on her bed and you both break down sobbing.

“You” is me.

I heard through the grapevine that he's got a child now, and I'm almost certain he's doing the same thing to that child’s mother as we speak. If I'd pressed charges he wouldn't have got the chance, maybe, but I can't think about that anymore.

I'm the strongest girl I know, because I left him in December 2014 and two years later I'm a completely different person, living in the city I love. I was suicidal after it happened, and now I'm the happiest I've been since I was a teenager. I'm in love with a wonderful person and I've got the rest of my life ahead of me.

So that's how domestic abuse starts, and that's how it finishes.

So, trust me, you can get out.

I'll probably fuck off for another few months now, but I hope you're all well

[Jake]

I probably spend half my working week working with people in this position, it's horrible to see from the outside in, when someone is brainwashed into thinking what is happening to them is normal and is what a relationship is like. Glad you got out when you did Sian, it's an all too familiar story and it's so rare that people speak up or seek help, which is out there.

[Elmo!]

Thanks for posting this. Excellent post.

Not really got anything to add to it - you probably don't know me as a poster but I have wondered what had happened to you - I always enjoyed your posts. Glad to hear you are in a happy relationship now.

[Snail]

Thanks for posting this. Excellent post.

Not really got anything to add to it - you probably don't know me as a poster but I have wondered what had happened to you - I always enjoyed your posts. Glad to hear you are in a happy relationship now.

I've been thinking about how I've sort of abandoned this place but it's just been because my life has had a massive overhaul over the past couple of years, in a good way. I'm happy to say that writing all that didn't upset me, it just flowed out and felt cathartic. I know there's bad eggs out there, but thanks to my partner I also know that there are very good eggs. Wish I could help victims of this more though.

[El Denzel Pepito]

Seeing this made me feel a whole range of different emotions... We actually last shared a few messages back in 2014 about this, if you remember... just went through those again. Wish I could say more, but I'm happy to see you're in a place now where that's all in the past, wish you the best of luck xx

[Jake]

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/the-survivors-handbook/ is something which should be out there a lot more than it is. If people knew their rights and that there were ways and means to escape an abusive relationship then some would be able to leave sooner than they do.

[Snail]

Seeing this made me feel a whole range of different emotions... We actually last shared a few messages back in 2014 about this, if you remember... just went through those again. Wish I could say more, but I'm happy to see you're in a place now where that's all in the past, wish you the best of luck xx

I remember, but I had to delete them at my end because he also had my login for RAWK at the time and he could read them. He even posted pretending to be me in the relationship thread once, I think I deleted it after the fact, not sure. Thanks buddy xx

[Mr Dilkington]

Well done for putting this together.

I am glad you are in a happier place now - you truly deserve it.

 

[TravisBickle]

Thank you for this. My father died recently and although I loved him dearly, much of what you've outlined here mirrors my mother's experiences with him. I'll show this to her.

[Alan_X]

I'm glad you're in a better place Sian.

[Upinsmoke]

Good for you got out Sian and now in a happier place. It's funny isn't it on here like, you have no idea what people are going through most of the time.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

I'm glad you've come through this. I've seen this first hand. Not nice at all

YNWA

[B0151?]

That's horrific. Relieved to hear you're in a better place now.

[Crosby Nick]

Thanks for sharing Sian. As everyone has said, very glad you are now with someone else and in a much happier place. Good luck to you.

[thisyearisouryear]

More power to you! Glad that you are in a happier place now. Cheers!

[AndyMuller]

Very happy you are in a better place now Sian! Take care

Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk

[TepidT2O]

It's so good to hear you are happy now.

[RJ320]

Couldn't read all of that, made my blood boil. Hope you are happy with where you are now.

[End Product]

In tears after reading that. Happy to.see you are in a better place today.

[El Lobo]

I know we're only meant to use the word scum for that paper, but he seems like he fits the bill.

So glad to hear you're happy now 

[ggcc14]

That's a really sad story, incredible how scummy some people can be. Glad you've moved on and learnt such a valuable lesson early in life so you can make sure it never happens again and will be aware of the warning signs right from the get go.. if you are unlucky enough to be involved with such a gobshite again.

Did I read it right, he burnt down your f**king parents house? 

[Yiannis]

That was devastating, Sian. So happy you're in a great place now.

[So… Howard Philips]

That's a really sad story, incredible how scummy some people can be. Glad you've moved on and learnt such a valuable lesson early in life so you can make sure it never happens again and will be aware of the warning signs right from the get go.. if you are unlucky enough to be involved with such a gobshite again.

Did I read it right, he burnt down your f**king parents house? 

I think it was a a threat rather than actually burning the house down. Even so you do have to wonder about the pyschology of some people.

You walk around the streets and you don't know what you are standing next to. I find it staggering how much effort these characters spend controlling other peoples lives, rather than getting on with their own.

Probably because they are so flawed they haven't got the guts to live their own lives and are happier destroying someone else's.

[Haemoglobin]

Control freaks set off all kinds of alarm bells for me personally, in every walk of life. I've had to prise myself from a couple of situations in my time - not abusive as such, but I always just internally clock where this could end up going if it were allowed to spiral. If it isn't direct aggression, it's passive-aggression, and all of it ends in some sort of suffocating misery trap.

It has undoubtedly coloured my worldview when it comes to romantic relationships (or even with more attention-demanding or 'clingy' friends, who I just feel an urge to simply ignore for a while and stop answering their frequent calls until they cool it without me having to awkwardly raise it), and probably not for the better in all honesty; I feel quite claustrophobic with it all these days, like perhaps an over-developed sense of 'needing' to 'escape' into my own time & space.

As an outside observer, the common themes seem to be an unconscious adoption of a sort of dominance & submission dynamic - even if someone doesn't normally have that type of personality, over time they imperceptibly, incrementally change to assume one of those roles - and, of course, the exploitation of that higher mammalian mechanism where we cannot bear to leave a wounded creature to their suffering, to 'abandon' those in pain before our very eyes. It's hard-wired, and so insidiously toyed around with, whether consciously or otherwise. The soft keeps you coming back to the hard, the light to the dark.


Thanks for posting this, and I wish you all the best.

[Sir Harvest Fields]

I have a friend being beaten but she wont let me talk to him. It hurts to try to understand both physical and psychological pain she is in. If i take matters into my own hands it would make it worse for her. Fucking scumbag, he even has me over a barrel.

[Kenny's Jacket]

Great to hear that your life is going well. 

Sorry to see you're not posting much.

Tara am rwan. 

[sms1986]

It's great to hear that things are going well for you, good luck with everything .

[Mr Boat]

Thanks for posting...I do miss your Twitter account; you've caused plenty of laugh-out-loud in front of complete strangers moments.

[Alf]

Glad you've come out of this and hopefully it convinces others in an earlier stage of similar situations to end their relationships.

[Snail]

Thanks for all the kind words

[TepidT2O]

Thanks for all the kind words

We will now revert to taking the piss out of you for being Welsh etc.

[...]

Glad you're better now

[zero zero]

Firstly and most importantly, it's lovely to see you post again with good news. I hope someone out there reads what you've been through and takes action to save themselves. I'm so happy you're now in a relationship that brings out the best in both of you. Shit will happen. You'll get through it together. As it should be.

He pretty much forces himself on you, and objectively speaking it might have been rape, but you're so scared of him, that you'll do anything to make him stop hurting you. If you're doing it to stop something worse happening, you guess that must be consent.

Nothing objective about it, it absolutely is rape. The law was changed recently for situations like this when, for whatever reason, people are unable to say "No". I strongly suggest you seek professional counselling (if you haven't already). If you value the relationship you're in now, get help for what you've been subjected to, so it doesn't bite you both in the arse at some point down the line. I mean this in the most positive, loving way, okay?

Your mum tells you straight away that she thinks he's calling you too much.

Mothers are great, aren't they?

[McrRed]

Fucking brilliant post. Made up that you escaped, Sian.

[KillieRed]

Jesus, Sian, that was heartbreaking.

I heard a woman on 5Live a few weeks ago who described something similar. Just utter control from the wanker she was with, all kinds of blackmail too. She was voiced by an actress and had an fake name, because she was still scared of him. It makes you wonder what kind of abuse these abusers have had themselves, but it`s almost impossible to feel sorry for them after what they have dished out.

 I hope you can get your full life back the way it should be.

[John C]

It's nice to know you're in a good place now Sian and being a TAW regular is brill 
Good on you.

[gregorio]

It's brave to do this, even on an 'anonymous' website

I work with homeless people, many are victims of domestic abuse who had to hit rock bottom before they got help.

(These days we're seeing an increase in young gay people being abused by families and either getting kicked out or fleeing)

Thank you for raising the profile of this issue

[TepidT2O]

It's brave to do this, even on an 'anonymous' website

I work with homeless people, many are victims of domestic abuse who had to hit rock bottom before they got help.

(These days we're seeing an increase in young gay people being abused by families and either getting kicked out or fleeing)

Thank you for raising the profile of this issue

Yeah, it's incredibly brave.  But also happy that it's shared to help others and that there is a golden sky.

[kennedy81]

Good for you Sian, glad to hear things are going well for you.

[RedSince86]

Great to see you back.

Great post but also very heartbreaking.

Good to see you in a healthy relationship and living life to the full.