Turning Pain into Purpose: Raising Awareness Through My Journey

I never thought I would be in a domestic abuse situation. But they are so clever with how they do it. First they love bomb you into thinking they are the perfect person. He mirrored me, telling me what I wanted to hear. Then once you are in love and completely committed to them (for me it began when I was pregnant with his child) they begin to show their true full selves. It began with small manipulation tactics, sneaking into my phone to read messages, controlling what I should say in texts, encouraging me to cut certain people out of my life as ‘they were no good for me’. Eventually you are walking on egg shells, just trying to keep them happy, to avoid them exploding into silly arguments over nothing.

He often threatened to leave, unless I did what he wanted; These threats were meant to scare me into submission. He was excessively jealous. He actually had a severe case of retroactive jealousy. He hated that I had a life before him and was constantly making comparisons. What he ultimately wanted was for me to stop coparenting and cut my ex out of my life completely so that he was the ‘only man in my life’. My kids were my priority and I would not be forced into anything that would affect them negatively. Coparenting without at least basic communication is not coparenting at all. There were many stressful months of pushing back (whilst pregnant – with a BP of 200/100), trying to compromise with a man who could not compromise. The conflict and abuse was so intense that it would cause me to hyperventilate. Even in the hospital when our daughter was still in Intensive Care (the nurses were so concerned that they reported him to child protective services). When she was just a couple months old – I came home from visiting her in hospital and all of his belongings were gone. He left because I stood my ground and refused to comply. It broke me at the time but ultimately, him leaving did my kids and I a huge favour. But it would get much worse before it would get better.

He tortured us for the following 9 months. I tried so hard to enable his ongoing relationship with our daughter, he visited her every day, but he constantly sought out conflict and was baiting during every visit. Basically every sign of coercive control was shown during this time. Malicious put-downs, gaslighting, name-calling, frequent criticisms, jealous accusations, violent threats to hurt people around me and himself, threatening to kidnap our daughter and that I would never see her again, compulsively messaging me (more than 300 messages per day), refusing to give our baby back after visits and then an actual attempt to take her. He was aggressive, stalked me, vandalised my house, vandalised my ex’s house, and had me and my kids in a state of fight or flight for almost a year. I had to call police to the house countless times. After 9 months of constant daily torture, I found myself a lawyer, stopped allowing him access to our daughter and had a restraining order put in place. This was not a decision I took lightly. But the moment I realised that our baby was in danger, that’s when I had to take action to stop the situation we were stuck in.

Rather than realising what he had done and take accountability, he took me to court multiple times to fight for custody, which anyone who has been in a court room will know is extremely stressful. Those two years following the break up were traumatic. Thankfully the courts could see the situation clearly. We dodged a massive bullet that day he left. It would have gotten worse.

He is still going around telling anyone who will listen that I am ‘crazy’, I was ‘hormonal and psycho’ and that I’m a terrible mum who wont let a ‘good man’ just see his child. I tell you another thing I have learned through all of this. Any man who constantly feels the need to tell you that he is a good man, isn’t.

Coercive control is torture and can escalate very quickly if things are not going their way. If you know of someone in an abusive situation, just let them know you believe them and that you can offer a safe space for them when needed. They will appreciate that more than anything. I know I did. I used to beat myself up for not seeing the red flags earlier. But he was very good at covering them up until I was in to deep. The mum guilt for bringing him into my children’s lives was real. 3.5 years later, I am kinder to myself and have done the hard work to heal. The kids and I have a calmness in our lives now that we wouldn’t have had if he was still present.

Awareness is the key to change and that’s why I share.