Jean recently attended our training and wanted to share her experiences of growing up with domestic abuse to help us understand ‘that home is a person – my mum – and not a place’.
I can’t remember how old I was when I first noticed my mum’s level of anxiety as it felt as if that was always just how she was … but what I do remember from mid-primary school age Is being very aware that my mum’s nerves were very much determined by my dad’s mood/behaviour.
My mum was and still is the best mum I could ever have wished for, and I feel very lucky to this day that she handled herself in her circumstances the way she did, and no matter what she consistently showed myself and my brother, who is one year older than me, love, care and that she was our safe place.
It was always the ‘norm’ in our house that my mum done everything for us, my dad and kept the house clean and tidy because my dad was always busy working … which meant sitting in his home office with the door shut.
When we would come home from school my mum was always so happy to see us and hear all about our day, she had all the time in the world for us and spent time doing our homework while making dinner – however, it was apparent she was on eggshells, she tried to hide it from us, by wrapping us in love. But the cracks showed. As soon as we got, what I would describe as normal children level of excited, my mum would get uptight and try to keep us more quiet, telling us all the time not to go to dads office door, not to make too much noise etc and we knew that if we didn’t listen dad would appear grumpy and angry and have a go at mum and us. Therefore as the years went on we would anticipate what mood we would be going home to after school. We knew from a young age it wasn’t mums fault, we knew it all came from dad and used to walk home discussing if mum would be ok or happy when we got home.
Throughout the years I witnessed my mum pull her body apart in the mirror following my dad’s remarks to her after a weekend for example saying ‘oh I can see you’ve ate more than you should have’ or ‘you have put on weight’. My mum thought this was out of ear shot as many parents do with things. But we seen and heard a lot more than she ever knew. This in turn over the years resulted in me having an eating disorder in my early teens, as the mum I looked at as perfect, never saw her body as ‘slim’ enough.
My dad dictated everything in our house, he would give us options for example where to go for dinner… But then tell us we were going to the place we hadn’t chosen. He didn’t want my mum to go back to work after having us, and stopped her working until I was 5 years old. He would constantly check up on my mum, if she was going out with her friends he would never stay home with us, my gran and papa watched us, because he would need to go out too.
There were so many things like this and what I remember the most is almost feeling my mum’s sadness even when she smiled at me.
My mum eventually left my dad when I was 15 years old…. And finally we all breathed a sigh of relief. We told mum we were happy she had done it and she was shocked because she had stayed all those years ‘for the kids’ when all her kids wanted was her to leave and be free of this sadness that had shadowed her personality.
We were able to tell her all of the things we had picked up on and were aware of through the years and she was heartbroken as she really believed she had protected us from it – which she had as all credit to her she brought up 2 children very well who completely adore her for the resilience and love she always shared – the importance of staying safe and together with her was all we needed.
When my mum left my dad things escalated as my dad could not handle the loss of control, and this showcased the deeper level of his need to control my mum. He lost the plot, he put my mum and 2 children out of our family home to stay at my grans as refused to leave the house, because of ‘image’, when telling my mum that we were to be the ones to leave didn’t make her stay this time, he went on to change all of the locks overnight, hid all car keys from my mum, put all of mine and mums clothes in to black bags and phoned her relentlessly with threats. He told her he was taking all our belongings to the dump if she didn’t go round and see him. When we went to collect our things the bags were in the car ready to go and he threatened to run me over, and my mum was scared he actually would because of how erratic he was behaving. We also witnessed on these times mild violence and threats of violence to my mum, but also on occasion to myself and my brother because we were sticking with my mum. Which made me wonder how bad my mum really had been suffering.
He tried to tell my brother and I, and then his family and anyone else who would listen that my mum was having an affair as there was no way she would rather be on her own. All the while people were approaching my mum confessing of flings/affairs my dad had had over the years all the controlling her every move. He moved money and hid a lot, leaving my mum with nothing for herself or us to start again with… he tried everything possible to make her believe she couldn’t leave because she needed him. And when then didn’t work, which is all thanks to us having my grans to go to, he then turned to suicide threats. Telling her that it would all be her fault.
I am so glad my mum had a strong support network who had watched the damage he had caused her over the years and helped her to stay strong and move forward and not go backwards. Having my grans house to go to also gave us a safe and secure place to live while things were getting sorted out. I think that because we were familiar and comfortable in my grans and had my mum there, it made the whole upset of the situation actually less upsetting. We eventually moved in to a 2 bedroom flat, my mum, brother and I – a massive change to the large 5 bedroom house with a lovely garden we were used to. But it was some of the happiest years I remember being in the flat, it was clear that our ‘home’ was a person, my mum, not a place.