I was a shell when I got there, says mum seeking refuge

CLASPING her screaming child tightly in her arms, Amanda begged for the torrent of threats to stop. Then, the man who has promised to care for her lunged at the bed and head-butted her.

“I was petrified,” she recalls. “He was drunk. He kept saying he was going to kill me, that I was worthless. I was trying to secretly ring the police under the pillow but he noticed my phone and smashed it. Eventually he dived on the bed and head-butted me.

“A neighbour rang the police.”

It would take her eight years to escape the cycle of abuse and run away with her children.

When she met Mark at the age of 12, nothing could have foretold his violent behaviour. And yet, in retrospect some of the early signs were plain to see, if you cared to notice.

During their on-and-off relationship in school, he cheated on her with a friend and once spat in her mouth as a joke. He got hold of a knife and pretended to jab it at her on one occasion. She was terrified but this was passed off a bit of harmless fun by their friends.

It is not until she gave birth to a daughter, from another partner, at the age of 18, that Mark reappeared in her life. Struggling with postnatal depression and abandoned by the father of her child she had reached the end of her tether when he began looking after her and the baby.

Soon he had moved in and claimed charge of every aspect of her life including her benefits, which he used to fund his drug and alcohol habit.

Grateful for his love and support, she pushed her doubts about the relationship aside.

“I was in a bad place, my daughter was four months old and I thought ‘My saviour is here; I’m going to have my perfect family’. He had always smoked cannabis and there were a lot of things he would be paranoid about but it was manageable at the time.

“Then he started getting a bit controlling. Even though he was relying on me completely for money he was trying to make all the decisions. He started deciding whether we could have visitors. It was the threats, the criticism, everything I did was always wrong. The manipulation started creeping in but I was trying to keep him happy and make excuses for him.”

When in a moment of fury, he grabbed hold of her ponytail dragging her to the kitchen floor, she knew something had irrevocably changed. A few days later, she suffered a miscarriage.

The violence gradually escalated.

The night he hit her on the head, accidentally swinging at her daughter in the process he was charged with common assault and banned from contacting Amanda for a year. But this did not stop him from reaching out to her, begging her to forgive him and promising to change. Within nine months she had taken him back.

“I took him back every time. He was always promising this amazing life.

“But it always started again. It was mostly back-handers and slaps. He used to try to bite the tip of my nose. I would cry and he would say to the children, ‘Look at mummy being silly and crying.”

She reported him to the police just three times during their eight-year relationship. She could handle the physical violence, she felt. It was the incessant criticism, name calling and denigration which truly destroyed any shred of self-esteem she possessed.

Mark’s relentless psychological abuse drove her to such despair that she found herself wishing for a beating if it meant being spared the vitriolic rants and insults.

“I would have taken a beating any day over the emotional abuse. It was worse than being hit. He just ran me in the ground. The lower I felt about myself, the more control he had over me and the more I needed him.”

When she agreed to give him another chance after a brief separation in 2009, he convinced her that having a child would save their relationship.

But his cruelty reached new lows during the pregnancy.

“He cheated and when he was drunk he kept saying it wasn’t his baby. One night when I was seven months he came home drunk. I was on the bed, he picked the bed up and tipped me off of it. I fell on the floor. He had this power over me. Even though I was petrified of him, it was even scarier to leave him.”

In 2013, after another alcohol-fuelled rage Mark left the house. Amanda stayed up all night dreading his return. When morning came and he still had not come back she saw a way out, woke up her children and ran to the closest children’s centre. There she was immediately put in touch with the Swindon Women’s Aid refuge.

That day, they moved into one of the refuge’s flats. Her daughter was seven and her son three years old. This would be their home until the following year.

“People have asked what was so different about that night. That night was a can of beer over the heard, he didn’t hit me. He had done worse. But I thought ‘Now is my chance. I got a bag ready for the kids and I left. I had got to the point where I had had enough.”

Slowly, Amanda regained a sense of self-worth and truly realised the extent of Mark’s violent behaviour. Although she had always known she was a victim of domestic violence she had never recognised the criticism, belittling and systematic put-downs as emotional abuse.

“I was a shell when I got there. I had a nervous breakdown. I nearly left at one point. I was thinking ‘What have I done? I’ve taken my children away. I can’t do this.’ I felt really guilty. But the refuge was amazing. I realised I was in an abusive relationship but I didn’t know how severely abused I had been emotionally. They helped me with my daughter. Her behaviour was horrific, she was resentful and angry. She didn’t know how to process it all. She was Mark’s princess, he adored her. We’re only just getting a relationship now.”

Amanda recently moved out of the refuge with her children and is preparing to go back to work.

“I would not say I’m healed yet but I’m a lot stronger. It’s hard because Mark still sees our son at the weekend and sometimes I let him get to me. But I’m making my own decisions now and I’m taking control of my life. I know I’m worth more.”

Swindon Women’s Aid provides support to all victims and survivors of domestic violence and abuse living in the town and surrounding areas. The charity’s helpline is available 24 hours on 01793 610610. For general enquiries, call 01793 864984, post a message at http://www.swindonwomensaid.org/contact email office@swindonwomensaid.org.