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I KNOW THERE is someone sitting at home at the moment in complete despair, living with their abuser. I know how scary it is to face the future alone and yet how scary it is to imagine living like this forever.
I know what it’s like to lie in bed stifling your sobs afraid to wake your abuser lying next to you. A little over a decade ago, I had a new baby, a teenage son and a career that had ended with the redundancy of my industry. The country was at the start of a major recession and austerity was decimating family incomes.
I was also in a highly abusive marriage that had ripped my confidence apart and left me as a shadow of my former self. At a time when I needed all my strength, I was at my lowest and believed I couldn’t survive without my abuser.
Abuse, in different forms
I was physically abused on numerous occasions, but the emotional, verbal and financial abuses were much more soul-destroying. At least when he left me bruised, I had concrete proof that it had actually happened and he couldn’t convince me it was all in my head or that I was a drama queen. I had my first child before I had met him and one of the biggest fears I had was being left raising a child alone again. He knew this.
Once I became pregnant with our baby, the subtle warning signs of abuse suddenly became impossible to ignore. The first physical assault happened when I was five months pregnant and he was drunk. The scariest part of that incident was there was no remorse. Once I accepted him back home after this incident, I knew I had signed my future and he knew I would accept anything.
I know that is hard for people to understand, but the reality is that by the time the first physical assault has taken place, the emotional damage has already been done. Confidence is at its lowest, family and social supports have been pushed away and dependency has already been established.
Pregnancy and new motherhood can often be a difficult time, but for me it was torturous. I really could see no way out and by this stage believed what I was told, that I was worthless and a burden in the world. In the end, I tried to take my own life and ended up in the hospital.
The final straw
I was put in contact with support services and I was given the time and space to see what was happening. We were still living together, but shortly after this, when he physically assaulted my teenager, I had the strength to finally end it all. I am so upset that my son was hurt, but I am glad that I finally had the catalyst to make the move. I honestly don’t believe I would be alive today if I had not made this move then.
I am not going to lie. It has not been easy. I had reached rock bottom and felt I had nothing left to fight with, but I took small baby steps and each step helped bring me back to who I was. I have had endless sleepless nights worrying about money, repossession and my children’s well-being.
I have lain awake at night scared, lonely and feeling guilty that my children weren’t having the perfect family life that they deserve. I have second-guessed myself and wondered should I have just put up with things and whether I had been selfish escaping. I have been in and out of courts more times than I ever thought possible.
Once I received physical treatment, for my suicide attempt, I was referred for psychiatric help. The staff were amazing and I was diagnosed with postnatal depression. They also saw that I was in an abusive relationship, but I couldn’t see it.
They kept encouraging me to call Women’s Aid but I thought I didn’t deserve their support as I didn’t reach the threshold of abuse. I believed that they were for women in really abusive situations and that wasn’t me.
A nurse eventually called Women’s Aid and handed me the phone, she said she would never ask me to call them again if they agreed with what I said. Over the course of a month, I called almost daily. Just verbalising really helped me see what had been happening. I had the space to see what was happening and the validation that was happening was wrong.
As I started to work with Women’s Aid, I slowly began to develop my confidence and despite his attempts to keep me trapped in the house, I was able to start leaving the house and access support. A friend dropped me over a buggy, so I could leave the house again.
He could feel the shift in me and a month after I started getting support, he assaulted my son, while I slept. This was the final push I needed. During this whole time, I had taken photos of bruises and injuries.
I confronted him with this evidence and the bruises on my son and told him to leave or I would go to the Guards. He did leave, but as this had happened before, I think he imagined that I would call him back.
I had absolutely no money and he knew this and controlled me through this. I went to court and got a maintenance order which he repeatedly ignored and meant we were in and out of court for years. He controlled me through finances and as this was the reason, in my low points I felt tempted to accept him back.
I decided to tell my friends what he did to my son as a preventative measure, to ensure I would not take him back, no matter how low I would fall.
Support needed
It has not been an easy road and as a society, we need to do more to ensure abuse survivors have a well-signposted path into recovery and freedom, but I got through it and you can get through it too. There isn’t an easy solution and staying or leaving both come with a heavy price.
The difference is by leaving you can create a new peaceful future for yourself. Today, I look at my two confident capable children and my peaceful home. I can imagine no greater prison than being trapped at home with an abuser during this time of global uncertainty.
Let this moment be your catalyst to start planning your escape and imagining your future. I know it feels impossible now, but every journey starts with one step, make that step today.
There are supports available, find the support that suits you. Good luck you can do this, start believing in yourself!
Helplines/advice:
This letter was submitted anonymously via SPARK Campaign Ireland.
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If I’m not mistaken the Swiss reported this over a month ago…….
@Sean Higgins: Indeed, but their report was full of holes.
Typical children, they never contribute.
@Morning Gus: well I’m here watching a 1 year old trying to sweep the floor but he is doing a terrible job so your probably right.
@Owen O’Murchú: they can’t even use an iron properly!!
@Brian Guilfoyle: Great at cleaning chimneys though.
@John: Ah in fairness John, not all of them are good at it. Our middle lad Porky was useless.
@Brian Guilfoyle: to be fair in 35 and I still haven’t figured that one out Brian.
But there is evidence that children are being widely infected but with different symptions to adults ie..inflamation of heart and other organs..
@Marianne: word
@Marianne: no these is not, all the above is rare
@Marianne: widely infected? The numbers are a tiny fraction. Interested to know what your definition of widely infected is?
@Craic-Hommy: report also states with very limited evidence. Take it with a pinch of salt
@Macca Attack: the original Australian report actually makes that point themselves, it’s an indicator but not conclusive and recommends more detailed research is required.
@Wheresmyjumper: also in nearly every case the child was clinically obese or had significant underlying conditions https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/well/family/coronavirus-children-covid-19.html nothing like a bit of fact free scare mongering though
@Craic-Hommy: 100 children in New York been affected with inflammation symptoms that are linked to Covid 19
@Melina Roberts: ‘Major concern’: Nearly 100 New York children treated for mysterious inflammatory illness thought to be linked to Covid-19 https://www.rt.com/usa/488492-new-york-children-mystery-syndrome/
If that is the case, why not allow the schools to reopen?
While keeping the children away from the elderly and vulnerable?
@Mary Walshe: What happens in situations where a childs parent has one of the high risk conditions or for those living with grandparents?
@Rochelle: their is minimal to no risk of children passing this on to adults
@Mary Walshe: you have to also consider hundreds of parents congregating in a small area to collect/drop off children. Staff rooms, etc. also. I know some of this could be alleviated by staggered opening times and breaks but it is not as straightforward as simply reopening.
@Wheresmyjumper: Its far to early to make a statement like that. For every study you find that suggests that, you find one with the opposite conclusions. From what I’ve seen anyway.
@NotMyIreland: we have to start playing the odds at some stage, at the moment despite a pandemic no child has passed this on to an adult and after 6 months this is good enough for me
@Rochelle: did you read the article?
@Wheresmyjumper: A recent study showed that closing schools reduced the R0 by 0.3. Considering the aim is to keep it below 0.3 is a huge jump. This of course includes the spread from teachers but as a general overview it is worrying that it changes the R0 so considerably, and would suggest children may be spreading it. The same study found that even with mild symptoms children have as much of a viral load as very ill adults. Again as viral load is linked to the spread this also indicates they may be spreading it Yes there may be no confirmed cases of spread from children to adult but as it is actually very hard to track the spread in all forms on an individual basis, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening. There were loads of cases in this country where the source of infection was unknown
@NotMyIreland: the Swiss are doing the work for us, so we’ll find out in a couple of weeks, at some point we are just going to have to play the odds and get on with our lives
@Wheresmyjumper: Yeah I’m with you there. Im all for playing the odds, but prefer to play when they are stacked in my favour with a good chance of a good return. By the time schools return in September they should know a lot more.
@Fabio Dillon: Yes. The research isn’t saying children don’t spread the virus, it’s saying they haven’t been significant contributors to date. The reason for that is pretty obvious considering schools have been closed for months.
@NotMyIreland: have you a link to that study? Just wondering how they isolated the effect of schools closing from other ‘lockdown’ factors.
Based on a review of very few studies. It’s too early to make claims like this. Needs a lot more research which will take time
@Craic-Hommy: am I right in reading in the Australian case study that while nobody was infected from the children there was also nobody infected from the teachers also? (9 students and 9 teachers)
@Craic-Hommy: Yes far too early. The NY times reported on two studies last week suggesting otherwise. One found the R0 number dropped by 0.3 when schools were closed. So if a country can get their R0 well below 1, like 0.5 consistently they could afford to open schools without raising R0 above 1 again.
@Conor Egan: it’s starting to look like rather than kids getting infected but being asymptomatic they are just not getting infected at all in most cases. Smokers and asthmatics also appear to be immune but less evidence to suggest they are immune entirely rather than just asymptomatic. Could be a lot of people locked down unnecessarily.
@Gordon Comstock: where is the source to your claim that ‘smokers and asthmatics also appear to be immune’? I ask simply because so many of the fatalities, let alone severe cases, fall into those categories.
@Conor Egan: The ABC in Australia reported a case of a student in an Australian school who was suspected of catching it off an infected teacher.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-20/student-tests-positive-to-covid-19-at-unley-high/12074128
@D Mems: smokers is based on the original outbreak in Wuhan. Despite having a large percentage of smokers the numbers of hospitalisations of smokers was in the low single digits. Asthma similarly appears to be underrepresented in hospitalisations. These are significant because you expect both groups to be over-represented when respiratory infections are going around. It’s just based on stats at present but that’s all we really have at the moment.
@Gordon Comstock: that’s an anecdote, where is your source?
@D Mems: what exactly is it that you think anecdote means?
@Gordon Comstock: I’m an asthmatic. I bought masks, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes and started using them the minute the virus hit Europe. I started complete isolation when the schools closed and haven’t been in a shop or someone else’s house since. it could be that asthmatics etc are simply being more careful rather than they’re somehow immune.
@Gordon Comstock: When will they change the warning on a packet of cigs so? No more “smoking kills” maybe instead “Smoking kills but stay covid free”. They think its the nicotine that effects the virus. Luke O’Neill said they are now even trialling nicotine patches.
@Lorraine Mac Rory: could be, but that doesn’t protect asthmatics from the flu. The hypothesis at the moment is that is has something to do with mucus. Both smokers and asthmatics tend to produce more mucus than average, so if mucus can successfully fight the infection it would explain why both of these usually overrepresented groups are underrepresented with this respiratory infection.
@D Mems: as an ex smoker I just could not believe it but I did look it up and there are many sources..
World Health Organization say they are currently reviewing research and studies concerning smoking and nicotine and will release further statements in the coming days.
The Economist: A quarter of French adults smoke. Many people were surprised, therefore, when researchers reported late in April that only 5% of 482 covid-19 patients who came to the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris between February 28th and April 9th were daily smokers. The ratios of smokers to non-smokers in earlier tallies at hospitals in America, China and elsewhere in France varied. But all revealed habitual smokers to be significantly underrepresented among those requiring hospital treatment for the illness. Smokers, the authors of the report wrote, “are much less likely” to suffer severely from sars-cov-2, the virus that causes covid-19. Rarely, they added, is such a result seen in medicine
Although this is a more balanced approach https://www.euronews.com/2020/05/07/covid-19-and-smoking-what-does-the-who-say
@Gordon Comstock: washing hands, hand sanitizer and airing rooms all protect from the flu. As an asthmatic I’m entitled to a free flu vaccine which I get every year. I also use hepa filtration in my vacuum and air filters which can terminate viruses from the air.
Again, it could be that asthmatics etc are more careful and maintain better respiratory hygiene. Thanks but I won’t be going off your hypotheses that I’m immune any time soon!
@Lorraine Mac Rory: the point is that despite asthmatics being more likely to receive the flu shot, and as you say more likely to be precautionary during flu seasons, they are still overrepresented in flu hospitalisations. And that’s expected every year. That asthmatics are significantly underrepresented in covid hospitalisations means either asthmatics are not as susceptible to covid, or that asthmatics are being significantly more cautious at present than they are during flu seasons and significantly more cautious than everyone else, and this caution is producing results. It’s a lot more likely that asthmatics are just not as susceptible to this infection as non-asthmatics. We don’t yet know why though, but the mucus thing looks promising. But childhood immunity could also be a factor.
@Gordon Comstock: ah sorry! I misunderstood part of your comment. I was wondering myself about autoimmune disorders and covid. Covid kills by over activating the immune system. I wonder are malfunctioning immune systems more or less likely to overreact to covid.
@Lorraine Mac Rory: I wouldn’t know, but as I understand it if you’re young and healthy your immune system will attack it and win. The problem arises if that initial attack by your immune system isn’t successful, it’s the second wave defence by your immune system that causes the potentially fatal overreaction. If the excess mucus thing is what’s helping smokers and asthmatics then maybe the first wave attack by their immune systems is bolstered by that excess mucus in their systems anyway, which significantly reduces the possibility of the potentially fatal second wave. But this is all guess work obviously.
Isn’t that most likely because they are not in school therefore not coming into contact with it? Schools are breeding grounds for all germs and this will be no different.
@Mary: Yeah Mary. The teachers can do all the cleaning, we’ll ask the parents to come in and do the teaching and the cleaners can go home and raise the children!
A study of 15 schools from before the virus was actually widespread
How can anything be concluded from that?
Luckily there is not a single person over the age of 25 in a school that are at risk to themselves or a risk to others in bringing it back to their homes !!! I’d rather be in school than on zoom but it has to be safe for all people involved in education. No compromising on safety just to get kids out and parents back into work !
Yeah right, how many times have you been sick when your kids have brought a cold/flu from school.
@Eoin Doe: covid-19 isn’t a cold or a flu though.
@D Mems: common cold is a closely related coronavirus though
@FecklessBear: throwing a rock at someone is loosely the same as shooting a bullet at someone
@D Mems: covid virus
@seamus toomey: what?
Are all the 12 13 14 15 year olds that are going around in gamgs classed as children?
They tested 7 children ! Ffs
@Divad Nayr: read the article again
Data on this is very limited however! It’s not a certainty by any means!
All this in the media will result in people letting their kids out more, harmless hopefully!
Bollocks!
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