In January 2013 my ex who had been out of prison for 3 months hit me and screamed abuse at me whilst our child was in the house, I was terrified.
I thought to myself on a few occasions that he would end up killing me whilst in one of his rages. I managed to get myself and my son out of our home, I was supposed to be going to pick up my car with the help of my cousin, when I did, I messaged my ex telling him I wasn’t coming back to the house until he had gone.
I got the same reaction as I had when I tried to leave in 2011, but this time he smashed up the entire house, he even smashed up the cooker so I couldn’t feed the kids. Everything that I had worked and earned money to provide for my children he wrecked or smashed in hours. I didn’t return, he had been messaging and leaving messages of threats all day and night, he even said he had hurt the dog and that I needed to take her to the vets, he also asked me to take our son home and leave him there. I didn’t go back home, I thought he may of calmed down as I’d given him all night to do so, but he had made himself even more angry, he had made threats that people were coming up with guns etc, he said he had a condition and I was making it worse, he said if a person in a wheelchair had run over my foot would I have a go at them, basically saying he couldn’t help what he was doing as he had a “condition” that I was making worse by not going home and I should just say nothing……. What a PRICK.
He then came to my mums the next day and demanded I go out and speak to him, I didn’t go, he sent me pictures of my car and what he had done to it, he had slashed my car tyres and damaged my car, my mums partner saw him outside and said he’d seen him with a gun. My mum called the police.
My ex was arrested but it took the police 4 weeks to find him that seemed like a lifetime in itself, I couldn’t go home; I didn’t have anything left there. We had to stay with my mum until he was found by the police I also had to lie to my eldest and say we had had a gas leak and that’s why we couldn’t stay at home, he wasn’t silly though what 11 year old is. He had been witnessing someone hit me, call me names and mentally abuse me for our entire relationship. That’s the thing I was most gutted about when I started freedom & phoenix, I felt so guilty that I had done this to them.
After the incident I was very depressed, suicidal, confused, every emotion you could imagine I was feeling, I was contacted by an idva (Independent Domestic Violence Advisor) worker, I didn’t want to speak to him or anybody, Social Services called too, I was in a bad place and couldn’t face even talking about what had happened, I did eventually talk to my idva worker, He was really nice and he helped me the most, before Freedom & Phoenix started, I trusted him, he even came to court with me, he built up that trust and he helped me massively. He said this was one of the worst cases he had ever seen! I didn’t realise how bad things were.It was like I was in a trance, a shell with no soul, I didn’t know how to think or feel.