Thoughts of the abused!

Arrived for my course this morning feeling fairly subdued, not really wanting to face the reality of what staying in an abusive relationship has done to my children.

The first thing that was said is that we cannot blame ourselves for the effect all of this has had on  our children because whilst we were with our abuser we had no power to protect them.

That goes against everything a mother stands for; the one thing above all else that she should be able to do is protect her babies. But you don't expect to have to protect them from the only other person that is truly part of them.

It was also said that most women convince themselves that the abuse didn't effect their children. This for me is not true, I realised more and more that the abuse was damaging my children. Now it is evident to me that things effected them in a big way, differently for each of the children.

My 1 yo has serious issues surrounding me leaving her; she was 10 months old when he left and never really had a relationship with her father. Everytime she went for a contact session (on her own without her siblings) she would break her heart at leaving me and on her return would not come to me for comfort for about an hour, preferring her big brother or sister to offer her that protection and comfort. I know even at her young age that she was punishing me for making her see this man she didn't really know.

It breaks your heart as a mother to know you are putting your baby through this but not able to do anything about it. I was told by my solicitor I couldn't withold contact.

Since the defined contact order has been in place and she goes with her siblings and is dropped and collected at the supermarket she seems to be coping better with contact but still has issues with me leaving her anywhere. For 19th months old she is an intelligent, perceptive little thing and is very sensitive to people's moods; I am sure this is down to my emotional rollercoaster since before she was born. She was a very placid baby, she had to be, so as not to make him get stressed.

Having to stop your children from crying or expressing themselves for fear of upsetting their father, the abuser, becomes a way of life for both you and the children.

My 3 year old displays most of her problems through eating and sleeping. Not eating was her way of controlling her life but lead to being force fed. She uses not going to sleep more as her way of coping now, whenever she has contact with her father, the next few nights she cannot go to bed without me constantly reassuring her. The time I had to lock myself and my 2 youngest daughters in the car to get away from him, lead to weeks of disturbed sleep for her.

My 5 year old has always displayed a lively character, verging on hyperactivity but now has real problems expressing what he feels. He was never a vindictive character though, but now he throws things, breaks things and is generally destructive. At school he copes well as he has that consistency and structure. Being present when the police issued his father with a Harrassment Warning has had a profound effect on him. He asks where he is going to live when mummy and daddy go to prison, because his father told him it was mummy's fault that the police had come to talk to him and mummy's fault that he was withdrawing direct contact.

My 5 year old has on more than one occasion taken  a dandelion stem with the seeds and blown them away making a wish for a different dad. For a 5 year old to say that,  hurts you to the core. He clearly has so many thoughts going through his head that he cannot make sense of. I am an adult and cannot understand it all, so how can a 5 year old have any chance.

My 10 year old now understands why her father left but has real problems accepting that he only wants to be part of her life for 12 hours a month. She has the conflict of him being with a new woman and the lies he has told her surrounding this woman and their initial relationship when he left. She has the conflict of possibly liking this woman (Sarah) and knowing that her dad is happy with her but wasn't happy with me. She questions whether he ever really wanted her. She gives him letters and pictures that she has done especially for him, to find that he has just left them lying about. She tells him things about special events in her life and he can't even make a note of the dates, continually asking her to remind him and then saying he can't make it because he is working.

He even violated her relationship with her play therapist by threatening the woman and continually questioning my daughter about the sessions. Her therapist has told me that she has been very closed off during these sessions and believes that her father told her not to say anything about him for fear of someone stopping her seeing him. She suffers from stress headaches and has on occasions made her self sick after contact as has my 5 year old.

Well, my eldest, 11 year old son, has taken on the role his father played. His father constantly tells him he has to be the man of the house and to look after his brother and sisters. He does this the only way he knows how, by doing what his father did. Shouting, calling us names, having total disrespect for us and the house and expecting us to go along with his demands and what he wants. At times I have had to physically restrain him to stop him either hurting himself or me. He is the size of a 14 year old and soon will have the ability to overpower me and this scares me.  His father bought them a PS2 for christmas knowing that it would cause an issue as far as discipline goes. I constantly get, my dad bought me that so you can't touch it.

He has issues because he really can take or leave contact with his father, but still seeks the time his father clearly offers his sister through email, because he didn't reply to an email other than saying Cheers, his father didn't send him anymore. He was glad his dad left, but has conflict in his head as to how to behave, all he knows is how his dad treated us and knows he didn't like it, but doesn't know how else to deal with things.

My children were not allowed to be children. Never had friends home to play, weren't allowed to be noisy, no talking at the dinner table about their day, were told that they were stupid and thick. Every sentence that their father ever said contained the "F" word. Quite a few times I had to put myself in the middle of them and their father, mainly my eldest, to stop him hitting him with such force he would bruise him. The only real image of their dad they have is him with a drink in his hand.

What sort of mother does this make me? Friends parents would ask if your child could go and play and I used to have to say, well ok but they can't do this or that, you can't take them in your car etc etc. In the end people think you are looking down your nose at them. I know now that is just another tactic to alienate you to the outside world. Hence, they don't get invited again.

I have to accept that deep down I couldn't protect my babies from his abuse and that this will be with them forever. He has gone now, but the abuse continues during contact, both direct and indirect and the effect of him still abusing me obviously reflects on the way I currently deal with life.

I currently have an undertaking that he does not abuse me, but he continues to breech this. I spoke to my solicitor about this last Tuesday and was told that they will write another letter to him. I rang today to tell them about the further abuse on Saturday evening and the letter still hasn't been written. I don't feel protected and if I don't feel protected how can I protect my babies?

That said, my house is happier, it is full of laughter and singing and mummy dancing round the kitchen but the scars of the abuse are always there and will not just go away on their own. I have asked for help for me and my children but it seems that this is hard to come by, because I am not your stereotypical abused mother.

I come across as a strong, independent woman who cares for her children, a devoted mum. That does not mean I don't need help. I am drowning in my emotions and guilt. I now have to take the one other constant away from them which is their home because he still controls how I live financially.

My house has suffered as a result of me not being able to cope with real life. I have always been messy and lived a cluttered life, my one down fall. I now face a daunting task of getting the house up together enough to put it on the market. I know I need structure in mine and the kids life and know deep down it would makes things so much easier but the whole thing just overwhelms me.

I have trouble relaxing and even having a bath doesn't work, because I was never allowed to have a relaxing bath free from the stress of the children even if he was at home; they would always come and talk to me or ask things of me because he wasn't interested. I have never had a bath run for me with relaxing bath oils or candles or a glass of something and soft music playing. A bath would have meant "me" time and I was never allowed that. Sarah did not exist in my marriage.

I have trouble sleeping because it was our bedroom and he abused me there too. This house needs to be sold, I need to make new memories but with that comes its own stresses.

Can I cope with what this course is bringing out of me? I have to, I can't live in the shadow of abuse any more, I have to deal with my demons. I know he will never change and will always be my abuser as long as I let him but as yet I don't know how to stop him.

The one thing I want more than anything is to help my children through this and for them to come out the other side happy and emotionally healthy.

If I could have just one thing for "me", just me, it would be a hug from a man that wants to hug me just because I am me. My mind and body have been violated for so long that I just want Sarah to be able to flow again, to give the warmth I had to give if only he hadn't been the man he was.