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TW: Domestic violence, child abuse
For almost all of my life my father has been physically and mentally abusive to my mother and I.
For almost all of my life my father has been physically and mentally abusive to my mother and I.
I can’t say how long I have been waiting to write that. A violent alcoholic, some of my most vivid memories are being trained by him to lie to my teachers about why my mother had black eyes. I dutifully complied. I was 7 years old.
He would usually be physically abusive to me when Mum was at work, on one occassion pressing my nose into my face until it heavily bled. I had my face held under the shower. I was called stupid and told I was not part of the family on at least a weekly basis.
He has variously admitted to it, apologised for it, denied it, called me a fantasist and a liar and weaponised the helpful silence of others to control, manipulate and deceive.
Those who know me well know it has been around five years since we spoke, but this week I have received emails saying that he is a streetfighter and I should watch out, as I am not a streetfighter
(happy to agree with that) and that he is considering making a bunch of my old emails public. I have no idea what is in them or what he thinks that will do.
I will not be bullied or pushed about any more. I make this public with two requests: when children and women say they are being beaten up, believe them. People I have spoken to since either suspected or knew that my father was being violent. Nobody said or did anything.
I don’t blame them. I don’t know how I would approach that myself. But we need to try to find a better way to deal this. After one violent incident..
My mother called the police and he was easily able to talk his way out of it. She was standing behind him, shaking. (I do hope things would be different now)
My second request is to encourage challenge rather than compliance in your children. To facilitate abuse, compliance is an essential component. My lifelong commitment to rebelling against systems I view as being unfair was initially both a part of my survival
(if someone hates you, you can either agree with them or decide their opinion is worthless, thankfully I chose the latter) and what made me a target.
Thank you to all of those who knew about this and who have been supportive over the years, it has helped me immeasurably. To the handful of people who assisted him in his silence, and I say this without hesitation; you are cowards, do better.
Appreciate some of you might consider this message a bit unnecessarily public. But I have come to believe that to coin a phrase, silence is violence.
