My heart goes out to every woman isolated at home with an angry Male partner. He doesn’t have to be violent: he just has to keep you on egg-shells, in a state of hyper-vigilance, or to appease him at all costs.

For women with children, there’s another layer of distress. Protecting the children from witnessing this is impossible. and soon, they also learn to disrespect Mum. How could they not? The gaslighting is complete: the whole family agrees

And your friends have slipped away, one by one, because it hurts so much to witness what has happened to you, and because every time, despite their help, you’ve gone back to him.

It’s really, really hard to leave. No one else knows how your personality has been changed through trauma. You used to be confident, enjoy a joke. Now, you are on edge, you don’t risk finding anything funny or strange: you keep the peace and pretend this is normal

It isn’t normal to live in a state of hyper vigilance. It isn’t normal to have to wait for approval from your partner before putting the heating on, or choosing your shopping, or being ‘allowed’ privacy in the bathroom. You can become used to anything. But it’s not normal.

Partners don’t always use violence to control you. They can use a look that they have trained you to recognise as a precursor to violence, or use withdrawal of intimacy, or can use money to control you. It’s coercive control. It’s illegal. It’s wrong. And it’s extremely common

But the biggest threat is that they threaten the Social Services will take away your kids. They will insist your hyper vigilance is evidence of mental illness. They will groom Social Workers into believing them to be perfect. They can be utterly convincing.

To risk things like this, is huge. To expect traumatised women, often sick with auto-immune diseases due to hyper vigilance for years on end, to risk all this, is huge.

I’m here to tell you that you CAN survive this. You CAN live a different life. You CAN provide a home where your children are safe and happy. Reach out for help, and start your plan to get out, today.

Meanwhile, please consider signing this petition. Your local women’s services are facing huge demand, and their help saves lives https://www.change.org/p/boris-johnson-give-every-domestic-abuse-service-for-women-100k-now-and-save-lives-during-this-crisis

There is support out there: https://twitter.com/hmicfrs/status/1245380484596711426?s=21 https://twitter.com/hmicfrs/status/1245380484596711426

The @HMICFRS have produced simple guidance for where to get help, and what to do if you’re a bystander and witness abuse. CALL THE POLICE. You could save a life.