If we dealt with the core issues regarding domestic abuse, especially when there are children involved. We would cut the generational cycle of abuse, depression, self harm, suicide, addiction, trauma, low self esteem and the internalised narrative of never being good enough.

The abuse continues long after you leave when you have children. Children/young people struggle to find who they are, struggle to be free of the conditions of worth imprinted on their psyche by watching a parent being abusive and a parent using coping mechanisms to survive.

The parents story becomes their prison. Without access to a service specialising in the collective understanding of these issues, that prison becomes their children’s prison. And so the pain continues. Funding for MH for adults & children has been in decline for years.

Few can afford private health care & so a divide in health & wellbeing is widened, addiction, poverty, multiple disadvantage keeps it going. Some are lucky and find a way to heal, others are trapped, frozen & more likely to succumb to just surviving rather than thriving.

Specialist grass roots single sex spaces, including for WOC, addiction, disability are essential for women/children 2 feel safe enough 2 begin the process of healing. Stop developing services without involving the voices of victims & children, who are victims in their own right.

So many areas in the community need funding but dealing with DA effectively, multi layered long term support & skilled workers creates positive change across our communities & give our children hope of a better future. A future free from the prison they inherited.

Who am I? I grew up with it, I married it, I worked with it.

I survived it, I’m now thriving despite it and I’m watching my children try to heal from it.

They are my sunshine on a winters day.