Conversations About Abuse

Last weekend I hung up pictures in my home for the first time in fifteen years. I framed them in January, and it still took me six months to hang them. They are nothing valuable, some photo’s, a painting, just things collected over a lifetime. Gifts from friends and family, homemade drawings, posters I bought maybe thirty years ago, or things made by my children, each object has dear memories attached to it. To me they are the background to my life, and they make me feel at home, giving me a space in which I belong and can be myself. In psychotherapy and counselling the home is often seen as a representation of the self, for example if we dream of a part of our home crumbling it might mean that a part of our inner being is in trouble and in need of attention.  For me, my home and the things in it are deeply personal, and I have a real need to be in my space to find my sense of calm, so I can cope with the hustle and bustle that modern life inherently brings in this mad world.

When I lived with my abusive ex, he took real pleasure in creating tension in the home, and what should have been my safe space became a place of terror for me and my children. I did not understand his behaviour as coercion and control at the time, as this language was not used so much then. However, in 2015 coercive and controlling behaviour became a criminal offence, and since then it is a term much more used, and to some extent more understood.  It refers to sustained patterns of domestic abuse that are designed to gain total control over a person’s life by the perpetrator.

The controlling behaviour my ex displayed included targeting anything I tried to do to make our house a home. The house, the garden and anything in it was not safe. Anything we had, furniture, crockery, curtains or other furnishings always had to be beige or white. He would criticise and ridicule anything I bought or made, and would often break things, plants, pots, plates, mugs, lamps, even the children’s toys. He kicked in the doors in the house repeatedly, until they were beyond repair, he once set fire to the dining room table, and purposely broke the legs of my kitchen chairs. He could do this randomly for no apparent reason at all, or to coerce me into doing something I didn’t want to do, such as lie for him or give him money. It could also be punishment for something, for laughing too loud or not laughing at all, for spending time with the children, or for just being. If he saw me upset he would laugh, and if he saw the children upset he would laugh too. Nothing was sacred.

In response to his behaviour I learned to push my feelings of attachment to the home deeply away as it hurt too much to see it destroyed. I could never show that I liked something, if I expressed pleasure for something or if he knew an object held meaning for me, especially if it related to my family, my home country, or my childhood he would criticise it incessantly. He would bully and threaten me about it, making derogatory comments about being pretentious, rude, cheap or having no taste. As a coping strategy I learnt to be completely emotionally detached, not only from my home, but also from myself.

Many of my personal belongings were lost or damaged, but I had kept some of my pictures boxed up, tucked away in the cellar. In keeping my things safe, I tried to protect not only my memories, but also my identity and sense of belonging. In the last few years of living with him, I used to dream about leaving him, living in a home where I could unpack those boxes and have all my things, and my children’s things out in the open, loving them and making a home.

However, when I finally did manage to leave him in 2013, looking forward to having my own space again, I found it very difficult. Anything personal or loving I wanted to do in the home came with deep anxiety and a depression that would leave me completely immobilised. The detachment I had learnt seemed impossible to overcome, especially living in rented accommodation the first few years. Just over a year ago the children and I moved into a new house, and very gradually we are bringing our personalities into it. We are making it our home, I finally emptied the boxes, taking out the pictures, re-framing them, daring to love them. When I finished hanging them last week, I just sat in the middle of the living room on the floor, having the courage to feel happy and enjoying it. Leaving him six years ago was extremely difficult and quite dangerous, and recovery from domestic abuse and coercive control is extremely unpleasant, but sitting in my home, watching my children in their own bedrooms having their things around them, I think we are beginning to feel safe and less detached.

Mireille