Emotional abuse, isn’t the moments, it’s the entire relationship. 

The whole thing.

Interspersed with tiny moments of relief. 

The rest is eggshells. 

The rest is being gravitationally in their orbit. 

The rest is drama, upset, fracture. 

It’s not one event. It’s the whole, with events. 

The rest is being in the room when they sucked out all the oxygen. 

Twice upon a time, I was asked the question: 

‘Did you ever go to the Police about what your mum did to you?’ 

It was then even asked of me, by the very safeguarding people who I made known about her abusiveness. 

‘Well, why didnt you?’ 

Not helpful. But then. At the time of giving them my story. I was also only just beginning to let my bricked up closed memory open its box to let the pain of it all be seen. The terror had been bricked away, and inquisitive questions like this felt like shame and failings on my part. Therapy was opening the box. 

So. A number of months later. 

I asked a former head of a regional police department I know the following question. 

‘What would you be able to do, if all the evidence of the abuse was just emotional, psychological, torment – and there were no physical scars?’

His answer. 

‘Without physical evidence of something, the police or prosecution could do very little. They, You, the victim has to wait until something actually happens.’

Something actually happens. Like something illegal. Something evidential. 

Before smacking children became illegal, or seen as socially unacceptable in the UK….and strangely its religious groups, like evangelical bible believing christians that used to form the strongest voice against removing this… 

Then the only scars that I could go to the police with, were ones that were ‘ok’ back in the late 1980’s. 

And they were dished out by my Dad anyway. The true culprit hid herself away. 

She threatened violence as a way of ensuring loyalty. A way of no one going against her. Ever. 

No scars. Not external ones. 

She ran the family as a cult. 

No one came in. Because….Everyone else was lying about her. Everyone she’d damaged stayed away. 

Everyone else was wrong when they praised, loved or cherished their children – thats what we were told. 

When the hand raised itself at every table meal time, it was best to stay silent. 

The same hand that prayed to Jesus a few minutes later. 

The same hand that left only red scars on knuckles. Scars disappeared by the time I got to school. Scars that mixed my own self affliction of pain. Nails bitten until the puss flowed. 

It wasnt the one thing. There wasnt one thing. It was the whole thing. 

For in that environment, the environment that is normalised..because adaption and survival are written into the instructions of nappies. 

Silence is the best sound you can make. 

It’s the only one. 

Noise has to be calculated, so not to upset. 

Noise is a threat, to home prison. 

Requests are brave. 

Rebellion can be anything that disturbs. 

Rebellion was anything that threatened. 

Rebellion was anything that might, might have given glimpses of the cracks or conditions in the prison. 

Rebellion was thinking oneself big or strong enough to realise, to know, or to feel differently, important, of value. 

Rebellion is not meeting her emotional needs.

You can’t go to the police for what you dont have. If you do have ‘basic needs’ like food, drink and a bed at night, and books and toys. 

You can’t go to the police, if the scars are all inside. 

You can’t go to the police, if there isnt a thing. 

You can’t go to the police with only stories of humiliation and shame, all of which were the norm. 

7 year old boys dont know the language of safety. 37 year old boys didnt either. 

Survival was normalised. Dont upset her. 

Silence.

Rebellion was…not…..meeting…..her……needs……

(then she’d get Dad to do the physical punishing. Slipper. Belt.) 

So. 

When I stopped giving her cuddles. 

When I stopped being the one who soothed her when Dad was at work. 

When I stopped being the one who ‘she needed to love her through her pain’ 

When I stopped being her confidant. 

When I stopped meeting her emotional needs. 

Bravery was when I bricked up. Bravery was when I said no. And didnt rush straight in a comfort, stroke and give her my emotional care and attention.

Daddy’s not going to know about this, he isnt around

Daddy doesnt love me like you do

Daddy doesnt give me this kind of care and attention like you do

Daddy….isnt ……here….. 

Daddy …is too busy….

This is our little thing James. 

Daddy doesnt love me like you do. 

As she held me…….but I gave all the affection….I stroked her arm, her shoulder…. I gave. Saving myself was when I stopped. Bravely. Rebelled. I was in danger. 

You can’t go to the police and say. 

‘Yes Constable, im 8 years old, and my mummy doesnt give me hugs or love or care or nurture, actually she asks me to give this to her when she cries, or is angry, or hurting, and now that I realise I shouldn’t do this, im scared she might punish me for not doing so’ 

I stopped being her therapist. I stopped regulating her needs. And now im scared. the role that drained me was also my safe one. 

She didnt love. She didnt even love pets or animals. 

Actually. 

There was one thing she loved.

One thing my Dad without thinking said that she loved. 

I was probably around 7. I enjoyed swimming and went twice a week, usually once with school and once at the local swimming club. Same pool twice a week. 

For about two or three weeks I noticed two small lumps appearing on the base of my heel, the ball of my foot. I didnt know what they were. But even by that age I didnt go to her/them with any pain or ailment, for fear of being told off for overreacting (school was only absentable with actual actual vomitting, or actual spots) .

I thought nothing of the two lumps on the base of my heel. 

Until I tripped on the step as I walked barefoot between the lounge and dining room, and stubbed my toe, and for some reason these two lumps became visible. 

‘James what’s those there on your heel?’ 

‘I have no idea’ 

‘How long have they been there? 

‘I dunno, two, maybe three weeks’ 

Went the exchange as my dad was holding my leg in the air and im face down on the carpet. It wasnt mum holding. No. She was already gleefully, and I mean gleefully finding the chosen metal instruments that would become her torture tools. 

‘Oh heres your mother’ he went on, his hand gripping me tight. 

‘She loves pain’ he continued, with an almost agreeable jubilation at the enthusiasm shown by his wife as she arrived at my heel with tweezers, knife and warm water at the ready. Like she’d found her moment. 

Me bent over leg in the air, with excruciating pain for weeks as she poked, pressed and excavated my two veruca roots even now makes me wince. 

It was the only thing that she enthusiastically loved. 

Yes, Mr Police officer. She loves pain. She likes making people feel uncomfortable. 

‘But she was just doing her best to heal your feet’ 

But Mr Police officer, she would rather excruciate pain on me than pay for proper gel that would do it, because this was what made her happy.

‘I can’t arrest anyone for removing verrucas painfully’ 

Silence. Getting used to Pain. 

Silence. Having to deal with it. 

Silence. 

It wasnt just what they did. 

It wasnt just what they didnt do. 

It wasnt the entire relationship of what they did, or didnt do. 

It was the silence, It was the survival required.

Numb. Silence. 

Uncomfortably numb. 

Feigning the positives of a childhood with toys and train rides. 

Ignoring the real for so long. 

That everyone knew. 

I couldnt even go full on self harm. That wasnt an option. 

That was already ‘Attention seeking’ 

That would ask too many questions. 

No one would believe. I couldnt articulate what was normal and I was burying one day at a time. 

Silence. 

Just go without. 

Because when Women abuse, often. 

When Mothers abuse, often. 

It’s the whole thing, not just one thing. 

And in the whole thing…. they also do cook, or do collect from school, or do volunteer, or do a number of other things, to appear like being what a mother is, basic needs.. 

And when they also do these things, and you need these things. 

And when the bruises are self inflicted as a response to what they do. 

It’s best, to countdown. 

Countdown to the great escape. 

Even today I wouldn’t score high on ACES. 

There was no obvious drink, drugs, arguments. 

Both parents were present. 

But I can tell you what I didnt have. 

I can tell you what was threatened. 

I can tell you that Home was like a prison. (no wonder I as accused often of treating it like a hotel….. hotels serve better food though…) 

Yet…..it’s easy to point the fingers back at me…. 

Because it was what wasnt there….. I was repeated accused of …. expecting too much of them. I was the idealist. I was the dreamer. I expected perfection – see how this works. 

im the problem, im too needy, too sensitive, too selfish, I demand too much, I….

(Because she couldnt be.) 

This is what they actually told me. It was my fault to internalise my own irrational expectations to be seen, valued, nutured, supported or protected. 

Men can’t talk when they dont know what’s going on. 

Men can’t talk when they have mother abuse as normal. 

Without emotional regulation, or emotional nurturing….they aren’t given the signs or tools. Cult leaders dont give the tools for their overthrow. 

Men rarely have the physical evidence. Women dont leave these imprints. (Often)

Mother abuse goes un spoken when children can’t make a sound. 

Mother abuse goes un spoken when children are shamed into silence and weakened through lifetime of bewilderment and stolen emotions. 

Mother abuse is often the whole relationship.

A childhood of holding my breath and hoping to die

A childhood of being on the look out

A childhood of not going to them for help, or laughed at when in distress

A childhood of eggshell walking…

Without one ‘big thing’ 

Police want incidents. Police need evidence. 

Police need proof. 

Someone isnt safe just because they can’t be proven of not doing something. 

Why Men can’t talk? and dont. 

Because often what they are subjected to

Is a whole relationship of abuse. 

Rather than one specific thing. 

They keep it just under the level of reportable. 

And women, especially the cold, clever ones. 

Know how to throw it back at them.