Tag: abuse

Domestic abuse

What traditions have you not kept that your parents had?

It was the one who called himself my father, and it was pure mental and physical abuse, aimed at my Mother, my little sister and me. We were his soft targets to his hard man bravado.

It was that bad, that i always viewed it as traditional, sad isn’t it? It just happened so often.

I’ve mentioned it before, I have no wish to continue this tradition as no one deserves it, and no one wants it, and no one should ever decide they are going to dish it out, no one person ever has that right to do so.

Abuse anywhere is awful, in the home it is ten times worse, as that should always be your place of comfort and safety, in the very bosom of your family.

God bless anyone suffering in this way.

I have worn your shoes and walked that mile, I do not wish to do that ever again. These “Men” have the reputation outside of the family of being “a great bloke” but at home they have a family waiting in the shadows of fear, waiting, scared out of their minds anticipating his return home, and then the nightmare begins as soon as that key is heard in the door. They are not men, they are merely weak shadows of a real man, as real men don’t entertain such levels of abuse, real men do not condone abuse at all.

I have no wish to follow that tradition. I never have, and I never will. I think I’m the bigger man, and always will be. My home is a place of peace and safety. I have grown, whereas he did not. No one in my household will ever be subjected to that fear.

Domestic abuse, all abuse, is unacceptable.

Stay safe.

No. It’s not just a mirror

There’s a little story that has developed here. Spring cleaning the house today and a mirror appears out of a cupboard and my wife has said,” You don’t need that, that can go.”

The mirror

At this statement I jumped up and unusually for me I gave the wife a firm reply of, “No” and told her it’s not going anywhere, there is a story behind that mirror and I then poured it out to her. Just as I am about to do so now to you all.

The mirror was a purchase from a Sunday magazine sometime in the mid 80s, nothing overly expensive but it always made me smile.

I’d just left home as my father’s abusive behaviour had taken a more violent turn. I was ashamed of myself for deserting my sister and mother, but I was just so fed up of being attacked both physically and mentally that I just snapped and left home.

I was about 18, I sofa surfed for a while, occasionally I sneaked into my workplace at night and slept there, I was all over the place and then found a spare room for rent in a property close by to where I’d originally lived. I had some stability in my life at last and was learning very quickly about moving on in life and the new responsibilities I’d now taken on. I then purchased this mirror, and would smile when I looked into it, it gave me some much needed fun and laughter in my life. Something that had been in very short supply for a while.

Then one night I broke when my sister appeared at the door, to tell me my father was attacking my mother, I grabbed the nearest thing to me that just happened to be a metal pole from an old photographic enlarger and I ran like the wind to their house. I charged up the stairs to their bedroom and stood over my father telling him just how I felt, and what a B***ard he was. I was about to bring that pole down on him when I realised he was in such a drunken stupor, he didn’t even know I was there, but beside him my Mum was reaching out to me weeping and calling my name. What she told me whilst we were embracing there is highly private and will always remain so, the crux of it was that she never wanted me to leave and begged me to come home.

I was back in that house before he’d even sobered up the following day. And that mirror I’d brought was on my bedroom wall where it stayed for a good few years.

I told my wife the story, and that the cheap worthless mirror was a subtle reminder of the time I started to turn my life around. I’d overcome fear of a tyrant and become the protector of the two most important people in my life at that time, my mum and younger sister. And I stayed with them until they both stepped away from this horrific existence.

A cheap mirror it maybe. But it still makes me smile. The wife has now said it must stay and be prominent in the house.

This picture was taken today, look, I’m smiling as I’m deciding where to put it up.

May it see many more smiles.

My father, not for obvious reasons

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

I’d like to be my father for the day. Not because he was someone who could be admired and loved and cherished, he was none of that. He was a nasty evil man that made my mothers, my younger sisters and my life an absolute misery.

I would like to know what made him tick, what was his reasoning and did he ever consider getting help for the way he was.

I’d kick start that change even if I could’ve been him for a day. He has ruined my life and still haunts me in nightmares to this day. Never was I more pleased when someone passed away, it’s a horrible thing to say but my life began in earnest that day. However my faith and beliefs tell me we will meet again one day and that is what bothers me now, I’m not prepared for that..

His evil ways, I carry as a burden everyday.

As a child it is not right that you have to be protecting your mother from abuse and a little girl for being downright petrified of her own father. As for what I endured it goes to the grave with me.

I’ve always said to my wife I want to be a better man and be nothing like him. I’ve managed that well, I have never raised a hand to woman in my life and will never do so. My mother was a punchbag and far too many times it was me that absorbed those punches as I tried to protect her.

I have moods occasionally and I put them down to being like him, and I dislike it when someone says I look like my father, there is no one I’d rather be.

It’s a curse to be honest, and here I am just a few small years away from retirement still paying the price, and very much afraid.

It’s not fair. Domestic abuse is not acceptable, it affects lives for longer than you can imagine, it’s probably going to be with me way into the afterlife. It’s a life and death sentence. And he is the winner. It’s wrong.

Peace to you all.

Anti Social media

What technology would you be better off without, why?

It’s poison, venomous and down right nasty and to be honest it allows the less ingenious of society to literally get away with murder.

I admit the advent of the digital age has many benefits but allowing knuckle dragging morons to voice opinions on every subject that they have no knowledge of, or interest in is only a bad thing.

Yep as you can see I have also experienced them as I’m sure everyone else who passes by this post has also experienced one of these individuals.

Influencers, now that’s a joke of a job description if ever I have heard one. Don’t get me started, have we really become such a society that we need these individuals to coerce us into making decisions and purchases on items they have no experience or knowledge in, just because someone offers them a years supply of said item just to spout a load of old tosh on how this is going to change your life. Give me a break 🤦‍♂️

Have a good day. Don’t be influenced or insulted.

Yes

If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?

The word yes. I need to replace it more with it’s polar opposite “No”

In my lifetime ambition to please everyone I have realised probably too late in life that at times you just have to say no. People are so greedy, selfish and totally engrossed in their own ambitious fight for wealth and recognition that everyone else gets trodden on and abused.

I’ve realised I fall in to that category and I am often told to stop saying yes to everyone.

It stops now. I’ve had enough and I’m not being used anymore.

I’m going to find it hard but from now on, No will become a more frequently used word in my vocabulary.

Sorry.

Thoughts 11/4/24

Describe something you learned in high school.

Senior school for us in the Uk lasts 5 yrs as standard unless you decided to stay on in sixth form to take further studies. Back in my day you were pretty much pumped out of the system into the working world at the end of the fifth year, as university wasn’t really an option open to everyone as it is now.

Courtesy of t’internet

I enjoyed my years at senior school but boy did I learn a few things beside the prescribed curriculum.

It was an all boys school

Bullying was rife. I was the victim of it and I’m embarrassed to say I was party to dishing some out myself and I sincerely regret ever taking part in that.

I witnessed homosexuality, and the awful bullying that attracted, again an individual was sexually assaulted by a member of staff, both just seemed to disappear overnight and nothing was ever mentioned again.

Assault from members of staff was at epidemic proportions, in those days it was corporal punishment but nowadays would be downright full on assault. I took my fair share of this as well.

The first three years of schooling at this level were fine for me, and then I turned. The last two years when I should have got my head down just went to pot, i rebelled, probably a mixture of what had gone on above but I scraped through. It taught me a lot about people and their behaviours, it taught me that respect is a trait that is earned not just given out freely. I learned to protect myself, I have absolutely nothing good to say about any tutor I had dealings with in this period of my life.

My tutor in my last two years of junior school though has my full respect, he shaped me and my fellow students at a very early age and taught us about respect and what we needed to do to gain it. He was the most influential man I have met in my life, he did more for me than my own father, and that is true and not just written fodder for you to digest.

Teachers have this amazing ability to shape and put students on a course to navigate life and to become a valid member of society. Thankfully I have done ok, I’ve tripped and made mistakes along the way but I’ve learned and had to take some hard knocks along the way.

Unfortunately the teachers I met in my senior years did not have those abilities and I believe failed not just me but my fellow students.

This was probably the toughest lesson learned. They were inadequately prepared to do their job in a time where strictness, bullying and harassment was seen to be the way to forcefully teach subjects. They failed my generation in that particular school.

But we’ve done ok.

Have a great day all. Stay safe.

Thoughts 2/3/24

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

My father was a demon. Consumed with jealousy towards my mother she couldn’t speak to anyone without being questioned about her motives. Most of my formative years were spent as a youngster protecting her and my younger sister from his rage. Going to bed at night as a young teenager with a metal bar under the covers to be ready to go at him should he fly into another of his rage’s leaves a scar on my memory to this day, almost 40 years later.

I always stated that I would never be like him, and all these years later I think I’ve done ok. My life is better than his, I have achieved more than him and I have never raised my hand to anyone especially a female in my entire life, so in theory I think I have won.

He still haunts me in my dreams though and it is as if I am still being challenged by him even though he is no longer here.

I’ve grown from this experience, no child should ever have to suffer this amount of emotional abuse, no female should ever have to live through that constant fear of an abusive partner. No man should ever be capable of such coercion.

But it happens.

Just not in my life anymore… I’ve grown.

Stay smiling, you are a beautiful person who deserves happiness.