Hi Everyone.
firstly this is all very very new to me I’ve never posted before and I feel like if I listen to anymore self help podcasts I’m going to go stir crazy.
I really want to reach out in hope that someone else out there has been through something similar and can advise me on how they got through it.
I’ve been in a very turbulent relationship from the get go, he had a temper but never physically hit me there were massive highs and lows he would love bomb me, message me every morning / night give me everything I needed emotionally and then other days he would be so verbally abusive and emotionally twisting I would want to walk away which I have a number of times but I always ended up coming back after the bombardment of calls, messages, voice notes. It’s like the warning signs were there for years but I choose to ignore them as he was always so sorry and went back to being amazing again. In hindsight I should have been strong enough to walk away.
We didn’t live together, had a surprise baby at the start of the year but we made it work. He’s never been hands on with her and has admitted in the past he was hands on with her previous child until he was a little older, so I did most of the parenting unless I asked him to do something but I would have to explain it to him (was a lot easier just to do it myself)
Anyway I recently had to go into hospital and was in there for over a week, to which my DD was solely in his care. He came to see me at the hospital when I noticed marks on my DD face and neck when I questioned him he said she slept funny. I knew in my gut something wasn’t right!
I have at home an indoor CCTV camera which I use for the dog when I’m not at home normally to keep an eye on her. The morning after I was laying in bed on the ward and I couldn’t get this feeling away that something just didn’t feel right. I looked on the CCTV and saw my DD laying on the edge of the sofa screaming and crying (she’s 6 months so could have rolled and fallen off!) I texted him to ask how she was doing this morning and he responded straight away and said ‘she’s fine just having her bottle’ which I knew was a lie because I was watching her live on the camera. As he lied I knew something was wrong and I kept watching.
When he came into the room without sounding dramatic what I saw on the camera will scar me for life! He charged into the living room and physically grabbed her, hit, punched and roughed her up! I got the whole thing on camera but in that moment I couldn’t believe my eyes what I was seeing!!! It’s like it was an out of body experience! He even texted me durning it as calm as anything asking about hospital food, I felt sick to my stomach. When he admitted it to the police he didn’t seem bothered about what he’s done he was more concerned about seeing me in hospital.
I called family for help to get to the house and followed up and called the police. To which they got there really quick. When the police arrived and questioned him they told him I had seen it on the camera and he admitted it to them (but later retracted it when he was getting interviewed) he is currently on bail awaiting charges. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of emotions. Guilt, anger, sadness, grief. I’ve filed for a restraining order for both me and my DD and I want nothing more to do with him. social services have been a great help in assuring me he will not have her on his own going forward unless via contact centres for the time being. But I’m so frightened he’s going to get me and hurt me restraining order or not.
My anxiety is through the roof! Is that normal!? How could I have not seen this coming?!?
Something tells me this wasn’t the first time he’s done it!
Please let there be someone out there help and advise on how I can mentally get over this and be strong not just for me but for my DD too 😭
Thank you 🫶🏼