Guest post: "Domestic abuse silenced me - until I found my voice in a police cell"

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

I was arrested for the second time five years ago, and it was during the following period in a police cell that I found my voice. My arrest was in connection to accusations made by a man who had abused me during our relationship. I'd walked out months earlier, when he threatened to end my life while I was pregnant with my daughter.

And despite later being arrested at dawn as I tried to get my six-month-old daughter to sleep, despite sitting in a stinking cell with breast milk leaking through my t-shirt because my baby, who I had never been apart from before, needed feeding - I'd never felt stronger in my life.

I was ready to talk.

Before the abusive relationship, I wrote a blog – which I'm not allowed to name due to legal reasons. My online diary was a place I visited every now and then to try to make sense of what was going on in my then 20-something head. There was nothing much to say so I wrote about the job that I hated, the band that I played in, and the terrible men I dated. I put up some anecdotes and poems, but no one was reading.

I didn't have an agenda, or a 'story' to tell. I didn't know what it meant to have a 'voice' or what it was to 'find it', I was just talking to myself without purpose.

Then I found myself an abusive boyfriend and life stopped. I forgot about the blog. Domestic violence silenced me. I wasn't allowed to talk to friends, to talk back to him, to talk to him in a way he 'didn't like'. I look back on that time and I see a hunched woman talking low, unable to piece together my own thoughts. I couldn't even make eye contact, I'd speak in a shaky whisper.

The first time he had me arrested had been when we were living together. And when the police released me from custody with a caution my shaky whisper turned to silence - but when he was asleep I logged back onto my old blog.

I wrote about how he had pushed me down the stairs, I wrote about how I had called the police, how when they arrived I was hysterical, terrified but so relieved to see them. I wrote about how my boyfriend had taken one of the officers to the side and how suddenly I was the one being arrested. I wrote about my confusion and how I asked for help that no one would provide. I wrote about that first arrest and about my miscarriage into the cell toilet.

Nobody read it, but I liked it that way. It gave me freedom. I logged every assault, every insult as I tried to make sense of it. I lived life in silence but on my blog I could offload everything that was destroying me.

On the day I left I was ten weeks pregnant. I uploaded a picture of myself; my lip was busted and the skin around my eyes was swollen and black. I was scared but also defiant. When I pressed publish it was me saying that I wasn't going to keep quiet anymore.

I documented refuge life, solo pregnancy, being stalked on Facebook by the man I had run from, and the numerous social media accounts he set up in my name. I published the constant stream of horrific emails he continued to send me months after I had left. And I wrote about giving birth, moving out of the refuge, the immense love I felt for my baby, getting to grips with motherhood and trying to get on my feet.

By then people were reading and I was starting to make a living as a writer. But when my daughter was six months old the police turned up with a warrant; they packed away my laptop, confiscated my phone and carried out all of my notebooks.

My abuser had made a complaint about my blog and I was arrested.

When the police asked me to confirm my name for the tape recorder I declared it with a clarity that hadn't escaped my lips in years. I heard my voice for the first time.

I realised that writing through the abuse not only gave me the opportunity to exorcise demons but it gave me strength, clarity and something to stand for – no one was going to shut me up. When the case was dropped I was given the freedom to use my voice and I made a pact with myself that I always would.

Five years ago I found my voice in a police cell and it showed me that you can find it in the most unusual of places, the darkest hours or pasts that seem better best forgotten – but once you find it, you must never stop talking.

[Night0wl]

Just love your post OP. You ARE very strong and sure have found your voice. Keep talking.....I for one would love to read what you have to say