Webchat about emotional and domestic abuse with author and journalist, Colette Snowden, Monday 28 November, 9-10pm

[RachelMumsnet]

Author and journalist Colette Snowden is joining us for a webchat on Monday 28 November, where she will be talking about her own experiences of emotional and psychological abuse and answering your questions.

Earlier this year when The Archers' storyline on domestic abuse became a topic of much discussion on Mumsnet, Colette wrote a guest blog describing the difficulty she had in escaping an abusive relationship, which provoked much discussion. Last month we ran a giveaway of her novel, The Secret to Not Drowning, the story of a woman trapped in an abusive relationship - and readers have been sharing their thoughts on this compelling and powerful novel.

Please do join Colette and put your questions to her on Monday 28th November, between 9 and 10pm. If you can't make that time, post your question on this thread in advance.

UPDATE: We'll be raising money this Christmas for victims of domestic violence - we'll announce more soon, but do keep an eye out this December. We'll be shouting about it on the boards and we'll match-fund donations to the charities up to a total of £10k.

@PresidentOliviaMumsnet

Hi Colette Thanks for coming on MN - afraid I've not yet had a chance to properly read through your book (more children than hands and DH out of the country) but out of interest are/were you a listener of TA? if so, what did you make of the Helen storyline?

Hi

I haven't been a listener in the past but when friends started mentioning the storyline to me I tuned in. I thought the storyline was brilliantly written and I know Refuge consulted on the script so no wonder it was so authentic. It was a hard listen for me and I felt very moved when she finally stabbed him - I know a lot of people weren't happy that it all took such a dramatic turn but I think it portrayed how trapped and desperate emotional abuse can make someone feel

So, I think that's all the questions answered? Thanks everyone for getting involved and sharing your stories. xxx

Thank you, Mumsnet, for the opportunity to join this discussion tonight. And, of course, sincere thanks, Colette, for your gracious replies to our many questions. Wish you the very best of luck for the future.

I think that's all the questions answered.

Thank you Colette for joining us this evening and for your honest and thoughtful answers. It's brilliant that your novel has given us such an insight and we hope it goes on to help lots more people to make the move to get out of abusive relationships and also to speak out. It's also really interesting to hear your advise on how we can help family/friends who are going through this.

Thanks so much to all those who joined us today and who spoken bravely about their own relationships. We do hope you've found this webchat valuable. If you haven't already, do try and get hold of Colette's brilliant book.

As we said in the opening post, Mumsnet will be raising money this Christmas for victims of domestic violence. We'll announce more about how this will work very soon and make sure we add a link from this page.

@notabee

Hi Colette, I'm afraid I haven't read your book yet, I will buy it when Christmas is over though, as it sounds very thought provoking and I unfortunately have dv experience too. I really just wanted to say thank you for bringing this more into the media / limelight or whatever you want to call it! I'm sorry you've had the experience you've had though. It's still something that really isn't talked about face to face. Very few that know me in rl are aware of my dv history and I still can't open up about it. I almost feel embarrassed that I somehow allowed it to happen. Maybe one day. Anyway, take care and well done (and I hope that doesn't sound patronising, it certainly wasn't meant that way).

Sorry - looks like I missed yours. I hope one day you will stop feeling embarrassed - look again at this thread and the comments about how it can happen to anyone - the strongest of personalities and most intelligent of people. Abuse is not about the character of the 'victim' but the behaviour of the abuser. You have nothing to be embarrassed about and I hope this evening's conversation reinforces that!

Hi Colette and everyone else on this chat

Thank you for writing about emotional abuse, Colette.

It is important that women's voices are heard on this subject as you have also pointed out, people tend to think of physical violence straight away when it comes to domestic violence.

I also want to say that domestic violence is overwhelmingly abuse and violence perpetrated by men against women and children ( and this is definitely shown in recent and past research) although there are many who are trying to avert the focus on male violence by saying it is not a 'gendered' type of abuse.

The word they are looking for is not gender by the way as gender is not the same as sex and male violence against women is definitely a sex-based oppression.

To say so is to do a great disservice to women and girls who are assaulted and abused on a daily basis.

Arguing that women can be abusive does not make any sense or head way to solving the problem of male violence and silences women. Women indeed can be abusive, too, but nowhere near the scale of male violence against women.

I wish for women and girls to be free from sex-based oppression and all to be free from gender stereotypes ( let's just rid of gender altogether- after all it is a social construct).