This posts contains references to sex, rape, substance misuse and derogatory language [referencing labels applied to the report’s author]
Recently and over the last two years I have been back in hell. Back in the family court system. The place where decisions are made about children and parents and families and it’s a very secret place mostly full of working class people with no legal representation because of the dismantling of Legal Aid by the Government.
I was there not only begging (that is how you are made to feel calculated and purposefully by a system that wants to see you on your knees), to see two of my four beautiful children but also that my children may see each other and lastly that someone will help my 14-year-old who was self-harming last year in two different ways.
All requests were denied and I was told I am not allowed to ever return to court even if I’m concerned for my children’s welfare and safety for a period of 12 months and even after that time it will be denied.
The horror of begging in a court of law when I have on more than one occasion begged for people not to beat kick or rape me was more than humiliating. A life-long non-smoker I now smoke. Before I only drank socially now a glass of wine will “settle” my nerves. I’ve been off medication for years and am now once again taking thought-numbing medication to try soothe the disassociation.
I’ve also tried mushrooms and cannabis to soften the nightmares. Neither prescription or street drugs were effective and once again in my daydreams I started to consider crime in the most majestic sense. My criminal fantasy is of an ethical brothel of which I am the madame. By day my ladies will study and by night service the lonely and greedy.
But I am terrible at all of this. I can only smoke two cigs before I feel sick, maximum two glasses of wine before I feel dizzy, and the brothel it would fail because I would simply tell all the punters to f… off! You see despite Queen and Government repeatedly telling me I’m bad, despite the reams of reports that say I’m unbelievable and trustworthy I am actually inherently a simple, nice, dare I even say, a good person.
I’m a kind, empathetic person, I can make people laugh. But inside I often think I’m nasty, dirty, and a slut. Or ‘puta’ as I was often called. Too many people have spat words of hate at me, and I’m not just referring to violent men, but police and social workers and doctors have all also called me names as well. Too many reports have dehumanised me. I told my eldest daughter I would bring her brother and sister home at least for a visit and I feel I failed.
I felt confident to promise because I naively again out my hope that the system would punish me but not my children as well. And I bleed pain, hurt ,sadness, heartache. I bleed it onto this page. I bleed it when I watch violent pornography as a way to calm my nerves. I can only take five minutes and them I feel repulsion again.
I pick at my nails and my hair and I grimace in the mirror when I paint my face in the morning. “You’re a fraud” I say, “a fucking fraud”, then I remember I’m also an artist who loves to cook and travel. So I sew, I draw, I write.
I’m going to Seville in a few weeks to eat tapas and look at the Moorish city and feel alive again. We are not what they tell us. We are who we see and feel who we are. We have been stripped literally and questioned and prodded so we feel raw we feel vulnerable. We feel exposed. FIGHT BACK I SAY. Seek joy, beauty, comfort, hold yourself tightly and eat chips as many as you can fit in your mouth, smothered in sauce.
Embrace and hold tightly onto those things that lessen the hurt deep inside you. I like to cook in my pyjamas and sing loudly to Teddy Pendergrass, and I remember what my son used to love and my tears fall into the bowl and I stir them in because that’s my love, and I cook with love and I am love. I am not what they did to me or wrote about me or labelled me. Please say this out loud. You are so loved.
—
Join us: We see the the hub as the start of a movement of people, all united in the belief that elevating our voices will challenge stereotypes and help decision makers end homeless health inequalities. Join us by signing up to our mailing list – the Listen Up! mail out.
