CCChat-Magazine_11 (1)

I made the mistake of confiding in my ex-
Dominator about my childhood experiences and
he listened attentively and comforted me whilst I
poured my heart out to him about the things I
witnessed.
Little did I realise that, in true Dominator style, he
was storing the information for future reference,
as one day during an argument he took a glass
and dangled it in front of me, threatening to
smash it on the floor if I didn’t comply with what he
said. Recently, my mother and I were talking and I
told her about one of the other memories I have of
my father throwing a meal she had prepared
against the fridge in a rage. I told her I
remembered the gravy slowly slithering down the
front of the door. She was very shocked that I
remembered something that happened 23 years
ago when I was so young...
The next story provides a clear example of the
way an ill-informed adviser can put women and
children in danger.
I left the house to get some space between us, as
suggested by Relate Counselling, but after this
experience I knew I could never leave the house
again whilst my baby was in there. The fear of
thinking something might happen to your child is
very strong and it is a powerful way to control
somebody.
Feb 28th 2009- He was shouting and then
threatened me because I answered back. Lots of
trigger points. Abigail’s comforter was missing, the
neighbour is giving him wood he now doesn’t
want, he was trying to watch rugby and, of course,
he had been drinking. I was gradually being
backed into the utility.
I asked several times for one of us to leave room
as it was escalating. He said, “You leave” so I
said, “Okay one of us needs to leave the house so
the situation calms down. I’ll do it”. I went to sit in
the car. I could see he had turned all the lights off
downstairs. I then panicked about Abigail. I
thought, “What if he went to hurt her to spite me?”
"Little did I realise that, in true Dominator style, he was storing the
information for future reference,"
Daisy was trying so hard to follow the advice from
a ‘professional’ who had no understanding of
abusive men. I hate to think how many other
women have been placed in her situation.
Daisy
Here are some of my experiences about the
impact on the children. Much of the text is copied
word-for-word from my journals at the time. When
I first thought about this task I didn’t think I would
have much to contribute, then memories kept
coming back and there are pages of the stuff.
Monday 29th December 2008 -Poor Abigail, I
worry for us both. She is so precious. The other
day, he was in a mood and followed us up the
stairs and deliberately left the stair gate open. I
know he did it on purpose, how vindictive is that?
He would wish harm upon her to get at me! Why?
That is not normal. I hate being scared. I hate
being threatened. The next entry describes a very
scary night when he locked me out of the house
and I suddenly became sick with fear because my
little girl was asleep inside. I was terrified he
would harm her to get at me.
I’m sure he wouldn’t, but I was really scared. I sat
and cried in the car and, after five minutes, I tried
to get back in the house. He’d locked the back
gate and left keys in front door so I couldn’t get in
there, either.
He has done this before and I’ve gone round the
fields, climbed over a fence and got in the back
door. I looked for torch, but it was not in the usual
place. I thought, “Okay I’ll give him a chance to
open front door”. He opened it but said he
wouldn’t let me in. His face was full of anger and I
was really frightened. I’m upset now writing it
down, but he eventually let me in. We then had a
discussion where I didn’t really get a fair chance
to speak and was belittled and patronised as
usual.
Before I left the house, he had told me not to
speak, then asked me a question that required me
to answer yes. I was scared to speak, so I didn’t.
He then said, “You can nod your head”. Later in
the argument, he said my head nodding was
aggressive!!! .....
If this man had murdered Abigail while Daisy was
locked out of the house she could have ended up
in prison for failing to protect her daughter. The
worker who gave such potentially lethal advice
would not have faced any sanctions at all!
The Empower Issue