CCChat-Magazine_Issue-13

Freedom’s Flowers
By Pat Craven
Chapter 6- Poppy
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Pat ...I signed up to the Freedom Programme forum a while back, but have never
had the confidence to post anything. This is partly because writing things down
makes the situations more real rather than some hazy nightmare. You can probably
guess from that that I am in an abusive relationship at present.I have only ever had
four relationships and three were, or are, very abusive. I don’t understand why I get
it so wrong all of the time.
I just believe people when they say they’re going to love and look after me. I believe that’s what they’re going to do and not
try to destroy me as a human being in every way they can. I am trying to get my head around ending this one now. I have
found, with the other two, that circumstances gave me the opportunities to sort things. I’m not relying on that now, but I need
to be 100% confident (or as best as I can be) to sort this, as I have to be strong for my children to manage their pain.
I have two very complex disabled children who both need round the clock 24 hour care. I have no family, as they disowned
me when they found out I had disabled children. I was branded ‘a failure’. My family had always been disjointed. My mother
walked out when I was 13. My father didn’t want my brother and me. My mother didn’t want the stigma of having a child in
care, so I lived with my mother and stepfather until I was 16. It was horrific. When I was 16, they left me alone in London
where I got myself a job and a bedsit and was self-sufficient from then on. A lot of bad things happened throughout my
childhood, but I was always determined to make a life for myself and not allow the bad things to rule my future.
Bringing things up-to-date, my ex-husband, who is the father of my children, was abusive to me and the children. Both of my
children have autism, as well as other complex mental disabilities and physical disabilities. For example, my son 46 cannot
walk properly. My son could not talk until he was about 3 1⁄2 and, when he did, my ex-husband couldn’t cope, so he would
try and hold his hand over my son’s mouth. One day, my son bit his daddy for holding his wrist so hard, so my ex bit him
back. It got so bad I could not allow my ex to be alone with the children and our GP confirmed this when we went to see
him. I would have to take them to the toilet with me to wait outside so I knew they were safe.
At that time, I was fighting through the courts for my children to have a right to an education. I did this alone. My children
were both backwards and forwards to hospital constantly. I also had become very seriously ill myself, to the point where I
had to be tube fed and went down to six stone. My ex abused me verbally and I constantly encouraged him to keep away
from the house, which he did do. An example of what we used to go through was how my ex could not cope with talking in
the car at all. My children, being disabled, do not understand that, so they would get it ‘wrong’ and break the rules.
One day we had to go and visit a new potential special school for my children. My ex got lost and his temper erupted. He
screamed in the car and drove like a mad man through the city streets. He was shouting how he was going to kill us. The
children were terrified and so was I. The car screeched to a halt in four lanes of traffic. I was sat in the back with my son
supporting him. I banged open my son’s, my daughter’s and my own seat belts. I shouted for my daughter to get out of the
car and lifted my son out. Car seats were strewn across the road. We wove our way through the traffic to the pavement
where strangers met a crying little family. Unbelievably, we were opposite the police station and they ran out to help. My ex
crashed the car further up the road. Back then, the police did not offer us advice on refuges or support. We were expected
to go home with my ex. Having no family and no money, we had no choice.
Slowly, I began to realise things had to change, and I sought information and saved pennies until, one day, I told him to go,
and he did. I should mention that my son, who was seven at the time, was very violent himself. He would pull my hair out, he
split my lip open and I had to have four stitches. The scars are still there today. He scratched and punched. The day my ex
left, my son’s violence stopped! It was incredible. My little boy became the beautiful young person I always knew he could
be and, despite all of his disabilities, he is one of the most caring, loving people I have ever known.
That is not the end of the story sadly. I did say, initially, my ex could see the children at home when he liked, providing he
was good and kind to them. I explained how scared they were of him and how he had to work at regaining there trust. He
visited twice and both times he was abusive, aggressive and distressed the children.
Making The Invisible Visible