He doesn’t have to hit you to hurt you.

Abuse comes in many forms.

Me, during a time when I was being abused but didn’t realise it.

I will not be describing any of the incidents here. If you want the graphic details you will need to trawl back through my memoir pieces. I have no desire to relive any of it right now.

I have written in the past about my experiences with terrible boyfriends and I have described some of the instances where I was scared or humiliated and felt trapped.

There was a pattern of abusive boyfriends and of course my ex husband.

But I didn’t see it. Not at the time. It wasn’t until I did a course on domestic violence in my 40’s that I realised that what I had experienced was domestic abuse. They hadn’t been normal bad relationships. But I didn’t realise because none of them hit me. At most they only ever grabbed or shoved or held me down. They had never beaten me up. I didn’t recognise what had happened to me as domestic abuse. The financial control, the coercive control, the love bombing, the gaslighting. I just thought that was what relationships looked like.

I had learnt from a young age that men roar and rage and women placate.

During that course, I was shaken to my core. The stalking, the lying, the manipulation, that was all abuse.