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Hello Dum Tee Dummers
So, this is a post regarding the Storyline that shall not be named.
But it is resonating so much with me I felt compelled to write something. This has turned into somewhat of an essay, so apologies for that.
But, I have realised over the past few months, that in the Rob and Helen storyline. I have been Henry.
I am a regular lurker and contributor to DTD, but please forgive me for creating a pseudonym in this posting. My reason is because some people involved in the things I am going to say are still very much suffering from the effects of what happened to them, and their story is not mine to tell, so I need to be sure that they cannot be identified.
But this is my story. And this is why I think the Helen and Rob storyline is far from being over.
I am a grown woman now, but this storyline resonates with me so strongly and with a part of my childhood, that I wanted to share, and I wanted to speak for Henry. Because, although not as dramatically as Helen, he too is being abused by Rob. And, if my experience is anything to go by, things will certainly not improve for Henry when the son and rightful heir comes along.
I was 9 when my parents divorced. My Dad was a brilliant Dad (he sadly passed away a few years ago), and i was extremely close to him. But, despite being a great Dad, he wasn’t such a great husband. My parents married young, and they wanted different things. The split was the best for all of us.
So, I lived with my Mum. My Mum came from a large family and had never lived alone, so these were difficult times, and she was vulnerable, not eating properly, and her self-esteem was low.
Then, on a night out with her sister, she met Rob (not his real name, but an apt pseudonym)
Rob told her she was beautiful, made her feel desired, and convinced her that he was the knight in shining armour who would make it all OK. And when that is all you have been wanting, of course, you are going to snap that up when it comes along.
After a couple of weeks dating, I was introduced to Rob. Several years younger than Mum, he was charming and he would come to the house and play with me, and make an effort. My Mum’s family were won over too. He was the answer to our prayers. Even at 10 years old, I had some niggles that I wasn’t sure about. He sulked when his football team didn’t win, that seemed odd behaviour for a grown man. But, he made my Mum happy, and that was all that counts.
Then it started. he would drive me to school, and give me helpful “advice”. “The other kids won’t like you because you don’t like sport. You need to stop coming top of the class, it makes the other kids hate you”. I was never bullied at school. I never had problems with the kids in my class. Just the bully at home. I would complain to my Mum. “Don’t be ungrateful, Rob is good to us, we are lucky to have him” etc.
Then, after less than a year, my Mum was pregnant. I was going to have a baby brother or sister. I should have been excited, I always wanted a sibling, but I knew it meant that this man was now here to stay. And I sobbed.
When i was alone with him, out of earshot of mum, there would be little digs to belittle me. But in front of Mum, charming as ever. he even told her that he wanted to adopt me so we could be a “proper family”. They asked my Dad permission without telling me. They told my Dad that it was what I wanted. It wasn’t. Luckily for me, before agreeing, my Dad discussed it with me, and I was HORRIFIED to find out that this man wanted to have even more power over my life than he did.
I could never tell my Dad about what was going on, because it was hard to put into words. It was just silly comments here and there. I didn’t want to be a tattletale. And I convinced myself that I must just be an awful child who is impossible to control. Which simply wasn’t the case.
i was top of my class at school, I never had to be disciplined. I loved school, because school was the one place that I had some worth and value.
At home, it became increasingly clear that “step”daughter wasn’t really part of the perfect family set up that Rob had in mind. I think he thought that by making life increasingly unpleasant at home, that I would go and live with my father. This wasn’t an option. My father was unemployed and unwell, there was no way he could support me. And besides, i would never admit to him what was going on. As far as my Dad was concerned, I had a lovely home life. I wasn’t going to be the one to put him straight.
None of my friends knew what was going on because they weren’t really welcome at the house. And I would discourage them from coming, because Rob would be mean to them, or mean to me in front of them, and I would be embarrassed.
My brother was born and I adored him. But, from when he started to toddle, when i was about 14, things turned again. My place in the pecking order was made very clear, and my Stepfather just stopped speaking to me. His way of dealing with this cuckoo in the family nest was to pretend that she wasn’t there.
The atmosphere at home was unbearable. I couldn’t understand why my Mum was letting it happen, it was so unjust. Of course, what i didn’t know was that the abuse she was receiving at the hands of this narcissistic bully was just as fierce, more so, and just as hidden from the outside world. We were suffering in isolation in the same house at the hands of the same bully. He had driven a wedge between me and my Mum that would take another 20 odd years to repair. I couldn’t confide in her because he would say I was lying. I couldn’t confide in my Dad, or teachers or anybody because to the outside world we were a lovely little family. i thought my Mum was happy. How could I risk that? I didn’t know that she was being gaslighted, told what to wear, who to talk to, where she could go out. Only in the last couple of years, since she finally got the courage to leave him, have we shared stories of how this outwardly charming man hurt us.
I used to pray that he would hit me. That he would lose control and lash out, just once. Just so i had something tangible to show people that he had done. How can you prove that someone whose house you live in refuses to speak to you or acknowledge your presence? If he was at home, my Mum would have to get permission from him for me to use the shower, or the kitchen, or anything really that involved me being out of my bedroom, which is where I spent all of my time, to be out of sight. This went on from age 14 to 18. I lived in a house with an adult who refused to acknowledge my existence – unless he was putting on a show to visitors. We rarely had visitors.
On my 18th birthday, Mum insisted that we have a party with some family and a few friends at the house. I really didn’t want to, but Mum insisted. Rob didn’t attend. he stayed upstairs in their bedroom while we had some awkward celebrations. untill at 10.30pm he came downstairs, turned the stereo off, put the golf on the telly, and everyone left wondering what the hell was going on. I was mortified.
I could understand if I had been a naughty teenager, rebellious. But I was just withdrawn, and shy and studious. But I was in his way.
Of course, the son and heir, my brother, was exactly that. I would have to serve him. He could do no wrong. he was going to be a champion footballer, a heartbreaker, not the ugly girlie swot that I was. He was spoilt rotten. Again, to outsiders, nothing seemed amiss.
I love my brother dearly, it is not his fault that his father behaved the way he did. I left home when he was 5, so to this day, he has no idea how much his arrival meant that I was relegated to a nuisance. How much sustained confidence bashing I got from his father. I was the shell in the omelette of the perfect family.
All I could do was work hard at school, get my A-levels and go to university. I applied to universities that were at the other end of the country to where we lived, so that I could really get away. I also applied to Cambridge and was given an offer conditional on me getting 4 As at A-Level. Which I had been predicted.
When my A-Levels began, my Dad became seriously ill and required a quadruple heart operation. I would spend my days at the hospital in London with my Dad, rushing back to my home in Kent to do an exam, and then rushing back to London again to be by his side. He thankfully recovered over that summer, but it was a very difficult time.
As a result, I got and A and 3Bs for my A-Levels, not bad considering. OK, so I wasn’t going to Cambridge, but I was going to York. Lovely. And beautifully far away.
When family members rang to ask how I’d got on in my A-Levels, Rob told them I had failed them. Failed. Because I didn’t get all As. The man who had ridiculed me for being a girly swot. I think he wanted me to go to Cambridge as that may have reflected some glory onto him? I really don’t know.
At university, I wasn’t eligible for a grant because my Mum and Rob had a business together and they earned enough to support me. However, Rob refused to pay anything at all towards my going to university. I worked 3 jobs to get myself through with no support.
My brother? They paid his rent, plus spending money and tuition fees. He went through university without once getting a job. Golden boy.
In my 2nd year at university. it was announced that Mum, Rob and my brother (then 9 years old) were going to move to Ireland. They went. Away from my Mum’s family, friends and life. Where they could finally be the perfect family.
Perfect apart from the sustained emotional abuse and physical abuse that my Mum sustained for the next 15 years. That she hid from her family. because to admit it would be a failure.
My Mum escaped, but it took her 25 years. She is having therapy now and trying to focus on the future.
I too have had treatment for mental illness brought on by crippling low self esteem.
That one man did this to us. He found a vulnerable family and ingratiated himself. And to all intents and purposes, we looked like a normal family.
Je suis Henry. And when that baby comes, he’s in for a world of problems
This storyline is far from finished, I am sure of it.
Oh god. Thank you for sharing this, so brave as it must be hard on many levels. If this storyline does nothing else but raise awareness of – and support for victims of – this type of abuse, it will be worth the angst of listening to it.
hi, that must have taken a lot to write. my mum was a victim of domestic violence too. both her and my step-dad were alcoholics and when they’d been drinking they’d have awful arguments late into the night, it was horrible to listen to, i felt powerless to do anything. my siblings always managed to sleep through it all. there was only once that my step-dad was virbally horrible to me, my mum had taken the other 4 kids to stay with my auntie for the night because he was becoming unbareable to deal with, why she thought it was a good idea for me to be left with him when he was intent on drinking himself into a stooper is beyond me. anyway they left and i went back up stairs to hide away in my bedroom with my music. he came up then and said “oh dear, she’s left you here, look who’s the favorite now then? he left and i sat on my bed shaking. he came back up later trying to make ammends with food i pretended that i accepted that he was sorry but inside i felt so alone. i’ve never been able to forget that moment. we went in and out of care over 7 years, if my mum had got the propper help in the beginning and if the social survices had done their jobs, we would’ve been spared a lot of trama. i just thank god that my brothers, especially the twins were too young to remember any of it. i’d like to say i got out unscathed but i’ve suffered with anxiety since i was 9, and that’s still very much present today. it’s got a lot worse over the past 2 years, since i heard the people in the flat next door having a domestic, i thought at first they’d invited people in and they’d got nasty, i heard all the shouting and was scared enough to call the police, i was a wreck down the phone telling them to come quickly and that i was scared that these people would brake in and hurt me. it turned out to be a domestic between a boy and his girlfriend, but what might have been a domestic to other people triggered something buried in me. from that moment on i can’t hear raised voices without it affecting me, for example only today next door but one were having a blazing rowe by the sounds of it, i heard shouting and her kicking the front door and it was enough to leave me feeling sick and shaking. i’m determined to get past it though, i’m having therapy. the worst thing though is that i don’t think i’ll ever be able to trust a man because of the way my mum was treated. don’t get me wrong, i know their not all bastards, but there’s something in me that feels a need to protect myself, i can’t even take the risk, especially if i want to bring a child into the mix, the very thought of my child going through what i did or anything even close makes me feel physically sick. anyway, even with my anxiety problems i don’t regret my past, it’s made me the strong determined person i am today, even though i didn’t have the best start i’m even more determined to make the best of my future.
Thank you Henrietta, and Amy. You both touched deep chords within me too.
Henrietta, your line “I used to pray that he would hit me”. Yes! So did I (with my father) – I was that desperate for someone to SEE and something tangible would allow other people to see it. I used to hurt myself, I think for similar reasons. He was hitting my mother (eventually he escalated to that, after nearly twenty of controlling emotional abuse).Amy, when you talk about the anxiety that rises from deep within when you hear other people arguing, I know exactly what you mean too. It triggers that whole panic-freeze response in me too.
You both sound like grounded, courageous people.I won’t share my whole story, suffice to say it is a familiar one and a deeply painful one. I too have been having professional help and the strength that a past like this has built within me definitely makes me something I am proud of now.
I am truly grateful for this storyline for all that it is exposing to people about what goes on. It’s the slow, creeping insidious nature of it that is being portrayed so well. When listeners sometimes say “i wish this would all be over – it’s gone on too long” I do think “actually this is nothing. this is no time at all. Wait and see how it feels after 25 years.” Similarly, I don’t believe the storyline can ever be “over” – as the lasting emotional effects on the mental health and relationships of Helen, Henry and no doubt her new child will go on for a long time. This kind of abuse – all of it – the control, the emotional abuse, the fear all have an enormous effect on their self esteem, confidence, anxiety levels, sense of self – I could go on and on.
I offer sincere thanks and congratulations to the writers and actors for their impressively written portrayal of domestic abuse and for doing it well enough that people are sharing their own stories, hopefully feeling less alone.
SilvergirlHi
Firstly, thank you to Henrietta, Amy and silvergirl. I wish there were a way I could reach out and give you a hug or hold your hand. I can’t say that everything will be OK but please remember that you are strong, you are loved and held in high esteem.
That last bit got me through some time of bullying a few years ago at work.
I don’t know if it means anything to you but I will pray for you and all victims (and the abusers, that they might see what they are doing – little or no hope but you have to try!).
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