Tea at Four - Ep 59: How to spot signs of domestic abuse, why the Euros put people at greater risk of abuse and the shocking first hand accounts of two survivors

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

This episode is part of our wider No More Injury Time campaign designed to raises awarneess of the shocking 38% increase in reported domestic abuse cases when England lose in a major tournament, like the current Euros.’ Lauren is joined by Sharon and Flo, two domestic abuse survivors, who bravely share their shocking stories and explain why it’s important to be talking about these topics. They talk openly about the different kinds of abuse that people experience, how waterboarding is more common than we think and how you can seek help if you or someone you know is going through domestic abuse. Please head to these links if you or someone you know has been affected:https://bit.ly/SolaceNoMoreInjuryTimehttps://bit.ly/NCDVNoMoreInjuryTime

Just a heads up, this episode will contain references to domestic abuse and violence, which some people may find distressing. Hi, welcome back to Tea at Four. I'm Lauren and this is the podcast where we talk all things that normally stay in the group chat. I'm joined here today by two incredible women. We have Flo, who is a survivor and content creator, and Sharon, who is a survivor and head of partnerships and development at the National Centre for Domestic Violence. Hi ladies. Hi. Thank you so much for coming on today. You're welcome. So let's start off with Flo. Would you mind sharing a bit about your story and experience with domestic abuse? Yeah so I'm Flo, I'm 31. I met my abuser when I was 19. My domestic abuse story is slightly different to a lot of other people because a lot of other people unfortunately experienced emotional abuse long before physical abuse started. fell pregnant as soon as I slept with this man. My abuse ranged from physical, emotional,

financial and sexual abuse. And his like MO, I feel like all abusers have an MO, his MO was waterboarding, which is a torture technique used, well, it's a banned torture technique, actually. But yeah, that was like his his mo and that was kind of what i was subjected to for the whole nine months of my pregnancy um it wasn't until he was caught hurting me in whilst i was in labor um and a midwife saw him that's really where the ball started rolling when i actually realized what i was going through wasn't okay it wasn't normal um and yeah I fled when my baby was six weeks old so I packed up everything in the car moved back to my hometown in Essex and um tried to start a new life really how has life been since escaping all of that it has its challenges and I think that that's something that isn't really spoken about enough because we so desperately want survivors to be free that we

don't really give the them the equipment or the knowledge of what life will be like after um I fled like I said a decade ago but only four years ago I had a mental breakdown um I developed agoraphobia complex PTSD I kind of thought I was fine you know when I first fled I went to university I became a trained teacher I was so adamant that I didn't want to be a statistic to society I didn't want to be a single mum on benefits so I dedicated my life to helping other people and being a teacher and I really felt as though everything was fine until it wasn't I didn't have the tools to say actually I've had this horrific thing happen I need to get mental health support I need to get counselling I need to really unpack it I didn't know that so I didn't do any of that and yeah

six years after I fled I had an extreme mental breakdown I actually thought I was hallucinating it got that bad um yeah the flashbacks were so bad that I thought I was hallucinating I thought I was seeing things and hearing things because I was yeah I just couldn't really process exactly what it was that I was hearing and seeing um so yeah that was then why I turned to TikTok I yeah yeah I mean that's how I found out about you and your story and it was I think it was specifically the waterboarding which I had never heard about before your videos so amazing that you've brought awareness to that but what was so instrumental in you showing the the good the bad and the ugly of your journey

since escaping yeah I think it's actually a lot of women relate as well and men to be honest with you a lot of women and men I have helped women and men flee um that is a misconception everyone thinks that I'm like this man here and it's like i just support domestic abuse victims i don't think we are yeah and it's like i don't care what the gender is i just want people to be safe and happy um but yeah it's normalizing that and it's about not having like the restraints of like what mainstream media might put on us and saying you can't say this or you can say this um and so it was people really recognizing and waterboarding is quite common people are very shocked by my story but there are hundreds of women and men that i have spoken to that were waterboarded by their ex-partner this is a

banned torture technique within the army yet here in the united kingdom it is happening to men and women probably currently because it is a um technique that doesn't leave marks it's a technique that can cause an extreme amount of damage um and you know that's why it's banned because of the lasting impacts that it has on people and i think a lot of people were grateful that i brought this to the forefront and to actually normalize that mental health is an issue for years after i also think as well that um you know a lot of people are like oh but you left you left a decade ago you should be fine and it's really difficult I

just paid off 60,000 pounds worth of debt that I was in because of my abuser this year um you know there's a lot of things that had this lasting impact because I was in debt I never could afford a new bed I could never afford a new sofa I couldn't afford all of these things I was still paying these debts off I have since learned and this is the great thing with TikTok because I get taught things I get taught in the comments that there's these things that are available for survivors that I might not know and then other people that are in that at that moment they're reading that and they're understanding those resources are readily available I didn't know that there's charities out there that will help you pay off the debt I had no idea so I just took I took the 60 grand and I paid for it for 10

years but it's so great that I can then use my platform to say there is support out there for you that if you have found yourself in financial abuse, it's there available for you. Yeah, amazing that you bring up about the conversation in the comments and like how powerful your platform is. I guess, how was NCDV instrumental in getting out of the situation you were in? NCDV have been fantastic. So very recently, I've actually had to use their services again um

because i put my story out online for the world to see um there must have been something going on in my abuser's life i hypothesize because he now randomly started reattacking me again and that was like malice communications. It was like misinformation online. He was spreading so many lies. And there were very scary moments, to be honest with you, very unhinged videos that were pretty worrying. And if anyone saw it, it's ironic. If anyone else has been through domestic abuse,

they'd be like, 100% he's an abuser. But my initial thing was, oh my gosh, I'm so scared. What if people believe you know oh this is terrible my whole life is gonna you know be destroyed and tiktok's gonna be over with um and so the only number i knew who's the call was ncdv you know even though i'd been because a lot of people look at me to gain the advice and it's like I need advice I need support I need help um so yeah I called up NCDV they told me you know non-molestation order um within three weeks I'd had um what is called an emergency without notice non-molestation order so you can have several different non-molestation

orders and NCDV help with all of that they they put you in the right direction for lawyers and people that will will take on your case because we get um what's it called what's the financial legal aid so if you're a domestic abuse survivor you are offered sometimes legal aid dependent on your salary um and they sort all of that out for you so you just call them up and say this is what's happening and they can say of that out for you so you just call them up and say this is what's happening and then you can say we can give it to them without notice we can give it to them with notice you won't be able to get it at all whatever it is but we will sort out all of the paperwork which is just yeah so brilliant when you're dealing with police and social services and

the doctors and the teachers and so many people in our lives had to be informed i didn't have the energy to fill in paperwork and you know all of that so yeah and now he cannot contact me my non-molestation order is um he can't contact me he can't talk about me he can't make fake accounts on tiktok about me he can't make fake accounts on instagram or on facebook because he did this across all social media um any sort of aliases so it's a very very strict non-molestation order very specific which i feel like specific maybe a lot of fear would come from people that want to speak out it's just like oh my god is there one blanket situation they're going to put me in for protection but i guess the the the judge that i had was an honor judge and they are renowned for being very strict with the rules um so within family courts it's very

different within a legal court you you don't need as much evidence to prove um like the burden of proof really you do not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt within a family court which can make it messy and it actually i've definitely found in my experience that a lot of um survivors have been re-abused through the family court yeah definitely because of the fact that you don't need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt on your tiktok actually which was one of the videos i saw you made a really amazing point to stray away from the you know overarching term of domestic violence because that doesn't necessarily encapsulate all of the different types of abuse that comes underneath that so would you be able to walk us through kind of what that looks like yeah so domestic abuse is an umbrella term right when you use the term dv or domestic violence you are basically putting in a bracket to say it can only be

physical violence in order for it to to be you know Domestic abuse actually breaks down and has it so you recognise every single different type of abuse that's out there. So we obviously have domestic violence under domestic abuse. Now that is the physical violence, that is the sort of classical ABH, GBH. We now have non-fatal strangulation, which i think is a brilliant thing to be brought into law and legislation um so that's under the domestic violence header so anything physical you then obviously have sexual abuse now sexual abuse is unwanted sexual contact pretty much so it doesn't have to be a penetrative rape it can be you know kissing touching um oral that is that it covers every single thing for for sexual abuse um sexual abuse as well i might be mistaken but i'm pretty sure sexual

abuse also covers things like revenge porn um and it covers so it doesn't even have to be physically being touched you know it's actually things that may have happened previously that are now being used against you so so again it's an umbrella term and there's so many things within sexual abuse that that causes problems for people. Well, pain, not problems. Then you have financial abuse. Financial abuse is just, as it says on the tin, really, financial abuse is the power used by money. Now, it can be a number of different things. Financial abuse can be that I earn all the money as the victim, and you are taking all of that money from me and therefore I have no access to that money it could be that you earn all of the money and you

don't let me get a job and you give me you know a salary to live off or like you know an allowance not salary so like for food shoppings and stuff but it's in essence they can take out debts in your name they can overdraw do overdrafts in your name etc etc and it's all about the the power that financial abuse does towards somebody and then the final one is emotional abuse and emotional abuse um covers things like coercion and control uh which we were speaking about earlier which has very recently been put into law hasn't it 2015 yeah um and that's sort of like so people don't really know what coercive behavior is either do they but it's in essence like persuasion it's persuading somebody to do something against their will that that is what coercion is gaslight

gaslighting right narcissistic abuse you know the sort of buzzwords i hate but they're the buzzwords with that fall under the emotional side of it um degrading somebody like not even necessarily gaslighting just being vulgar right constantly as i spoke about my neighbor yeah um constantly belittling her constantly screaming shouting at her all of that is emotional abuse telling you that you're not worthy telling you that nobody's gonna love you telling you that you know you're not gonna achieve to be anybody or you look too fat or you look too thin or your hair is too gray or whatever it is that is all emotional abuse and in any and in any abusive relationship there is always that yeah if there isn't any of the other ones yes there is

always that always yeah that is and that's why i think for me personally we should move away from domestic violence and say domestic abuse because emotional abuse is the most common and again it is the deadly killer for victims i think because yeah you know nobody knows about it you can't see that i've just been called a fat slag before i came here i haven't by the way but you know you wouldn't be able to see that because i could be bubbly and fine and maybe just pulling up my shirt a little bit and feeling a little bit uncomfortable but that is emotional some some perpetrators will never use physical abuse violence because they don't need to because they've got the level of control that they want and need from the coercive and the emotional control.

It's only when they start to feel like they're losing that control that they may resort to upping it to physical. So it's really, really important. And people don't, women and men, they don't realize that that is, you know's like flo said earlier well i haven't been hit yeah yeah there's not to undermine the things that you have experienced and i feel i feel like that's so important because when i growing up you have this idea of like domestic violence and like you say it's the aggression it's the hitting but i feel like nowadays we really do normalize that kind of degrading and talking down to people and gaslighting and it's like we're here on love island and we're like oh funny someone's gaslighting

someone yeah no stop stop saying that's an acceptable way to i find that on tiktok all the time that's one of my biggest pet peeves is the glorifying of like domestic abuse relationships and they're like haha we're toxic there was a thing called um from non-molestation so so from restraining order to um lovers and in essence it was a trend of people saying that they took out non-molestation orders on their partners and now they're lovers again now we understand that they come back and they leave and you know it takes on average seven times for a person to leave their perpetrator i'm not shaming anybody but i find that when you are glorifying that and when that becomes funny that that's an issue it's not a trend it's not a trend yeah and it's not funny and it's and you know i actually think as well and then i'll stop rambling but when a victim dies via suicide because they are so degraded

by emotional abuse who is to blame is it the person that took the pills or is it the perpetrator that belittled them for 20 years i would say i would say it was the latter and that's why i call it the silent killer because that that will not in the statistics. That will not be spoken about. That will go down as suicide and actually it was like murder by proxy. I don't even know if that's a real thing but they, in my eyes, are to blame because they have degraded somebody so much

that they cannot see a way out and that is why I think domestic abuse should be called domestic abuse. One of the biggest things that I'm realizing through watching your content is in a lot of these situations there's not much proof and it is a lot about the retelling of your story and how believable that account is and how believable you are as a witness yeah I think that that's really sad yeah you shouldn't have I mean the thing has always been you shouldn't have to prove it you shouldn't have to

provide evidence but you know you do in reality you do because otherwise you're not gonna you're not gonna get the orders you're not gonna get the the convictions or whatever it is so you know it is difficult more so since um coercive control has become illegal. Because, of course, very rarely is there any physical evidence of that. It's very good that we've got this system where it's innocent until proven guilty, right? But all that does is make the victim guilty until proven innocent. make the victim guilty until proven innocent so those extra avenues of support like ncdv provides are so crucial to somebody going through something like that would you be able to give a bit of context to how you're into this line of work sharon how i got into this line of work yeah

okay so it's some i went a survivor of domestic abuse. Yeah. Long time ago, but listening to Flo strikes me, actually our stories are very, very similar, as of course many, many, many, many, many victims and survivor stories are very similar. So I have been working in the violence against women and girls sector for 27 years. until until i went to work at ncdv that was all frontline so i've worked in refuge i've worked um in westminster up here in london for 16 years um with mainly women but i have worked with men as well uh and then um kind of went to NCDV about three

and a half years ago and it felt for me it kind of felt like I've gone full circle because I in order to get out of my abusive marriage I I got a non-monestation order um so it and that is what essentially helped me to leave the relationship because he breached it many times and then went to prison so that gave me that opportunity you know so it felt to me uh when I was kind of approached really because I wasn't looking for another job I was approached by NDV and asked if I wanted to go and work there and I thought this is like yeah this is meant to be because this is I've gone full circle now so yeah so that's that's how I got into it I I was I didn't for like a long long time and like Flo about six years afterwards, I had a breakdown. Okay.

Which actually isn't commonly known. But Flo just talking about it. And like Flo, I thought, I'm all right. I'm okay. I had a small child. And then when I had my second daughter by a non-abusive man. It just blew up. My head just went. And yeah, I was seeing a community psychiatry nurse and it was awful.

And it wasn't until about probably about 10 or 12 years, probably about 10 years afterwards that I started to think, actually, I'd like to do something. I'd like to go into this and do it as a job you know and help people yeah and kind of help people you know understand that there is kind of a light at the end of the tunnel because you don't think there is when you're going through it you just can't see it you know yeah would you mind talking a bit about your experience what in that time, it's fine. So I met him in, well, we got married in 1984. Okay. And it was just a long time ago. It was like 40 years ago. I'm old. I was very young then, actually. I was 18 when we got married.

Okay. I was 18 when we got married. Okay. And, yeah, the abuse started probably, I mean, I remember him hitting me, actually, before we got married, but I didn't really think much of it at the time. And he said sorry and it's all all right, you know. I think that the main sort of it started mainly really when i got pregnant with our daughter um and uh escalated quite quickly afterwards so i i had um sort of

certain points in the relationship that i think of when i'm talking about it um and i'd had our daughter by a cesarean and we were living at my parents at the time waiting to be rehoused by the council and um he went out to um he went out to a party uh i didn't want to go because my my daughter had what i now know is like a heat rash but But, you know, she was my first child and I was young. You panic all the time, don't you? Yeah, yeah. So I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave her.

So I stayed. And then, you know, it got really, really late. And I phoned the house. There was no mobiles in that time. I phoned the house where he was. And they said he'd gone. I could hear him anyway I thought I'm just going to go to bed and I'm not going to make a fuss and he came in and came upstairs and he had

a can of lager in his hand and I was laying in bed and I thought I'm not going to react I'm just not going to react and because I didn't react he just poured this can of lager over my head so I got up I thought let me try and get to the bathroom bearing in mind my parents were asleep in the bedroom next door um and he wouldn't let me pass and he punched me in the stomach i'd had a cesarean section oh my god and that i think was my biggest mistake because i let him get away with that um and uh you know i i you know believed him when he said he was sorry and everything can i just say um because i noticed language just as a teacher and yeah the mistake that yeah it's not you just said that was my biggest mistake i don't

oh yeah it's not yours don't punish yourself but you see but you see it's interesting isn't it because it's interesting because I still do that yes and and like all these years later like fought my daughter's 39 in August so like 39 years later and working in it for 27 years and I still I still say that and it's very i think i do as well like i i definitely blame myself um i went through a theory once where it was like when does the victim turn to be the perpetrator of their own abuse and this isn't you know i don't actually believe it but in turn if somebody said oh i am to blame because my boyfriend hit me I'd be like oh my gosh but just like you I think well I stayed you know is it my fault and I think that that also is powerful to talk about so that

other people realize that they're not alone in those thoughts and actually we could be the best girlfriend in the world and still probably have those thoughts. But, you know, women say, I've had a lot of women say to me that I've worked with, but you don't look like a battered woman. And I always say, what does a battered woman look like? You know, I mean, like, what do you think? What is that perception?

That's really interesting. I've spoken to a lot of doctors, nurses, NHS workers, so we cover all of that, firefighters, police officers. I speak to a lot of those that are trained to spot the signs in somebody else and think that domestic abuse is i guess a class issue maybe you know that it only ever happens to lower class or these types of people um and actually they're in a domestic abuse relationship and they had no idea and they're they are trained to spot those signs and yet they had no idea until somebody or one of their friends said you're being abused and then it starts

clocking in like oh yeah you know and that shook their world because they were thinking well how can i be trained to spot all of these signs and you know especially if you have like you say that perception of what a battered girlfriend is you know and actually it is all classes are affected by it all different people are affected by it all genders are affected by it and actually in my experience working it it's it's the it's the the women should we say that um i should say middle class women that they are perhaps they have more boundaries more barriers sorry um to leaving than your typical stereotype as as i was seen i suppose you know council house born and bred type of on benefits you know single parent um because i could go into a refuge because i would get housing benefit women that have got property in their names you know it's a misconception that refuges are free they're not in london

they're upwards of 500 pounds a week yeah to live in that's not a permanent fixture is it if you've got property you can't get if basically if you can't get housing benefit you can't go into a refuge so where do you go you know so for those women it's more difficult actually yeah 100 and even those with like the financial abuse that like the financial abuse is worse i think the higher the salary right because you're gonna be controlled more and more and more um and i do think that as well i know somebody that actually so this is a little top tip if anyone that is watching that is in financial abusive relationship and would struggle with the money um her husband would give her weekly shopping allowance um she used the cost

of living crisis as an excuse right and the shopping went up by 50 pound a week yeah 50 pound a week she pocketed oh and she had to plan meticulously when she so she knew she was leaving a year before she could leave so she took 50 pound a week for a year so that she had enough money to survive for her and her children when she decided it was time to flee because he was so strict with the financial abuse and so overpowering with the financial abuse that you know she wouldn't have been and the thing is what he did as well as he put all of the bills in her name so he would transfer a lot of the money over into her name so it looked like she had a lot of money and actually she was given an allowance to basically go and feed the kids a week so yeah I thought that that was inspiring that she told me that very very brave and very very clever so clever yeah yeah and to think that many steps ahead I

feel like in that situation you're in is not easy yeah I mean i i i thought steps ahead as well i the first time that he hurt me i didn't record it and then after that point on i made a fake email address so it was just a random email address and what i would do is after an incident he basically would usher me off into the bathroom to go and clean myself up with any of the incidences whether it was sexual or physical I'd have to be put into the bathroom like I guess like an animal um but in that in between time I was able to take pictures of the said incident and then I'd send myself it so I'd send a picture with a little blurb where it was like um x did this or this time because a fork wasn't clean and i sent that so not only did it have a date and a time stamp it had a very short summary of what happened so that i might be able to remember oh yeah yeah that that yeah i remember

that and then a picture to link up to what I went through and then I deleted the picture deleted the email from my sent items he had no idea and when I fled I had this whole email address wow I wonder if it would have been I mean because I didn't have that option no emails yeah no smart no phones you know couldn't take pictures. So, you know, there was no, there was literally, there was literally no evidence when I left. Yeah, yeah. Apart from the fact that I had the non-molestation order, of course. Yeah.

I guess, yeah, back in the 80s, you couldn't document it. Not really. After that first instance, what happened? Did you tell someone about it? Did, like, what was the next? I told friends. They knew. I remember in China, we were at a flat party And did you tell someone about it? Did like, what was the next? I told friends. They knew. I remember him trying to, we were at a flat party and the block of flats where we lived.

I remember him trying to throw me off. I don't know why I'm laughing. Trying to throw me off of the balcony. And my friends stopping him, basically pulling me back. But nobody really knew. Nobody really knew what to say he was like the life and soul of the party do anything for anyone you know um yeah nobody really said anything did anything to help me i didn't know anywhere that could help me i didn't even know there were refuges at that point you know um so it just kind of carried on um and then got worse and worse and then my next door neighbor she was having problems with her husband as well and she she said you know you should go to this solicitor and speak to her so um i did and

she said to me you know we can get a non-molestation injunction and are you ready to leave and i wasn't ready to leave i don't don't know why don't know why now but i wasn't ready to leave and um i said no no no this might stop him. You know, this might stop him from doing it. So went to court, got the without notice non-molestation order, which meant that he didn't know I was going to court to get it. But it had to be served on him. And I was still living with him.

So the process of a care, that was a hairy scary evening i know i can remember it now i was sitting there waiting for the door to knock and um the process server who is basically somebody that comes to the door and gives them because until those papers have been given to that person they're not they're not in in in effect right that was what happened with me very recently so ncdv helped me by december i was in court getting a without notice non-molestation order he didn't get served to him until february because he kept evading service and so that's what someone can do they can do that very approached yeah they can just evade service so it's easier sometimes if they don't know that it's coming right um like my then husband

but he he opened the door took the papers read that came into the living room read them just looked at me and just tore them up just tore them up would you have to also just uh explain to our listeners what actually is a non-molestation order yeah so a non-molestation order is um it's a civil order um you don't it doesn't involve the police so um in my in my personal experience and i'm working with uh you know probably hundreds of hundreds of women a lot of women would don't want to get most women don't want to get the police involved yeah they don't want to do it um and you know in kind of the last few years that's been more so i think because there hasn't been an awful lot of trust in police since the murder of Sarah Everard.

Yeah. So this way, they don't have to involve the police. The police only get involved if that order is breached. So it's a civil order, as Flo was saying, and it can contain various different clauses that are kind of tailored, if you like, to that situation, to that person. So it can be not contacting on social media, no phone calls, no texts, not to go within 50 yards of the person or the person's house. It's kind of tailored, really, to that person.

And if, after the court, the judge has given that order, if the perpetrator then breaches that order in any way, then they can be, basically, they can be sent to prison for up to five years. Generally, they're not. It depends. It's kind of on a sliding scale, really. If, I mean, in reality,

the police have got a positive arrest policy and they should arrest whatever the breach is. In reality, they don't. But they should do. so if it's like a text message they probably wouldn't go out and arrest the person right but if it with somebody if they'd gone round as my ex-husband did and um and stabbed you then obviously the police are going to go and arrest so it's it's it's your your abuser stabbed you yeah yeah what yeah then that was after i'd left actually so the statistic that you know you're

more in danger once you've actually left is yeah yeah i can attest to that so i can't even imagine so he's been served the order yeah and then i guess it only gets worse he was served the order and then after that he he he was just breaching all the time he broke my nose and i went to um the i actually left him on january the 4th 1988 and um i went to i just fled it was i i got up one morning and thought that's it i can't do it anymore took my daughter actually packed in front of him he didn't think i would go he won't be able to sleep and uh and i left and i called my solicitor and I had about two weeks left to run on this order. I'd got it in the October. It was for three months and I had about two weeks left. And I said to her, you know, he's broke my nose. He's done this. He's done that.

And it was an awful Christmas as well. And he she called the police and the police went and arrested him. And we were in court the next day and he was sentenced to two months in prison for breaching the order, which was very unusual back then. Really unusual. Everyone was really shocked. I was terrified. I thought, that's it. That is it. It's going to kill me.

The police were excellent, actually, all the way through. And they were like, no, no, no, no. We police were excellent actually all the way through and they were like no no no we'll protect you and all the rest of it so he went he actually did about he did a month because you do like half and he came out and he was only out for about a week and he was just just coming around you know kicking the door in just like listening to the letterbox if i was on the phone and then he'd kick the door in and take the phone off me and bash it over me i don't know i was just like um and then uh my friend said to me come on come out um come out with me to the local nightclub. So my mum had my little girl, went to the nightclub. It wasn't late coming home, about half eleven.

She came in with me and as soon as I opened the front door, I picked my little girl up from my parents and came home. As soon as I opened the front door, I knew he was in there. I knew he was in the flat. I could see his chair. What was his chair? It's kind of moved slightly. And I said to her, just go in and turn on the lights. You know, when you see these horror films and like nobody turns on the lights. And I was like, just go and turn on all the lights.

And she was laughing. She was like, oh, he's paranoid. I put my little girl to bed in her bed. And went into like what was our bedroom and i had one of these probably too young to remember mfi furniture store but um it was like double wardrobe with a bit over the top and um i said to her open the open my side and she did and she was laughing and i said open his side and she opened it And he jumped out with a carving knife in his hand. And he I was sort of like up against the bed and he came up with the knife and it went through my hand there.

He brought it down. So I put my up and and he he put the knife down it went through my hand and then as he brought the knife up again she was behind him and she took the knife out of his hand um yeah otherwise i'm not quite sure yeah i'd be here to tell it out and uh and then she went into the other room and called the police. And he was kind of, I just remember going like this. And I don't know if it was the adrenaline. It wasn't bleeding at the time. But I remember just going like this. And then it was like, and I said to him, you've stabbed me.

And I can remember saying, oh, it's just a scratch. No, it's not a scratch. It's gaping, you know. scratch no it's not escaping you know um and it was kind of like he he thought oh i don't know what you thought anyway he ran out the flat yeah but even when the police turned up i had a tea towel around my hand and i put my hand behind my back um and didn't tell them that he'd stabbed me and uh just said that he was there and he shouldn't have been there why i his dad had died in between um uh him coming out of prison and him stabbing me his dad had died yeah and it was the funeral the next day yeah and i just in my head I was just thinking if he doesn't go to his dad's funeral his whole family

are going to hate me I don't know why it bothered me so much he did go in handcuffs escorted by the police so his family still hated me couldn't do any right anyway I think trauma bonds

are a real thing that you wouldn't have known about in the 1980s you know like stockholms in germany yeah yeah yeah why well because she had a trauma bond yeah yeah you know that that's really the reason regardless whether we people from the outside can understand that or not the reason why is because you were bonded to this man i didn't want i didn't want him to be to get into trouble i wanted him to stop hitting me yeah i didn't want him to to go to prison i didn't want him i didn't want any of that to happen it's so much more complex because that's the dad of your child right and you're worried about all those other relationships of what your friends will think and i i don't say why as in like a accusatory like no no no i know no no no but i think

like yeah what's so important and even i've witnessed in my life is that people are so deep in their situations it's not just as simple as like it's really even when you've got even when there's just like am i allowed to swear yeah even when there's like a dickhead boyfriend like he's not an abuser but he's just a bit of a dickhead yeah he's lazy he's you know he's a slob or whatever whatever and you say to your friend like you can do better than that she's not leaving until she's had enough yeah it's the exact same times a thousand when you're in a domestic abuse relationship nobody is going to be able to leave until they're ready no simple you can keep telling them you can guide them you can hold their hand you can you know remind them of all the services but nobody

will go until their breaking point is their breaking point and i always say and i always say to women don't don't don't go until you're ready because they'll go back yeah and then it's 10 times worse yeah you you know i always knew i knew i knew when i you know i didn't kind of i i mean i know that a lot of women leave go back leave go back i wasn't one of those women i i always knew that when i went that would be it i wouldn't go back with me so it had to be at the right time you know yeah um and it was but that doesn't mean it's over that doesn't mean that the abuse is over it's not it's more dangerous yeah after that you know i was fortunate enough to have hundreds of miles in between me and

my abuser but very similar i didn't keep going and coming and in a way like i start self-analyzing and i think maybe i did leave because there would be times where i'd mentally check out and be like i'm done done yeah and then the next day i'd be like chilling with him again so you know even though i'd physically not left i feel like i'd mentally left quite a few times before I actually did. But yeah, I was the same. Mine was, the thing is, is I knew what was happening was wrong. Fundamentally, I knew what was happening, what was wrong, which is why I sent the videos and the pictures and everything to that email address.

It was then just about what was my level. My level was social services about what was my level my level was social services yeah that was my level i was got social services were involved and they said to me you could be the best mom in the world but if you stay with this man you are putting your child at risk and therefore your child is now on the child in need plan so i had a four week old baby in a child in need plan had the very real possibility of him being removed from my care yeah um and that was enough that was enough for me to say i love my son more than i want this man to be okay yeah and that's why why i fled definitely i think it's actually really interesting that you bring up about the characteristics of an abuser because you were saying like he was viewed as the life of the party.

He's a big drinker. He's fun to be around. And I think particularly in this campaign, it's a time of like big major football tournaments. People are drinking more. They're being more social. being more social it's a little bit more i don't want to say accepted but normalized to have that aggressive behavior that like alpha energy about these things so do you think there's a link there between you know it happening around these kind of big matches for me um definitely yeah it was um i hate football absolutely detest it and and the reason why is because it was every time, you know, there was a big tournament, I would get beaten up. Well, yeah, regardless, but probably worse if England lost.

And I lost count of how many remote controls went through television screens and um I just used to be absolutely terrified of a big tournament coming up because that would always happen I'm very curious just curiosity killed the cat I guess was he a fan of another football team was he like that with the other football team as well okay yeah because i've always like wondered with the link of england is it because let's say i don't think i can even say other football teams can i can i yeah okay so let's say like leeds and arsenal they are not going to be possibly playing on the same day. One will play on Saturday. One will play on Sunday.

Let's say a man who supports Leeds and a man who supports Arsenal are both abusive. It means that they're going to be abusive on separate days. Whereas when it is England, they are abusive on the same day across the country. That is where I'm seeing it. I think that there is a pattern. my abuser wasn't abusive with football he doesn't care yeah i absolutely love football so you know it's a stark sort of contrast really um but that's why i wonder whether it increases i've i also think as well um when do england play

england play in the summer everybody is so excited about football is coming home we're going to go to big gardens we're going to go to you know pubs with our friends we're going to go around our families houses we're going to have the windows open because it is hot i think you know if i went around yours and you knew that there was a victim upstairs but you never called the police before. Yeah. I'm a survivor. I'm coming around to watch football with you because I like football and so do you. But I'm going to call the police because I can hear it.

And that's just who I am. You know, there's a lot of like neighbours who kind of ignore that behaviour. But then when football is on, it congregates people together. Yeah. And it makes it so other people are alert to it and that they've been exposed to it. But we never went out. I mean, I was never with him.

I never watched those matches. I mean, you know, if he watched a match at home, there would very rarely be, sometimes he would invite his mates around, not often. There wasn't necessarily drink involved either. Oh, okay. He was a football hooligan anyway. So a lot of the times he used to go up to the big games of his team as well

and he'd get arrested, you know. The police would call me and say, will you come and get him? And I used to say no. Towards the later part, me and say will you come and get him and i used to say no towards the later part yeah i would say no keep it fair enough yeah and then the next day would come in but like having spent the night in the cells and say didn't they phone you and i'd go no you know but i had like a bit of a reprieve so there wasn't always alcohol involved with mine no i don't um but it was i clearly remember the feeling of just absolute terror waiting for him to come back you know from a football match um especially especially an england one yeah yeah i think make a really

good point there about it's not always drinking and the abuse is there 24 7 it's obviously exasperated yes by these games but like i guess okay so you as a survivor would know the signs to look out for what would yeah what what are the kind of signs that we should be spotting um i think that uh constant um belittling of somebody is is definitely a sign um you know if you are a neighbor one of the things as well this is this is up for debate and people have their own different opinions on it and i guess that's what makes domestic abuse complicated right because it's not a one-size-fits-all and everybody has their own opinion on it me and you as survivors both have a voice we're both entitled to have our voice spoken and yet we might think differently and i think a lot of people wonder whether calling the police is the best thing if you are a neighbor and

you are overhearing it is calling the police the most sensible because the police don't really unless they're going in and they're walking in and seeing something horrific they're just going to i mean with my experience with the police it was a knock on the door are you okay yeah i'm fine okay toodle pips so yeah you know and you're just left with it and then you're just left with it and then you're also left with the can't believe you fucking called the police on me like how dare you like oh my god like you're you're mugging me off in front of everybody and now now it's doubly bad because now it's like i didn't call the police somebody's obviously heard that so um but i would always say it's dependent on the situation if you see something in the street please help them one

of the things that my abuser always used to do is he used to attack me in the street i was i'm five foot one and a half that half is very important guys um and yeah i was very very skinny i was anorexic at the time that i met my abuser so um i was six stone with this belly like it looked like it was a plastic belly because it like stuck on and i was diddy and he was over six foot beating me up in the street and nobody did a thing yeah so i i would beg people as they were walking past i was like please help please call the police and they would walk past and ignore me and so you know that that's the thing isn't it it's so taboo yeah and it still is yeah so taboo yeah everybody knows somebody everybody knows somebody that's going through it but very rarely will they even admit it why you

know because there's shame and that's what i do with my tiktok like i always say this phrase i will not hold shame for somebody else's actions I am done feeling shame for somebody else's actions I get trolled all the time I get called horrific things I get called that like you know and it's it's not for the faint-hearted I'm I'm just very lucky the support system that I've got around me just know who I am as a human so that helps me bounce back. But they're trying to shame me for somebody else's actions. I cannot shower because of his choices, not because of mine. And therefore, okay, say that I stink. You know, you're not sat next to me.

You have no idea if I stink or if I don't. You know, so the opinion is irrelevant. But leading back on to what to do, what's the signs? If it is in the street, I personally think it is a safety protocol to call 999 to get involved. Not, you know, you have to also assess it yourself. Don't put yourself in a dangerous situation. But bare minimum is to call 999 and to get support for that person. And then, you know, if it's the neighbours, neighbors I mean I very recently had a neighbor

who was going through domestic abuse it wasn't physical but it was emotional and it was horrific to listen to it was it was all day every day I was having to listen to her being called some of the most degrading things and I pulled her aside and I said what you were going through is domestic abuse and she said oh but i'm not being hit and i said i can hear it it doesn't need to be physical um if this continues you know well i didn't even say if this continues but i basically said would you like me to call the police she said no i said you've got a safe space in my house please run to my house if you're needed so me and her put in essence a safety protocol because she wasn't ready at that time to call the police and i didn't want to make it worse so we literally had like a step by step this is what's

going to happen this is the exit of your house that you're going to take and how you're going to get into my house and then we will do that when she was ready to flee him she was in my house till three o'clock in the morning so we had that put in place absolutely essential i agree safety plan safety plan if you have a neighbor you know and it doesn't have to be like knocking on the door like i know you're being abused guys it's just like general conversation i used to start dripping in like oh yeah i'm a survivor of domestic abuse and oh yeah like I do TikTok I started drip feeding that in and like when I was getting the bins I was like hi you okay once you once you say that you are I mean that just opens you know that's really how I approach

it to be honest once you say oh actually I'm a survivor of domestic abuse that's it you know oh and even if they don't say something at the time yeah you often find they'll come back definitely 100 percent yeah 100 so that's that's an easy way of getting in there really and starting the conversation and i guess for the people that aren't domestic abuse victims that are listening, that do want to help their neighbours, it's not about shaming them. Because a lot of us feel shame. A lot of us think, oh yeah, I'll leave him, I'll leave him, don't worry about it. Then you can't even look at your neighbour in the face because they know that you've stayed with them. So it's about creating that safe space i said to this particular lady this is a judgment free zone i do not care if you go back 12 times i just want you to know that that final time i'm still there and a lot of people do not offer that to survivors you see comments you know all the time of like oh yeah i had to drop out my friend because she chose her boyfriend over me and it's like did she choose or was she forced yeah and if she was forced how do you know that she's got a safe space to go to when she really needs it the most i think that's one of

the reasons that you know i i kind of believe in ncdv so much because we don't we don't force people to if they you know if they're referred by the police and then by the time we contact them the next day they you know usually have changed their minds you know um we don't say we don't put any pressure on them we say okay that's fine you know do you do you want any help from anywhere else can we put you in touch with anyone else you know nine times out of ten they probably say no you know that but but they know that it's a judge free yeah they know when it's that final chance who to call and that's why i call it when they're ready yeah yeah and that's really important it's really important because they are living their life with somebody controlling them the last thing they want isn't

anybody else doing it 100 yeah and you make such a good point that a survivor is not always someone that's got a battered face or like it's very physically obvious so i guess as people that aren't being abused if we can take that little extra time to read between the lines stuff like when a football loses a game if someone's throwing a remote through a tv it's not normal not normal and that's not okay I am a massive Legionite fan like I will talk you till you're blue in the face about Legionite is i have mental health issues which is another thing that uh abusers use as an excuse like there's a lot of things that they alcohol or drugs or whatever it is if i drink a glass of wine i don't think to throw my remote through the tv when leads lose and you know it's at all because there's a lot of drink involved well there might be or

there might not be it's not about that it's not domestic abuse is only only about control yeah and power yeah and you know some people kind of like real sort of football fans some football fans my ex-husband for example he he that was his whole identity yeah so if if they lost he saw that as some i don't know some sort of weakness i also think as well they they see it as an excuse you see someone that's like got alcoholic um alcohol dependency they'll say oh i had a glass of wine and at lunchtime because you know a tire like my tire popped or so that there'd be a reason right my hair didn't go the right way so i'm stressed so i'm gonna have a glass of drink it's the same with domestic abusers that actually that's a perfect a reason to hit or hurt

somebody i i did that because england lost you know it's a it's a perfect excuse and actually it might not even be anything other than the fact that it's their weakness which you can't see if you're on the receiving end of it yeah because you feel like the weak one but it's it's their weakness and their their way of getting back that control that they have to have don't ask me why if i knew the answer i wouldn't still be doing the job you know but it's it's it's their identity they're so wrapped up in that game in that in that sport that um it's somehow you know when they lose when england lose it's somehow a reflection on on them and their control i don't know it doesn't make sense does it but you know do you know what i mean yeah um and and i think that that is that is one of the reasons why it's not about drink no it's not about drink yeah

some people do and and the level of that incident that single incident might be worse than it would be, than it had been if that person hadn't been drinking. Yeah, sure. Yeah. But it's not the reason. 100%. Not the reason. And is there an assumption in terms of, you know, seeking help and getting out of that environment? Does it have to be the worst violence or can it be like what

encapsulates that other level of abuse i mean i when i i've worked with i don't know probably a thousand women yeah and i can probably count on two hands how many i've actually seen with black eyes and bruising um it just it just doesn't happen refuges are not full of women with beaten up faces they're not they don't leave when that happens they're more clever than that you know i think it's yeah i think it's really important as well to kind of reiterate that and the the intensity of of emotional abuse because that is the unseen killer in domestic abuse. That's the worst. That still affects me now, 40 years later. You know, I've got a bit of OCD about sort of cleaning.

That comes from him because if I hadn't wiped down, bleached down the kind of alcatraves on the doors every day he would hit me so 40 years later i well i'm not quite as bad as that i don't but i'm still quite ocd and i recognize now that's because of that yeah i'm the exact same there's certain things like oh my poor partner like when there's like a bit of coffee granules on the side it triggers me because it reminds me of incidences that i got because all me and my partner my sorry my abuser used to argue about was washing up that was the main thing so when me and my partner are now like looking at like washing the pots it gets you know and he'll be like oh i'll do it it internally like there's some sort of internal

trigger that i really really struggle with um and yeah so i i that's why i smiled when you said it but i thought god if they show my face i'm not smiling at the horrific story. I'm just smiling that I get it. Yeah, I mean, it's the stuff. And so, I mean, so many, so many women will agree with this. And I know Flo will. It's not, it's the stuff that goes in that's said to you over the time that you're in that relationship. It's the stuff that goes in here that you that that does the damage yeah not not the black eyes um not the broken noses yeah they hurt yeah but they heal but the stuff that goes in here

never goes away ever so say if you're in a situation like this and then you're getting help from like nctv what what does life after that look like for both then you're getting help from like ncdv what what does life after that look like for both of you on a personal account as well on a personal level um it has been a bumpy ride like i've said but i mean look i'm here i'm wearing this shirt like it is amazing i'm representing ncdv i'm representing solace i'm representing domestic abuse i wouldn't have done that if i hadn't have been free yes it's a bit weird how i am here because i i do struggle with the physical side i i think you know obviously you were talking about people not having i know you wasn't saying that they don't have lasting impact you're saying that the broken noses and stuff heal um my physical waterboarding is something that emotionally is still affecting

me to this day so um you know that was a decade ago and i am still struggling with those aspects but i have an amazing 10 year old son he is literally so lovely like he's so kind he does these little like secret goodie bags around his um like his area because he just wants to make people smile that's beautiful yeah he's he's honestly he's so amazing i have a fantastic partner who has helped me throughout the last four years with my mental breakdown i have an amazing stepdaughter who i wouldn't have had without my partner um my dad is fantastic like there's so many people that i could reel off that are just such an amazing support around me that i wouldn't have if i hadn't have left and so that's what i want to normalize i want to normalize that it is hard and it is a lot of work but that hardness is only a fraction of how i felt when i was actually in the relationship yeah you know like yes it's not all

sunshine and roses and there are struggles and uphill challenges but i would much prefer that with love around me than to do that with hate around me because life is a struggle right yeah it's an uphill battle whether you're in a domestic abuse relationship or you're not but what do you want do you want someone belittling you who's swearing at the tv and like he's frustrated that England's lost or do you want somebody who parted your hair for a podcast yeah that's gorgeous yeah you know that's and that's the difference yeah i think everyone would choose the latter 100% love that thank you what about you sharon um yeah i mean like yeah it is hard and mine's even longer ago so i would have been married to him

40 years this year and that's a long time um you know still have struggles with my eldest daughter because unfortunately she's her mental health has really been impacted by her father who she doesn't see anymore obviously but um you know i'm kind of always reminded really that's come from that yeah um but you know she does well i've got two beautiful grandchildren from her um and uh i've had another daughter and uh she's 33 she's just had a little baby girl um so uh yeah it's good but my i guess it sounds really cheesy but my my my work is my life it is um sometimes to my detriment um and without that i mean i just think there must be there must be a reason that I went through all that yeah and and I've always said as a cliche I've always said you know I just I just want to

be the person that I wish I'd have had when I went through it because I didn't have anyone and I didn't know anyone you know um so uh and that that has its bonuses as well as its drawbacks because I do find it hard to say no to anyone that needs help um but yeah my work is my life and I love it and I love what I do and I feel I feel proud of myself I feel like I've really you know I could have gone one way um but I've gone the other and and I've really for me I've I've know I've helped a lot of women I know I have and and I'm for that I'm grateful you know so if that's the reason that I went through it fine so what was it that made you want to get involved in this No More Injury Time campaign? For us, for NCDV, we've done campaigns before around the major football tournaments. And so when we were approached by yourselves, we were, yeah, absolutely.

We wanted to do the collaboration and get involved because we've always felt it's an important issue to raise and raise awareness from it. This campaign means so much to me, honestly. It's such a privilege to be a part of this and to be surrounded by so many amazing women. Like, you know, last week when we went to the Brentford Football Stadium just to see and hear people's stories. It's an honour to share this podcast with you and yeah it's been really inspirational to listen to your story and I and I really recognize a lot of myself um in you and so it's yeah so it's really interesting to be able to say like if I keep going that this is my my journey so you know I um have a very special place in my heart for domestic

abuse survivors and I also have a very special place in my heart for football so to be able to combine that to make it better for the next generation is yeah I mean this is going to go down as my top number one thing I've done. So, yeah. That's an amazing answer. I love that. Would you just be able to summarise what services NCDV offers? Yeah, so NCDV, we offer a free service to victims and survivors of domestic abuse,

male and female, to help them get non-molestation orders, predominantly non-molestation orders, predominantly non-molestation orders. We also help them get occupation orders and prohibited steps orders. Last year, we had 100,380 referrals. And we helped nearly 6,000 people who weren't entitled to legal aid which is the main which is the main reason ncdv was founded to help people that weren't entitled to legal aid um we um also signpost them and refer them to other organizations uh that they may need help and assistance from amazing cool yeah i actually i forgot i got my

pso from ncdv and i was also signposted to carol which i then got my counseling my son got his counseling through so yeah amazing in terminology and especially in addressing you guys you prefer to use the term survivor of a victim would you be able to give some context in why that's so important um a lot of people that have been through domestic abuse don't see themselves as victims i have never seen myself as a victim i have survived it i'm still here yeah it was difficult i nearly didn't survive it so i prefer the term survivor whereas i don't think i've i don't think i'm a survivor yeah it's a very personal thing in terms of my work when i'm speaking i'm very aware that it's a very personal thing so when i speak i tend to use i tend to say victim survivor if i can if i'm if i'm doing something in writing

you know a presentation or something i will always use the term victim survivor because i think it is a very very personal thing i see i don't see myself as a victim i see myself as a survivor flow doesn't you know it's it's it's very very personal myself as either though so i'm a little bit pernickety but i blame my mum for the english language right i am not a victim because i have not died and i am free yeah but i'm not a survivor because by being a survivor means i've gone through it and that invalidates my experiences right now the shower that i cannot take the medicine that i am taking you know the the counseling that i am doing i'm surviving i haven't survived you know that is that's for me yeah i get that too and that's what i mean it's it's a very personal thing yeah definitely it's when i heard that question i was like oh sorry sorry sorry oh no no i think yeah but i think you're right like

it's very personal some people see themselves as victims some people see themselves as survivors yeah some people don't even want to be attached to it some people want to pretend it didn't even exist you know they don't want to be called domestic abuse anything yeah they just want to exist so yeah you'll never be able to uh please everybody but you know the world is made up of so many different people right but you're never in whatever you do you're going to be able to like fit it for every single person yeah because everybody wants something different and it does demand that different sense of sensitivity depending on how and i just think

it's like a respect thing right like if you say like oh what you want me to refer you and i'm like oh domestic abuse survivor and you keep calling me a domestic abuse victim then i can be frustrated with that right but if you're like doing it as a generalized i think the generalized thing the easiest way to say is that um somebody that has experienced domestic abuse 100 yes yeah yeah and try and kind of steer away from the labeling really yeah um because yeah some some people don't even recognize that they are experiencing domestic abuse so they're certainly not going to recognize or identify as a victim or a survivor yeah yeah 100 well thank you so much for coming on t4 today i have loved this episode and if people want to find out a bit more about you and your journey flow where would

they find that um so tiktok so it's flora's recovery with just two y's at the end um that's where you'll find me most of the time perfect and what about you sharon um if anyone wants to know anything about NCDV they can go onto our website which is www.ncdv.org.uk amazing well thank you so much thank you we will see you next week thank you for listening if you or someone you know has been experiencing domestic abuse then please head to the links in our bio for more information on our violence against women and girls partners