one person’s freedom fighter
is another person’s brainwasher and domestic terrorist
herstory
Category: Abuse
i am not there
fight
i very nearly killed you
your saliva in my hair
your foot against one cheek
the hard pane of floor against the other
roared forward from me a fire
so ready to tear out your throat
rip your head off
disembowel you.
you seemed surprised.
that part of me still washes her face
in great gouts of your blood
scorns your whimpers
if i’d known then the harm you’d done to others
all your extravagant lies
all your cruelty while you spouted your goodness
the obscene future circus you’d planned for me
i’d not have hesitated in the face of that limbic creature
i’d have buried you as the carcinognic ash you are
i’d have cured you in the belly of a wild boar
flight
that spike of horror
apalled i could house a primal creature
hunkered in the dark
foaming salt for the kill.
i ran from her
ran at her
battered her down
beat her up
barred the gate
flew from you only so far
took wing from me through a forest
nightly
after the last train had passed
to the river, who said, “not yet”
freeze
“not yet”
i split four ways
on the compass needle’s pivot
stuck fast in
liminal glitch
eyes fogged thick
as cold honey
feet frozen to the gravel
they later told me my eyes had lost their light
it was only the frost of terror
so numb i couldn’t
feel the shape fear
it takes a long time
for that kind
of brine to thaw.
fawn
in she stepped, at last
barely caught her arrival
she stepped in
silent as a morning after
the beast’s familiar
no! the beast herself
doe-eyed, of course
cast down, idling
scheming
sweetfaced in survival
she would make herself part
of the furniture
keep herself small
curled like a kidney bean
on the end of appraisal
into something to appease
snuggled into your complacence
one evening
the river said nothing
the next it hushed
“almost”
freedom
comes in snowmelt
trickled in at first between iambic meter
in noted absence
in long blinks and things unsaid
hard earned
for years to come
then
here
the “not yet”
the “almost”
already archeology
autumn light
throws a milky way through my dirty window
and the cats fight over a lean sunbeam
slicing into liminal space between lands, seasons, hemispheres
belongings are dustmotes
freedom quasars in the lengthening light between memory
the fire-eyed beast curls up with the cats
over my feet
warm and welcome
i am here, now
i am not there
i am not there
Sorry For The Inconvenience
This is a classic narcissist’s letter of apology. This is the mask. Let’s slip it off Something has happened to make him a little scared and this is his pattern. This is a hoover tactic that 3 years ago would have had me responding directly or via “Claudia” and it’s simply fishing for information while drip feeding a little info from the actual source. Baiting.
Just a quick note: not his real name. The great manipulator never uses his real name.
There is just so much to poke at here: “the wrong place at the wrong time”….ahahahaha I take that to mean if don’t move my hand out of the way as I close the car door…and “I am not writing to you or trying to contact you (and yet, here you are!).
But today, kids, we’re just going to unpack the term “inconvenience” used in the full phrase, “Sorry for the Inconvenience”. A Donald Trump apology if ever there was one! Read this for the more fun fake narcissist apologies
My day to day definition of “Inconvenience” can be applied to Italian bureaucracy, a bus cancelled, rain on holiday. A situation that sees simultaneously a hangover and a coffee pot on the blink.
The inconvenience into being coerced into sex when I didn’t want it. The yes meant it was over quicker than the no ever was. The majority of survivors of abuse that I have spoken to, said that once the love bombing slid away (which can be anything from weeks to months) they only allowed their abusers to have sex with them to avoid worse and/or prolonged abuse for the no. What we chose was the slightly lesser of two evils.
Inconveniently telling me my body was horrible, I was ugly, and being compared to other women and their beauty/prowess in bed/ stamina.
Inconvenient, I suppose, was me having to leave my warm bed in the Airbnb in Warsaw and running through late January ice to safety 10km away. Inconvenient that I never felt safe with him, not once.
Inconvenient stalking in June and then August 2021 while he camped under my house, mad as a cut snake, demanding I speak to him, riding on my doorbell.
The inconvenience of death threats and cyberstalking through till 2023. The inconvenience of having had to change my phone number three times in a year. Revenge porn was ever so inconvenient, also.
Inconvenient that the police said they couldn’t do anything unless he was under my house.
Inconvenient is how long the legal system takes in Italy. Inconvenient is how Switzerland doesn’t have anti stalking laws. Revenge porn there is still not illegal. No wonder it’s a preferred haven for folk like the stalker.
I could go on and on and on about the inconvenience to be called every slutshaming name, or my friends and family called useless and that they should all be dead because they’re not Kurdish. It’s all been documented here on this blog, which offers some hairy tales of escape and misplaced redemption, and I hope answers questions from the viewpoint of experience, rather than coaching and psychology. Poetry and stories, articles, links, all in a way I wish I’d discovered online much sooner.
Through this I am grateful for my life and the awareness I have grown into, nourished with genuine love and support, for myself and from those who genuinely love me. As a sweetener, I’ll end on an optimistic note of convenience:
How convenient the pandemic was for me, for escape.
How generous the champion woman, another artist and writer, who wired me $1000 to get my arse out of there because she understood my silence.
That convenient last plane out of Zurich.
Convenient lockdown waves and red zones.
Convenient avoidance and at last no contact.
Convenient intuition.
Convenient boundaries.
Convenient shedding.
The vast convenience of peace, of stillness. Of kindness, gentleness, reconnection with genuine human beings.
The convenience of eating garlic again!
Convenient online therapy and therapy in person and podcasts and art and my jewellery studio and the cheers from those golden ones who have always shown up and never questioned the horror of my experience, nor judged me.
Thank you, I love you. You are the people I want to share my light with.
Magic Flexible Fertility Man
It’s no news that I am infertile, and I’m pretty damned fine with that. I’ve never fallen pregnant and I never wanted children until I met my ex husband. We tried, nothing happened, had ourselves checked out, made a few tentative efforts with doctors, but due to a combination of our age, fibroids, not having parents around as support (his had recently died and mine were in another country), the IVF process here was financially daunting – doable, sure, but then work took precedence. I didn’t feel like this was being made priority and I took myself off to Firenze for a few months to live and work as a jeweller.
A year later our relationship in that incarnation dissolved. He and I are still friends (which weirds out some the provincialists) and we work together.
Through the shitstorm of the stalker my ex husband was steadfast support. We have an ease about us now probably moreso than when we were married (and likely because we are not!). He still can drive me fucking nuts but it underlines that evolving relationships and friendships are sorely underrated.
But this isn’t a story about him or about how, given what the world is, we are absolutely fine (read: relieved!) with not having had children. This is a story about fertility, the magical shifty changing kind of fertility. That of the stalker. I tell you this because last year he got married and my sources tell me she’s been dutifully been up-the-duffed toot sweet, which means he has her in his clutches for good. And it lessens the likelihood of deportation.
I’m torn between sheer relief that he will leave me and the other women alone (in theory), and also abject horror for what that woman will go through. And she will go through it because a narcissist cannot change just because he snaps his fingers and says he has. Doesn’t work that way.
But here’s the funny part of the story. He knew I was infertile; I’m as open about it with anyone I meet as I am writing about it here. He said that (and I quote) “don’t worry, I am a god, I can perform miracles. You will have a baby with me.”
That’s right. A god.
He simply would not accept that I couldn’t have kids. He’d buy pregnancy tests and talk about going to Turkey for IVF (sidenote, he ain’t allowed back in Turkey). Having a child with him was the furthest thing from my mind. I was in survival mode, weighed 45kg and breaking out in hives after every one of his out bursts and my periods were lasting 10 days at a time (the body, if you don’t listen to it, screams till you do).
I responded that the relationship needed to be stable before remotely considering a child and I would promptly find myself in a merry-go-round of , “But you tried more with your ex husband, you don’t try for me!” Those cycles were cued with coersion and non-enthusiastic consent.
V was the one who told me she’d seen the wife with a belly and to V I relayed my own story to her as previously we’d only ever broached our own stories of revenge porn (it takes breathing space between stories such as ours) and she promply sent me a string of vomit and poo emojis and said that he’d told her HE was infertile.
He’d told me that he was indeed very fertile as he had, 3 months prior, impregnated a journalist in Vienna and she’d had an abortion. I’ve heard other such tales, tall and true.
V and I believe that the key to his fathering a child lessens the likelihood of his being deported. This video outlines why some narcissists want their woman pregnant. Telling V that he was infertile (so that she might accidentally fall pregnant) and his absolute deafness to the clearly stated fact of my infertility is barely veiled desperation not to be deported. Does that make me feel empathy or compassion for him? Not one tiny weeny bit.
It only deepens the pity I feel that his own father didn’t think to wear a condom.
skinfeel
gut feeling, intuition, good old fashioned instinct. i call it (and have called it since i was a child) skinfeel. in italian, they use a similar phrase to describe how they feel about a person or a situation: una sensazione a pelle.
you might know what i’m talking about – goosebumps, static hair raising, shivery waves. that feeling in your stomach. they’re all warning signs, alerting the feeler to be aware. anxiety, hypervigilance and trauma skewed these sensations for a good couple of years but they’re always there. i’ve learnt to appreciate my skeenfeel about someone. because even if i choose to ignore it at first, sooner or later it proves me right.
as a child, i, like many people – particularly women – relinquished my skinfeel in order not to be called silly or neurotic. then separation, divorce, the loss of friendships. grief, in other words, all chipped away and my skinfeel wizened down to a vestigial organ, like an umbilical or appendix, something not even related to until there’s a problem with it. but it was always there, shouting into a soundproofed room.
i chose to ignore my skinfeel when i met the great manipulator simply because i so wanted to be loved and i wanted time and energy spent on me for a change, instead of me doing that for others. the great manipulator said all the things i wanted to hear.
he was all the things i’d asked for in a human being. at first.
and yet there was my wizened skinfeel gesticulating wildly at me that all was not what it seemed.
this side of that chaos, i now believe he had cased me out days or weeks before coming to my town, via social media and my website. just like a crocodile watches the habits of its prey. he was uncannily too good to be true, and he had honed his words and actions so perfectly, even his social media profile had been crafted to perfection.
this cancer of a man knew already knew how to bait me, and then upon meeting me in person, hook me.
skinfeel is there for a reason. if it feels off in any small way at all, don’t second guess it. listen to it while it’s still whispering, before it has to shout.
retroactive jealousy
jealousy is a big dirty red flag
first, what is retroactive jealousy?
Retroactive jealousy is a psychological condition where we have a highly-unhealthy interest in our partner’s sexual and romantic life prior to their relationship with us.
http://www.ballardpsych.com
it’s ok to feel a little jealousy or envy. a certain controllable level of it is certainly natural. however, like any emotion, in excess (and hand in hand with its twin brother rage) jealousy can be deadly.
the following species of jealousy was what i was dealing with:
Retroactive jealousy OCD is the most serious manifestation of this condition. Since it is during this stage that violence begins to manifest.
People with Retroactive Jealousy Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder indulge in very unhealthy activities. For example – snooping on the partner’s text messages, following them on their way to work, and hacking into their browser history. You may also deliberately start fights to “trick your partner into confessing”.
http://www.ballardpsych.com
the trick confession was a common occurrence at home with the great manipulator. the act of words having to be constantly placed carefully in the minefield of a psycho’s fucking delusions is something i wish on no one. and it disgusts me that in so many homicides and other violent acts against (mostly) women are still treated with leniency if deemed a “crime of passion.”
no.
no.
in abusive relationships jealousy, in some variation thereof, has been festering in the brain of the perp and/or already reared it’s snarly face some time before. premeditated and reeking of male entitlement. just take a good look at its roots in any male-dominated culture (that would still be the majority of them!) where women have been oppressed for thousands of years in all ways imaginable. look at any religion and the patriarchal faff it spouts. and read this article and the article below to see how far we’re coming along here on the continent.
getting there, but still not far enough to be leached out of an archaic mindset, and not fast enough. women are dying and men are still being let of the fucking hook for it.
so. getting back on track with the topic of retroactive jealousy and my lived experience with the great manipulator.
his jealousy was right there from the very start, but i wasn’t really aware of what jealousy was, beyond the ubiquitous nigglings in early high school when my friend abandoned me because she decided she liked another friend better. so i’ve never felt what is described to me as the “fire of jealousy” and therefore never quite understood the feeling, nor its deadly potential. i’ve been annoyed that an ex wife was nosying into the marital workings of my ex husband and i; she’d drop by, phone, etc, and just didn’t seem to have installed any decency filter whatsoever. beyond my mild irritation i was curious that she didn’t understand the simplest of boundaries (compounded by the fact my ex was nice but just a bit of a beige pillow of a pushover and didn’t curb it). but i never felt threatened by her presence.
jealousy, whittled down, is all about the threat of being robbed, which implies that the object you’re having big possessive feels over is something you own. your possession. not a free thinking, feeling, autonomous human being.
in my case, i was dealing with a manipulative man from a religious-steeped culture that is renowned for seeing women as less-than in relation to men, and therefore a possession inasmuch as a goat or a motorbike is considered a possession.
he displayed retroactive jealousy…that is, he was super jealous of everyone i had ever been with, living or dead, fling or long term, and he’d shuffle these past relationships like bawdy cards, randomly pulling out a photo he’d stalked on facebook or twitter, photos and messages that were months and years old – often photos unrelated me – to create a day or night of potluck hell with.
at first i had been very open about my life. after all, this guy told me he had been with a multitude of women, was the self-styled sexy traveller guru nietzsche-sprouter of the world. just ask him.
after i realised i’d been “tricked into a confession” and that it was all one sided and that only HE was allowed to be everything including a philanderer, he made it clear that i was the unclean-hearted one that had to be scrubbed pure. he hacked my phone, email, everything he could find to implicate me in my supposedly sordid life before i slammed the lid on the pandora’s box of my being.
during each awesomely fun retrojelly episode, he spat on me, kicked me, and called me a whore, and other colourful things in turkish, and triangulated, having his lackies give their twobobs worth, and every single day i am so very very glad i am out of that hell.
my unsolicited advice to you lovelies reading this post:
jealousy is a huge red flag in any capacity.
if it shows up, guaranteed that, if not curbed or tended to through sessions of therapy (which a narc will never show up in entirety to do), ongoing jealousy will become a problem.
jealousy should never be considered flattering or downplayed in any way, but rather treated with caution, and cut out before it becomes a cancer.
jealousy blinds the perpetrator and sharpens the tongue and is the crazed driver behind vendettas, stalking, violence and cruelty the world over.
it can kill if left to burn out of control.
jealousy is also choice. yep. those fiery feelings that rise up can be doused with the curiosity of “why” am i feeling that – that is, a response, rather than a reaction. easier said than done, takes work, and a narcissist will never take that route because, in their eyes, they are never the perpetrators, always the victims of the horrible life and the jealousy that you’ve caused them.
what resides behind us in the past, including our experiences, places, things, and other people, has all contributed to the rich stew of life experience we each hold, and the story of who we are right in this moment. they are our tales and secrets and vulnerabilities. we owe them to no one else, and only we get to choose who we show this to.
no one has any right to judge the choices made by another, and absolutely no right to cause psychological and physical harm in the name of erasing the past of someone so that they can feel comfortable.
here are some resources.
please take care, and be kind to yourself xx
heal
exiting an abusive relationship is not a clean cut process and each individual’s healing will vary. i’ve posted about this before, but it’s important to underline it often. to remind ourselves that it’s ok to go at our pace, not ever at the speed someone else dictates. there is no rush, no right way or single way through the crap. if someone is impatient with how long it is taking you to process everything, or, inversely, that you’re moving through it all at a rate of knots, then the question must be asked either way – what is in it for them?
healing takes the time it needs to take.
please read that again.
human beings who are in active healing need other human beings who will stand, advocate for, support and hold the fuck on when the ride gets dippy.
healing can ebb and ebb and then surge forward.
in its wake, it can leave a person feel crazy or, on the good days, forgetful enough to motor on through, with a few choppy areas that might slow things down again.
while healing is taking place it can mean the sloughing of ideas, people and material things. for me it can feel like a series of losses on top of everything else already lost, and that at times can throw me back on the shitheap.
therapy is vital, self learning, research and, most important of all, the support from people who have proved that they’re there no matter how ugly things get, no matter how long my healing needs, or what form my hurt takes; people who don’t make my healing all about themselves or how they would do it, people who will never remind me that my no, or my rest, or my frustration is ever an inconvenience to them.
i allowed myself to be vulnerable with a few who knew my story, only to watch with dismay and guilt as they grew impatient with the inconvenience of it all.
the good folk are rare. i hang on to them with the love they’ve shown me. the rest fall away: i thank them quietly for the lesson, for the times they were there, then i wish them well and i let them go.
here are some other resources.
please take care, and be kind to yourself xx
get out, & stay out
when you know, you know.
this is not love. it’s time to stop making excuses. he’s hurting you and love should never hurt. touch should only ever be out of love, protection.
it’s time to unfold one small plan.
tell the medical practitioner. a teacher. find a way to let someone know.
leave safely.
go no contact. block. grey wall. move far away from him: physically, geographically if you can. always mentally.
distance is a forked road. you’ll want to go back because the monster in the house with you is at least a monster you can see. easier, seems safer, but never go back. a year down the track will not be this. if you stay, you will die; he will kill you.
distance is a forked road. his tongue is forked. you are being lied to.
he lies.
he lies.
you were always being lied to. his ex you will befriend will later open to you his library of lies. for now, for you, you already doubt the late night job in the kebab shop. the woman’s jacket he comes home with that he ‘found’ in the bus shelter. he dives into the shower. you still smell her – them – on him.
you lie to yourself because you are gaslit. you fog his words around the edges. your brain’s way of keeping your body alive.
record the rage of thought, note the irk when he touches you. write. everything. down. use code, poetry, recipes. read them. and again. can you see how the lies bleed through like invisible ink over flame, forming patterns between the lines?
the worst you saw is who he is, and worse. he can implore and claw and rage and cry. he will never change. accept that.
revel in this image: him shut outside in the rain.
where all the slugs belong.
imagine him gone.
gone.
reporting the stalker to authorities
for the last two weeks of august my abuser stalked me in person. again. the last time was in june. i’ve made my formal report at the police station this week.
everyone who reports the domestic terrorism they’ve suffered will each experience something completely different. it depends on where you are in the world and how women are perceived there. it will depend on the system in place and legislation. it will also depend completely on the individual officer that you are reporting your abuse to.
this podcast highlights the flaws in the canadian and us systems.
this one highlights the one in the australian system.
and quite surprisingly, the swiss system is a horrendous example that ties in with level of immigration and starkly highlights the need for ferocious integration. read this article by aurelia gurt, published by the university of zurich on the 19th of may, 2019.
stalking and abuse that is acceptable behaviour in other countries and cultures, that is not in the host country, should be grounds enough to overhaul the legal system, before it becomes a legal matter that will be dismissed as too hard.
it needs to be made part of the compulsory language exam taken by every new arrival. women need to be educated on their rights and that they can report abuse without fear of retribution, and men need to experience a no tolerance stance on what is not acceptable behaviour.
i am beyond caring how this sounds: if you don’t like the laws, there are the doors. it has to be that austere.
and christ-on-a-bike there need to be women’s shelters or a safe house in every town. in my brief time there, in a relatively large town, i searched for a women’s refuge. the closest was 15 kilometres away – the local one having not received funding had to close its doors – and, as the abuse was fiercest mostly at the time after the last train had ceased operation for the evening, being on foot in winter wasn’t an option. a taxi to the shelter would have cost me 150 fr.
in many palces in the world, there is a whole shitty mix of things going on with the police – *the* frontline point of legal contact for a woman fleeing a situation that could end her life.
this mix is pretty much a potluck formula:
the officer you get
the colour of your skin
your nationality
your geographical location
your language/articulation level
your marital situation
the support you have at your side*
*if you can have a man at your side, you get extra points. everyone prefers a chaperoned woman, because the man with her can mansplain better.
if you present on your own as a woman, you’re already on the back foot.
in my recent experience here in italy, mid august, the first police marshall i met just made pfft sounds and asked me “why”, mocked my language level (i was so exhausted and distraught i couldn’t speak in english!), and during the interview i got up and walked out in disgust at my treatment. i went home and wrote to a younger sergeant i know, stating that sort of behaviour colluded with the abuser, and little wonder it contributes to the high rates of femicide if women know what they’re up against with authorities who say that they’re there to serve and protect, and they fail, then women stay silent.
this behaviour is not in alignment with the relatively recent and very meaty antistalking legislation implemented and publicised throughout the country. massive education needs to be injected into the system (god, and while we’re at it let’s just fucking smash the patriarchy), but it’s a nuisance, the least of any man’s problems. resources are scant, that i understand. as a woman without family around me, i’d hate to be living in the south of the country. i know precisely where i’d stand there.
i wasn’t going to be ‘shown my place’ here.
my cage rattling was taken very seriously and, after the showdown between my stalker and my chaperones below my window the other night, and for the previous two weeks of his following, walking around the back of the house, watching me, waiting for me, sending messages, ringing my doorbell, not heeding my repeated “no, fuck offs” – i called the police again.
i booked in for an interview last monday with the marshall from another town who specialises in dealing with domestic violence and stalking, and then again wednesday.
the difference between my first and subsequent experiences of interviews was stratospheric. what a wonderful, patient and helpful human being. he never asked me why, i stayed, why i went back, i never once felt judged, he never huffed through his nose, never rushed me, and, after the hard part was over (5 hours over two days) he was kind without being condescending.
it pays to keep reporting, and write everything down, the more detail better: time, date, what was said and done, and where. take photos of bruising and marks and keep screenshots of messages as evidence, and store these elsewhere (i emailed mine to a secret email address). most importantly, if you it’s available to you – and i know isolation and lockdowns don’t help – register with a women’s shelter or anti violence advocate. each time a report is made against your perpetrator, it is registered with the authorities. if you’ve sought help with an anti violence centre, your case is taken even more seriously and they can advocate for you legally as well as provide you with access to professional assistance, transport, temporary safe shelter, housing, children’s services, therapy, and a range of other resources and services depending on where you are located.
here are some other resources that you or someone you care for may find useful.
please take care
black magic & blame shifting
in the last two years i’ve heard all the excuses in the book with no accountability taken for appalingly bad behaviour – including black magic and the evil eye as the cause of domestic terrorism.
the blame shifting narcisissist will leap from moments of seeming accountability and empathy (known as cognitive empathy and never to be confused with actual empathy that normal human beings like you and i feel), but the moment it becomes obvious to them that this hooking or hoovering technique isn’t going to work with you anymore, they’ll go right on back to the status quo of blaming everyone in the world for their problems and their shittiness. an example of that kind of circular convo (before i went no contact) goes as follows:
the great manipulator: you left me under the rain, you left me waiting, i came all the way from switzerland for you.
me: you beat me up, so i left you. you came uninvited, unwanted, and with explicit instructions to never speak to me again. what you’re doing is called stalking.
tgm: yes but i did it for you! don’t you know that it was black magic that caused this?i explained it to you. in my culture there was the evil eye put on me, hanging my psychology
me: what a load of shit. go away.
tgm: i did everything for you. you don’t remember any of the good times! you gave everything to everyone else. i spent my last franc on a jacket for you.
me: no one asked you to do that.
tgm: but i said sorry! i’ve changed, and you never believed in me anyway! you never trust me! you don’t see what i do for you.
me: that’s because you were violent with me, abusive, controlling and manipulative.
tgm: but you made me do it. you deserved it, you were being unreasonable.
me: i stood up for myself. i don’t accept your behaviour. i left.
tgm: you should have known what i wanted!
me: what? you don’t even know what you want!
tgm: yes, but you should know for me. if you are part of my life, if you really loved me you would have known….
…and round and round without end.
this is why going no contact and grey-rocking is vital. ludicrous conversations with excuses and justifications such as this are designed to wear down the partner. it’s maddening. every answer is a reaction to the provocation instigated by the narc. the only way to deflate the argument is to let them rant, without response. harder to put into practice the first time, but it does get easier with time and practice.
here’s what i learned:
arguments fuel the narcissist. don’t refuel them – you’re already on empty with them. reserve your energy.
don’t buy into the blame shifts – let them rant. let them think they’re right. they’re going to think that anyway.
don’t defend yourself – their behaviour (or that of others they bring into the blame game) is no reflection on who you are. ever. they’re using your vulnerabilities against you, blaming you for the reason they are the way they are.
you’re not going to change their mind. ever. who you are seeing in front of you is who they truly are, and what they are blaming you and everyone else for is how they see the world. that is, the world owes them and they are the victims of its injustices.
a narcissist is a giant two year old, wheedling and sweet when they want something and throwing a tantrum when they don’t get what they want. and what happens to a tanty-chucking two year-old? if you try to reason with them, things escalate. if you let them fizz and kick on the ground they usually burn themselves out quickly.
having said that, however, if the narcissist in your life is a violent malignant one such as is my experience, who continues to harrass no matter what, don’t minimise the fact that you are in danger. don’t allow others to minimise that you are in danger. you will need professional and legal support to guide you through this and to protect you, and having friends and family around you who can commit to educating themselves alongside you is vital.
please visit the resources page for more.
departure point 