There is a Small person stalking off ahead of me.

She is tossing her sun-bleached hair and there is anger in her rigid legs, held in her shoulders, and the chin I can’t see.

Probably, there is muttering.

It is the scenery, and the soundtrack, of my summer.

I can feel reciprocal – and cumulative – anger boiling in my own bones, straightening my own spine, lurching up in my own chest, to my own mouth.

It has seemed like someone has constantly been flouncing, whinging or whining for at least three of the last six weeks, due variously to it not being fair, perceived slights, injuries real and imaginary, getting the wrong sandwich, not wanting do do whatever we’re doing, being too hot, being too cold, being too bored despite the myriad of adventures laid at their feet, not feeling listened to, not being the centre of my attention, wasps, being told no, having the worst mother/sister/life in the world, or losing at Uno.

Rightly or wrongly, my main aim in parenting over recent weeks has mostly been to avoid being screamed at – something I have very much failed to achieve.

When not kicking off with random negativity, the Smalls have varied the screaming across the remaining three holiday weeks through the medium of kicking each other, or kicking up a ruckus being giddy and silly and thick as thieves – to the point where I’d really rather they went back to beating each other up.

For reasons I cannot understand we have not seemed to be able to be a successful three. Any two of us can get along at one time, but all three IS APPARENTLY IMPOSSIBLE.

I, like so many other parents – so many other mothers – am TIRED.

The effort of keeping everyone happy and stable and constantly managing big emotions – from all of us – has been exhausting. Especially out of routine. We talk about the mental load of motherhood, we don’t talk so much about the emotional load. And right now, it is a LOT.

It has always seemed to me to be a great gynacolgical injustice that women hit the menopause at precisely the time girls hit puberty, and if the hormones of the last few weeks are anything to go by, BOY are the next few years going to be super fun!!!! I can’t wait.

Because already there is far more rage in family life and far less joy than I was expecting. I often wonder if that is normal, if that is my fault, if I’m doing it wrong? If other people, other children, are happier? I often fall into that familiar gap between expectation, comparison and reality.

The hole is deep, with spikes at the bottom.

And it’s not the only hole…

The other one I tumble into, often, is created in the gap between how I was parented in the 80s, and how I want to parent now. I had a wonderful childhood, don’t get me wrong, but times have just… changed. Parenting has changed.

I KNOW I don’t want to give my kids a clip round the ear, or invalidate their feelings, or demand total unthinking obedience, or withhold love until they comply. But I don’t always know what ELSE to do. I don’t always get it right. I don’t always set the right boundaries and the right consequences.

I’m all at sea with just how much parenting has evolved in the last 30 years – and the gentle parenting textbooks and articles don’t always keep me afloat – especially in the heat of the moment. The fact is that trying to raise kids with empathy through empathy is a much longer and harder road to ‘easy’ kids. Or at least it is with my kids. And waiting for them to become healthy adults at the other end currently feels like an eternity.

So here I am again, about to fall into my own special parent traps, feeling my frustration build with each stomp the Small in front of me takes away from me.

And it’s here, right here, as I teeter on my own edge, that I’ve tried to set a failsafe switch. I’ve tried to recognise this, this moment when I’m about to go over, and stop. Because I know THIS is when I have to choose.

I can shout, I can yell, I can throw myself off an emotional cliff and add to the general screaming – about under-appreciation and entitlement and respect, about how hard I am trying and how hard I am working… Or I can choose patience. I can choose love. I can hope that I am able to keep choosing it, if I practise enough. I can hope that one day, it will prove to BE enough. I can hope that a long time from now, they will look back and remember and know, and choose patience and love, too.

So I reach really deep down inside myself, and I manage to choose.

I don’t always.

But this time I push down the red mist, just, and I jog after the small, angry figure in front of me. I marvel at the beauty of her, the strong muscles, the even stronger views.

I realise she has grown in the sun. Her squidge is gone. Her shape is changing. There is a glimpse of the teen and the woman she will be.

I offer her a piggyback, while she is still small enough to carry.

She accepts.

And what we really have is a cuddle.

With that connection, our anger disperses, and the last days of summer continue.

Later, there will be time to talk about our day, what happened, and how we both handled it. For now we keep walking. Together.

Roll on Monday.

You cannot come soon enough.

So we’re about to lockdown again, and that’s going to be harder for some people than others…

One thing I didn’t lapse into – or miss when it ground to a halt – was soaps. I don’t watch soaps.

I was cured at a relatively early age when a lovely friend going through a hard time came to live with me and used them as her safety zone. So every night from 5.30 we’d watch Neighbours, Home and Away, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, Corrie and Eastenders. In a row. And when she left I never watched a soap again.

But I HAVE recently been following the storylines about coercive control.

It’s great to see understanding about domestic abuse as more than violence hit the mainstream in the stories of Geoff and Yasmeen (Corrie) and Gray and Chantelle (Eastenders).

But I’m still sort of disappointed that it’s still all so EXTREME.

Because often this sort of abuse isn’t massive explosions or incidents. It’s insidious microaggressions and neglect and contempt and degradation that build up over time in a drip drip effect, drowning you as slowly and surely as a tidal wave. Just… invisibly. So any one thing witnessed by others looks insignificant. Normal. It doesn’t show the full picture, the history, the DAMAGE. And you don’t notice it yourself.

Why does the frog stay in the pot? Because it doesn’t know it’s boiling…

It’s the same with the legislation for coercive control that came in in 2015. It’s a great step forwards, but it’s still hard to identify – or prosecute – unless the circumstances are pretty damn extreme. There has to be evidence of repeated threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse used to harm, punish, frighten, exploit or isolate someone.

And it’s not always that clear cut. It’s not always that CLEAR. That’s partly what makes it so effective, and so pervasive.

Financial abuse isn’t always as obvious as cutting up someone’s credit card or taking control of their accounts.

Sometimes it’s managing ‘the bills’ or the joint account because ‘you’re not very good with money.’ It’s taken on as a favour, not to worry your pretty little head about – another household chore while you clean the bathrooms. And the kitchen. And do the hoovering. And the washing. Sometimes it’s having to beg for household expenditures – and having to be infinitely grateful for them. Sometimes it’s making you feel grateful when they bail you out from overspending the money you have been granted, while they’re still buying cars and new clothes and shiny gadgets. Because they earned it. They worked hard for it. They deserved a treat.

Sexual abuse within relationships isn’t always being pinned down and penetrated while you’re crying and saying no.

Sometimes it’s doing it when you don’t want to, when you’re tired, when you’re so dry it’s actually hurting you, but the discomfort is better than the names you’ll be called if you don’t, what’s wrong with you? are you frigid now? I’ve got needs you know, you’re killing me, other people are having more sex than us, if you loved me you’d do it. Sometimes it’s easier to do it and take the hit for the team, for the family, so you can have a nice day, so they’ll join in with you and go out and follow your plans for the day and not sulk, and slam and stomp and put a black cloud over everything until you do what they want anyway, for the peace. Sometimes it’s living under test conditions about how much ‘affection’ you’re showing to get something you want. A holiday. A night out. A baby.

Sometimes isolation isn’t about stopping you from seeing your friends and family.

Sometimes it’s coming away from friends with them slagging everyone off and being expected to agree, or having your own behaviour analysed – you teased them, you let your parents tease them, you didn’t stand up for them. Until it’s easier not to see some people at all – the people that cause the arguments. So you don’t have to face that swing of mood when you get back in the car, when they feel they have been disrespected, when the smiles for the crowd turn to accusations.

Sometimes control isn’t about taking your phone and tracking your email, or your whereabouts.

Sometimes it’s just sulking if you’re going out. Sometimes it’s getting ill on all your big events and complaining you’re not being sympathetic enough. Sometimes it’s flattery through jealousy, are you sure you don’t fancy so-and-so? I’m just checking, you don’t dress like that for me. So you WANT to reassure, you want to come home early to check on them – you feel guilty – or even lucky they love you that much.

Sometimes humiliation isn’t shouting insults at you as you cower in a corner.

Sometimes it’s telling you they don’t like your haircut, because it’s not feminine, and they’re just being honest. Sometimes it’s telling you you look classier when you’re not showing so much boob. Sometimes it’s you coming away from a night out together high on life and friends to be told to bring it down a notch, you were being too much, people were staring, people were laughing at you. Sometimes it’s hearing about a work day and telling you that you did it all wrong. Or that you’re doing the household chores wrong, or dealing with the kids wrong, that their mother or their friend or their ex used to do/does X or Y and why can’t you do it like that? Why aren’t you better? Why aren’t you coping?

Sometimes it’s telling you that you never follow through, that you’re not meeting your potential, that they’re only trying to help you by saying so. Sometimes it’s taking the mickey when you cry at a film, when you pronounce something wrong – and then they tell other people all about it, just for a laugh, can’t you take a joke? Sometimes it’s being told that the emotion you’re having is wrong, why are you like this? you’re overreacting, you’re a psycho, I’m not dealing with you when you’re like this, I’m going out.

Sometimes it’s when they show more compassion and empathy for friends or strangers than for you, and they will rush to someone’s aid, and leave you in pain – but to say so is you being selfish. Or stupid. Or jealous. Or mad.

And somehow, by now, you believe it.

Sometimes it’s not all the time.

Sometimes there are good days. Sometimes they’re in a good mood. Sometimes they buy you expensive presents. Sometimes they join in and you think you imagined it. That you ARE a good couple, a good family, after all. Sometimes they praise you on social media, and you take it, even though they never said the same thing to your face… Sometimes you actually bring them up on something awful they’ve done or said, and they even apologise. It was a ‘bad call’. And sometimes you believe them, because you want to, because you remember that love bombing stage when you were on a pedestal, when you could do no wrong, when you were wonderful and beautiful, and the memory and tiny tastes of that are just enough to keep you going.

Sometimes it’s not even deliberate.

Sometimes it’s not a campaign of dominance, plotted with purpose by someone evil. Sometimes it’s someone ordinary. Sometimes it’s thwarted expectations. Sometimes it just… develops.

Even more often than ‘sometimes’, human beings are the meanest to those who mean the most, and they grow to hate what they once loved. The two are so close they just blur and one just – tips – into the other – without you even realising it.

I have written this ‘you’. These are stories I have collated, from women on this page. Women like you. Because as we head into a second lockdown without even the good weather to escape into, I want YOU to think if any of this sounds or feels familiar.

Because if it does, I want you to know that it IS abuse.

It does not have to be dramatic. It just needs to be consistent.

And YOU just need the strength, and the evidence, to acknowledge it. Not evidence for a court – evidence for YOURSELF. Because it’s so very, very hard to spot it when you’re sitting in the pot like a frog.

It’s so very hard to believe YOU when you’re low, and tired, and alone.

It’s so very hard to believe YOU when everyone else sees you happy together, or sees your partner cheerful, and helpful, and kind. When even the people who DO see think it’s okay – because you clearly aren’t making them happy.

So if your phone is your own and it’s safe to do so, please start taking notes. If you do nothing else having read and responded to this, just write it down. What is said. When. How. And how it makes you feel.

It really is the only way to combat the amnesia of abuse that’s built into it.

You may look back on your notes as a diary of petty arguments, and laugh at yourself. Or you may look back on it as a pattern of escalating toxicity and SEE.

Seeing is believing. And believing is the first step out.

If this is someone you know, please share this article. Please keep being there even when they’re evasive.

Please tread carefully – because a direct assault on their abuser will only make them retreat further into what’s been made to feel ‘safe’ – and what isn’t safe at all.

Please keep their ‘diary’ in your safe keeping, saving the snippets they do share or you witness, so when they’re ready to see it, you can show them.

xxxx

National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000247

Women’s Aid

Refuge

Respect Men’s Advice Line0808 8010 327