Jane ran for her life and  hid in the yard. She was so scared he would find her really and hurt her. Jane’s ears were pricked to hear if he would head to her daughter's room, her heart pounding so hard it was impairing her hearing, blood thumping through her ears.   After many outbursts of rage, if he couldn’t get any pleasure or satisfaction from abusing Jane, he'd head for her daughter's room. He knew there was no better way to hurt me than hurt her girls.

At four o’clock one morning, Jane woke to smashing, banging, pure rage. A common occurrence. She never slept very well. She was always on high alert as her abuser rarely slept at all. In fact, she was always so relieved when finally, from time to time, he would pass out for a few hours through sheer exhaustion.

Who can I trust? I don’t even trust myself anymore. Was I the narcissistic one? Was I a nutjob? He kept telling me that I was. He constantly told me I was imagining stuff, or I'd made up what I experiencing. Was I mean, nasty, cruel? My judgement was cloudy, I was so used to him making fruit salad of my brain.

The commotion was escalating, getting louder and angrier. He was trying to locate an item and couldn’t find it. It turned into rage – his frustration always did – and he would throw anything in his path, smashing whatever was in his way. I just lay in my bed frozen with fear, thinking, ‘Here we go again’, then finally he came storming into my bedroom and shouted.

As Jane lay in her bed, the tears flowed down her face. It was the same start to the day as always and the same end to the day the evening before. She believed this was never going to change. He hated her. She was useless, stupid, he called her every degrading, hurtful name that someone that says they love you should never say, or even think.

It was a freezing cold day, and Jane really didn’t want to get out of bed. She had zero energy and her body was aching from the day before when he had got into his usual rage for no particular reason.