NAAVoices was not created from certainty, but from lived experience and professional insight. As I migrate earlier work from the original platform, this post has been reviewed and approved for transfer. It remains true to its original context, with only minor clarity edits where needed. Some moments do not require rewriting to remain honest.

Back at the Starting Line

This post contains first-person accounts of domestic abuse, trauma responses, institutional failure, and repeated police contact. It references psychological distress, post-traumatic stress symptoms, and the impact of safeguarding failures on both adults and children.
Readers who may find these themes distressing are advised to proceed with care.

I cannot shake the feeling that I am right back at the starting line of a never-ending struggle for recognition. I find myself asking what I even have left to fight with. I have shed so many parts of myself along the way. I finally found the courage to speak out, only to feel that even that was taken from me. Now, with the police holding my files, I am left wondering whether I can trust that anything will be returned at all. It feels, genuinely, as though all of my efforts have been for nothing.

I met a new set of police officers this morning. It is the fifth time my case has been passed to someone new. I thought I would manage this time, but the trauma resurfaces with every interaction. Each handover feels unbearable. The officers were polite and professional, which left me feeling conflicted, particularly as the male officer had previously worked at the same hospital as I had. Familiarity, it turns out, does nothing to ease the anxiety.

When they arrived, I only partially opened the door. I am still unsure whether that was a conscious decision or a reflex driven by panic. I stepped back without speaking properly, and the female officer noticed my hesitation and asked whether they could come in.

They arrived earlier than expected, which unsettled me. I had woken with overwhelming anxiety and an urgent need to clean. I scrubbed the kitchen fronts, emptied and wiped the fridge, swept the floors. I rushed through the bedroom and then the bathroom. Everything felt frantic, compressed, relentless. I packed, put a load of washing on, wiped surfaces, took the washing out, mopped and hoovered. All of it in under an hour. I am not sure why I believed this would help.

Afterwards, I collapsed onto the sofa with my laptop, trembling. I was trying to convince myself that I was coping, that I could manage, but underneath that effort I felt profoundly unsteady.

I did not know how to calm myself or what to do next. I reached out to a friend, but it did not help. The sense of being completely alone kept creeping back. Even amid all of this, I still had to function, to care for my children, to keep going.

Tomorrow feels daunting. The thought of having to recount everything again fills me with dread. I worry constantly that something important will be missed, that details will slip through the cracks. It feels as though nothing has ever been communicated clearly, and that lack of clarity compounds an already overwhelming situation.

My frustration intensifies when I think back to the officer I spoke to on the day I left. I do not believe any meaningful action was taken. I replay those moments repeatedly. I remember speaking rapidly, words spilling out as though speed itself might offer escape. I kept apologising. I still ask myself why. Why did I feel the need to justify my distress? Why could I not simply speak without apologising for existing?

What If Nothing Changes

After eight months marked by escalating anxiety, sustained trauma, and persistent abuse directed at me, I find myself in a precarious position. The police have taken my files, documents that dominated my life from December through to March. Those months were defined by a relentless need to understand what had happened to me and why.

I remember that the officer wanted to locate specific elements within those documents. Now I am left wondering whether I ever extracted what I needed from them myself. I handed everything over to not one, but two separate offices. It is deeply unsettling to think that some of this material may already have been reviewed or interpreted by others before I was ever able to sit down and speak to her.

I question what meaningful change this process can bring. I am frightened that the work I poured myself into, the careful processing and validation of my experience, could simply disappear. I was justified in recognising the reality of the abuse, despite the original officer’s attempts to undermine my confidence and distort my understanding.

At the time, I could barely articulate my thoughts. They had no understanding of how impaired I was.

While searching through my wardrobe today for long-forgotten files, I came across an envelope that stopped me cold. Inside was my will, along with a letter I had written in April to the officer who is now facing serious allegations of gross misconduct.

I had not seen that letter since writing it. However, I found the email containing its contents, sent to myself from my work computer during a period when I was functioning more clearly. I did not reread it. I simply recognised it. When the officers were selecting the documents to take, I handed it over.

I hope I never have to return to that period of my life again.

The letter is now addressed to someone who could not read it even if I needed them to. Still, I hope that this new investigative team will understand the depth of harm caused, not only by that individual, but by what was collectively enabled.

I no longer have confidence that the system will protect my children or me.

Music, Memory, and the Weight of It All

During periods of acute distress, I rely heavily on music. Repeating the same song helps regulate my emotions or provides temporary escape. After the officers left, we drove several hours to stay with family for the night. The journey felt unbearable.

I cried behind my sunglasses, trying to keep myself together. I attempted to sing as a distraction, but it rarely helped. The distress surfaced regardless. I felt close to hyperventilating, overwhelmed by intrusive memories and flashbacks. My middle child sat in the front seat, wearing his headphones as he usually does.

I was aware of his frustration at the repetition. Seventies rock is not his preference. Still, he understands. He knows about PTSD, about triggers, and about what we have endured with the police. My children no longer have the mother I once was, or the mother they deserve.

It is difficult to articulate what remains of me. Most days are characterised by constant panic and internal turmoil.

At one point, my son rested his head on my shoulder as I drove, while tears streamed down my face.

I messaged my grandmother to explain why I might need headphones constantly. She has never experienced anything like this, and I did not want her to think I was being rude. The stigma around coping mechanisms still persists. I tried to explain that drowning out the memories is sometimes the only way I can function.

At other times, I need silence just as desperately. I do not know whether this is adaptive or harmful. Withdrawal feels like protection, but it also frightens me.

Those closest to us sense the strain. All three of my children enjoyed their time with their grandmother, but I struggled with patience and tolerance. This used to be a place of comfort for me, somewhere I felt at home. Now, even that feels altered.

We are staying in a lovely Airbnb, decorated with soft fairy lights. Despite the calm surroundings, I cannot sleep.

We stayed overnight because I need to attend a police station in the morning, an hour away, to sign documentation relating to the officer who is currently on bail.

It is a great deal to carry. I wish I could speak openly to someone about how I feel. Trust does not come easily anymore. I question motives. I wonder who is genuine and who may seek to exploit vulnerability.

It is almost three in the morning, and my mind will not settle.

During the drive, I kept thinking about the day I learned that the first officer I disclosed the abuse to had delivered a talk on fathers’ rights at my son’s nursery.

That day, I was physically unwell at pick-up, experiencing palpitations and severe chest pain. By the time I got home, I could barely stand. My sister collected my son, and my older children helped me crawl across the landing and into bed.

That night, I took medication intended for a potential cardiac event. I did not care whether it helped.

I remember vividly crawling across the floor, knowing that his actions had brought me there.

No matter how much I tried to protect myself and my children, there was always another barrier, another blow. I never felt there was an endpoint.

In March, something finally shifted. I met someone who truly listened, who understood what I had endured, and who did not treat me as a woman attempting to alienate her former partner. That person recognised the harm and took action.

That support was later removed.

Now, eight months on, I feel as though I am back where I was in December.