Warning...

Please be warned. I am going to attempt to be as brutally honest in this blog. I am used to covering up all sorts of abuse since I was a young child but today I realise that doing this has just about killed me.

On August 26, 2009, I was attacked by my partner after asking him to leave my home. I don't know if the long and the short of it is important to anyone out there but I realise that if I don't explain in as much detail as I can, then someone else may stay in an abusive relationship one moment too long.

On Monday August 24, I told Brent that a friend from work had asked if I wanted to go to a quiz night on Wednesday August 26. Brent became angry, saying that he didn’t like drinking during the week and said that, that is what I always want to do. I became upset and said to Brent, that it wasn’t fair that we never did anything I enjoyed and that I had no problem going to golf, fishing, rugby or anything else he enjoys and asked why it was always a problem to do things that I enjoyed. After a lengthy argument, Brent said that he wouldn’t be going. I remained upset, but let it drop, deciding that it was better to just leave it.

The following evening, Tuesday August 25, when Brent arrived home from work, I brought it up once again, saying that I thought he was being truelly unfair. He then told me that he thought I was asking to stay at my work place, a bar, all night to drink. I explained that the quiz night was at another Bar, and that at the most it would be two/three hours long. Again, an argument started, with Brent saying he couldn’t see why he should spend a night out with some people (idiots) that he didn’t even know. After this, I became upset and started crying. I decided that it wasn’t worth the drama, and decided not to go myself.

Brent rang me the following day, Wednesday August 26, at work and said that he would drop me off, if I really wanted to go to the quiz night, but by this time just the thought of the evening upset me. I told Brent that it didn’t matter and that I wouldn’t be going. He then asked if I’d like to go out for a drink with him that night and I agreed, to keep the peace.

That evening, Brent and I went to another bar to have a drink and have a play on the pokie machines. After a while, I became bored and decided to go out into the bar to talk with a guy who Brent and I both knew. Brent remained in the pokie area. After some time Brent came out into the bar. He appeared upset to me. I believed that it was because I was talking to Mark and I felt that I had had enough of this sort of behaviour. On the way home from the bar, I told Brent that I didn’t want to be with him anymore and that I wanted him to move out.

Once we were home an argument started between us both. We had both been drinking and cruel words were exchanged between us both. I was extremely upset and just wanted Brent to leave my home. After some time, Brent started to gather his things together. In the past, Brent has taken things of mine, from my home to either upset me, or to use to bargain with me. I followed him into the spare room, which was my son’s room, before my son moved out. I was anxious that Brent may take something that didn’t belong to him. There was a lot of yelling between us both. A clothes airer was in this room. As we were arguing I pushed the clothes airer over. I once again told Brent to get out of my home. At this time, I didn’t want to argue any more. I felt exhausted and thought to myself, that all this ‘bullshit’ wasn’t worth it and I turned to leave the room.

As I went to leave, I felt an immense pain to my right cheek and eye. I then felt another pain to the right of my face, just in front of my ear. I realised that I had been hit with the clothes airer. I became terrified because the pain in my face was incredible. I believed that at this time, I was in danger of being seriously hurt. I walked to the kitchen and grabbed the telephone to ring my mother. As I was talking to her, I realised that Brent had followed me into the kitchen so I stepped down into the lounge to put some distance between us. Brent remained in the kitchen, yelling abuse at me. I cannot remember the exact conversation I had with my mother as I was terrified and was trying to calm myself down.

I believed at this time, that Brent was going to hurt me further so I made a plan in my head to get myself into my room, where I had another phone, and to lock myself in my ensuite. I did not want to draw Brent’s attention to what I was doing so I just calmly walked up the steps and into my bedroom. I grabbed my other phone and locked myself in the ensuite. I could hear Brent moving about the house and into the garage. I believed at this time that he was trying to find something to hurt me with. I rang a close friend, who I trusted would be able to help me. Brent was still in the house. He was still yelling things at me. Ian said that he would come and get me, but I knew that that would make things worse with Brent and asked him to wait until Brent had left. I am not sure how long it was before I heard Brent’s car start and go up the driveway. Once it had gone, I locked my front door and locked the internal door from the garage as Brent wouldn’t allow me to get the garage opener from his car when we had been arguing earlier, and it meant he still had access. I then rang Ian and asked him to pick me up as I was terrified that Brent would return early in the morning as he has done before. I gathered some clothes and waited for Ian to ring me from his cell phone to say that he was here. When Ian arrived, I left my home.

The right side of my face was extremely swollen and I was bleeding from the right cheek, just in front of my ear. I did not seek medical help on this night. I did not seek police help while I was at home, as I have done this once before and it has only made Brent angrier. When I did ring the police that time, Brent continued abusing me and has only left when he realised that the police would be arriving soon.

I received abusive texts from Brent during the night, saying that I was just a fucking drunk, that I treated him like a dog, that I was manipulative and that I had pushed him to do what he had done. The right side of my face had swollen immediately after the impact of the clothes airer yet at no time did I receive an apology and at no time did Brent express horror, regret or dismay as if the state of my face was something that he wasn't expecting. The only comment he made at the time was, I suppose that's my fucking fault.

I realised, after receiving Brent's txts that he was trying to cover himself in case I either went to the police or tried to tell anyone of the abuse. Apart from my mother and Ian, I had already decided that I was going to cover this up. I realise now, that my reason for doing this was not to cover Brent but because I was and am so ashamed of myself.

The following morning, I picked my mother up and took her shopping as had been planned. I wore my sunglasses all day, in and out of shops, into the council building to pay my rates, and any where else I was in public. I felt ashamed, dirty and not worth being concerned about. My mother was adamant that I go to the police, but I couldn't do it. I was sure I would be treated with scorn and that they would think me a liar. I know how Brent works. He has constantly ranted about me to his mates and I think anyone who will listen. He has lied his way out and into situations that make him appear the victim and I, on the other hand have kept quiet and just covered things up. To come out now and tell the truth petrified me. I realise now, that I had come to believe that I was everything he had said I was. A terrible mother, a fucking drunk, a dirty filthy maori, a selfish manipulative bitch, that even my own family fucking hated me being around, that no one ever invites me anywhere because I can't keep my fucking mouth shut, that it was my fault that his son went to jail because I kicked him out, that I was old and drying up as a woman because I wouldn't have sex with him. (My periods had stopped over the last seven months and I thought that I had become menopausal. A week after Brent left my home, my period began!) He said that I was ugly, that no one would ever fucking want to be with me, that I was crazy, that I had been sexually abused as a child for eight years because I was a slut and that I had no idea how people that I considered friends and loved really felt about me behind my back. He said that they confided in him and trusted him to make sure I didn't cause trouble. I began not wanting to go out anywhere but only with him.

So to go to the police about this, was out of the question for me.