I’m not ashamed to admit that there was a time when survival was my only goal.
A time when getting through the day felt like the biggest achievement of all, hey who am I kidding I didn’t even call it an achievement at that time. I was navigating things that I still believe no one should have to experience, trying to protect my children, hold myself together, hold down a job, keep that smile pasted on my face, and somehow find a way forward when the life I was living was so far removed from the life I wanted for us.
You see, domestic abuse doesn’t always leave bruises It doesn’t always wave its flag in public and advertise it is happening. It also leaves wounds that are much harder to explain. Much harder for people to see. It takes away your confidence, your sense of identity, your trust in others, and sometimes your belief that you are capable of building a different future.
For a long time this was me, simply trying to survive.
But this isn’t a blog about getting sympathy or people feeling sorry for me. No, this is a story about what happens when survival becomes something more.
From victim…
I never imagined that my life would take the turns it did.
Living through domestic abuse you don’t even realise that your world becomes smaller and smaller. Your energy goes into managing situations, anticipating reactions, avoiding conflict, and doing whatever you need to do to get through another day.
You learn to put other people’s needs before your own. You question yourself. You even begin to believe the things you’re told about who you are, what you deserve, and what you’re capable of.
As if that isn’t enough the weight of it all becomes even heavier when children are involved. Suddenly you’re not just thinking about yourself; you’re trying to protect little people who depend on you, who don’t want to see you cry, who rely on you for every thing. Often while trying to make sense of a situation that feels impossible.
Leaving doesn’t necessarily mean the fear disappears. It doesn’t mean you suddenly feel safe, confident, or free. Sometimes, leaving is the beginning of a whole new set of challenges.
There can be years of rebuilding ahead. There can be anxiety that follows you long after the danger has passed. There can be moments when you wonder why something that happened so long ago can still affect you today.
And theres the guilt, the grief, and a thousand questions about what might have been different.
But none of those things make you weak.
And none of them make what happened your fault.
I was a victim of abuse, but abuse was never the whole of who I was. It was something that happened to me, not the definition of my worth.
That distinction would become incredibly important as I began to rebuild my life.
…to survivor
Survival is powerful.
We imagine survivors as people who leave an abusive relationship and immediately become strong, fearless, and ready to take on the world.
The reality is never that simple, survival is often much quieter than that.
It is getting out of bed when everything feels overwhelming. It is making breakfast, doing the school run, attending appointments, and carrying on when your mind is somewhere else entirely.
It is asking for help when you have spent years believing you have to manage everything alone, when you’ve been taught that asking for help means weakness.
It is learning to trust your own judgement again.
It is understanding that you are allowed to have boundaries, that your feelings matter, and that you do not have to earn the right to be treated with kindness and respect.
For me, rebuilding wasn’t a straight line. It was far from it. There were challenges, setbacks, and moments when life felt far harder than I thought it should.
I had to navigate the impact of abuse long after the relationship itself had ended. I had to parent through my own struggles, find ways to manage my anxiety, and keep showing up for my children even when I didn’t always feel like I had much left to give.
There were also times when my family faced challenges that no parent would ever wish for. Times when the road ahead felt uncertain and the responsibility felt enormous. These were the hardest times, because in my head I could accept I had to face challenges, but why should the rest of the family? Why were my children struggling?
Little by little, life began to change. Not just my life, but the life my children were living, and learning to grow though.
Now nothing suddenly became easy overnight, but because I was learning that difficult circumstances did not have to determine the rest of my story change was slowly beginning to show itself.
I was finding my voice again.
I discovered that strength didn’t mean never struggling. It meant finding ways to move forward, even when the way forward looked different from what I had imagined.
I was becoming a survivor.
Slowly, I started to realise that I wanted more than survival.
…to thriving
I thought happiness meant reaching a point where the past no longer affected me.
I thought thriving meant becoming the person I had been before everything happened.
Now I understand that rebuilding your life isn’t always about going back.
Sometimes, it’s about discovering who you are now.
It’s about creating a life that feels safer, calmer, and more authentically yours. It’s about finding moments of joy without feeling that you have to justify them. Allowing yourself to dream again, even if those dreams have changed.
For me, thriving has meant building a different life for myself and my children. It has meant finding my feet again, learning to cope with challenges, and recognising that my future doesn’t have to be controlled by my past.
It hasn’t meant that anxiety has magically disappeared or that life has stopped throwing difficult things my way. If anything life has decided I’ve been through hell already so let’s really test those coping skills and boundaries.
Thriving doesn’t mean having a perfect life.
It means living a life in which the difficult things are no longer the only things that define you.
It means recognising your own progress, even when it feels small.
It means understanding that you can be a loving parent and still have difficult days. You can be strong and still need support. You can be grateful for how far you’ve come and still acknowledge the things that hurt.
Most importantly, thriving has meant realising that the things I have lived through do not have to be wasted.
The experiences I once wished I could erase have given me a deeper understanding of how complicated recovery can be, how much people can carry behind closed doors, and how important it is to be met with compassion rather than judgement.
I know what it feels like when life doesn’t go to plan.
I know that recovery isn’t always neat, predictable, or easy to explain.
And I know how powerful it can be when someone sees beyond your circumstances and recognises your potential.
That understanding has become something I want to use for good.
…to trustee
And this is where my story takes another turn.
From being someone who needed support, to someone who fought to rebuild her life, to someone who began to thrive, I have now reached a point where I can take on a different role.
I became a trustee of the charity that believed in me, that came on my journey of recovery by my side.
To some people, that might sound like a title or a position of responsibility. To me, it represents something much bigger.
It represents my journey.
It represents the distance between the person I was when I was simply trying to get through each day and the person I am becoming now.
It represents the opportunity to take the lessons I have learned, the perspective I have gained, and the compassion that comes from lived experience, and use them to help make a difference for others.
Being a trustee isn’t about having all the answers. It isn’t about being a perfect example of recovery or pretending that life has always been easy.
It’s about listening. It’s about learning. It’s about helping an organisation make thoughtful decisions. To provide support to them to help them remain connected to the people it exists to support. It’s about working towards a future where more people can access the understanding and opportunities they need.
Being a trustee shows the value of recognising that lived experience has value.
The people who have experienced hardship, trauma, abuse, and recovery have perspectives that cannot always be found in policies, reports, or statistics alone.
Those perspectives matter.
They can help us ask better questions, challenge assumptions, understand barriers, and remember the human beings behind the services we provide.
I don’t want my past to be the only thing people see when they look at me.
But I also don’t want to pretend it hasn’t shaped me.
I can acknowledge what I have been through without being defined by it. I can recognise the pain of my past while using what I have learned to contribute to something positive.
For me, becoming a trustee is not about putting my past behind me as though it never happened.
It’s about carrying forward the things that matter: empathy, resilience, perspective, and a determination to help create better possibilities for other people.
It’s about turning lived experience into meaningful contribution.
And I am incredibly proud of that.
My story is still being written
If there is one thing I wish more people understood about domestic abuse and recovery, it is that leaving is not the end of the story.
Survivors don’t simply walk away and instantly become the people they want to be. There may be years of rebuilding, complicated emotions, family challenges, and moments when the past feels closer than we would like.
But there can also be growth.
There can be new beginnings, new opportunities, new relationships, and new ways of understanding yourself.
There can be a life beyond what happened to you.
There comes a time when you look at the person you have become and realise just how far you have travelled.
…Wait, there’s more.
I am not sharing this because I believe I have everything figured out. I don’t.
I am sharing it because I want other people to know that their story does not have to end with what someone else did to them.
You can be a victim of something terrible without that being your identity forever.
You can survive things you never thought you would have to face.
You can find ways to thrive, even when life remains complicated.
And you can reach a point where the experiences that once left you feeling powerless become part of the perspective you bring to helping others.
From victim, to survivor, to thriving, to trustee.
Four words that represent so much more than four stages of a journey.
They represent pain, courage, change, hope, and the possibility of finding purpose in places you never expected.
I am proud of the woman who survived.
I am proud of the woman who kept going.
I am proud of the woman who is learning to thrive.
And I am proud of the woman who is stepping into a role where her voice, her experience, and her perspective can help make a difference.
My past is part of my story.
But it is not the end of it.
I am no longer just surviving my life. I am building it, living it, and finding ways to help others along the way.
And this next chapter?
I cannot wait to see where it leads.
