Gina's Story

I got pregnant with my daughter while I was sitting my GCSE’s. I was absolutely petrified. We were kids, I’d never even changed a baby before, what the hell was I gonna do? Telling my boyfriend was hard, he was only 15, but he said, you know, it’s our baby, I have to man up. We moved in with his auntie and uncle who had lots of kids so we had lots of practice. I really thought everything was going to be OK.

And then, when my daughter was ten days old, she passed away from cot death.

I was completely shattered, how could you not be? It was the most heartbreaking thing ever and I took it really hard but, even though we were young, there was nothing that we could have done to stop it from happening.

I was such a mess and I was offered diazepam from the doctor to calm me down. But I didn’t want to take it. What I did have, though, was a whiskey and it helped. It numbed things and helped fill the emptiness. But then one became two and then it became five and before I knew it I wasn’t drinking it with a mixer.

I just got really angry at the world. And I got really angry at God, which sounds really strange. I remember saying to my dad that God just shit on me from the greatest height possible and I don't know why.

Then four months later I found out I was pregnant with my son, and I didn't quite know how to deal with that.

*******

When I was growing up my dad was really strict and I wasn’t allowed to go to friends’ houses for tea or stay out overnight. So when he found out I was pregnant the second time he wasn’t really supportive. But my mum was absolutely amazing, she used to sneak out to come and meet me and things. My dad was alright with me being there and once he got over the shock of it he was alright with it, but he was very, this is your decision, you live with it, whereas my mum was like this is your baby, you're gonna raise it, but I'm here, and I'm not gonna go anywhere.

But because of the trauma of losing our baby daughter me and my boyfriend were both drinking. We were only 15 at the time and we were struggling to cope. But with the alcohol came the violence.

He just got more angry and more violent. And then he started seeing other girls, and he’d come back and tell me what they’d been doing like it was nothing, because he knew that I had no one to run to. I was stuck with him because I was pregnant and we were living together.

I stopped drinking while I was pregnant, because I couldn't have hurt the baby. But I craved it really bad and I think that affected my mental health a lot, ‘cause I didn't get any help. I don't even think at that point anyone realised I had an alcohol problem.

But my mental health was just awful, and he was the worst possible partner he could have been at the time, for his own reasons. I accept that now, but I knew I should have left as soon as he started, but I didn't 'cause I was so scared, and like, where would I go? Back to my dad’s for him to say I told you so?

The first time that he actually marked me by hitting me I went to my grandmother because I didn't want to go to my parents. And when I told her, she said to me you've made your bed my girl, now go home and lie in it.

And that's exactly what I did for five more years.

I can see now that she's from a different generation and that actually it was domestic abuse, so I have a lot more understanding of it. But at the time I just believed what she said and thought maybe it's just me overreacting.

*******

When I had my second baby I had really bad postnatal depression. I was just so scared it was going to happen again, that I was going to lose him. I hadn’t grieved properly for my daughter, and I hadn’t even got my head around the fact I was pregnant, but all of a sudden there was this new baby.

I went home from the hospital with my partner’s grandparents and we stayed with them. And they completely took over, like they thought that I was being a bad parent. But instead of supporting me to feel better, they just completely took over, and I would wake up in the morning and I’d be like where’s the baby? And he’d be downstairs bathed and dressed and fed. They would just come in and take him in the middle of the night.

But my partner’s violence calmed down while we were staying with his grandparents so I convinced myself that it was all going to be OK in the end, but it wasn’t.

My emotions were all over the place and every time I was near my baby I just shook because I was so scared that he was going to stop breathing in my arms.

The midwife tried to tell me that what I was feeling was normal because I’d just lost a baby and I needed to be gentle on myself. And like I got that, but I knew there was something not right in the way I was feeling.

And like I said, with the grandparents taking over everything, within a week of having my baby I was out drinking. I couldn't even say my name by the end of the night and that's how I intended it to be.

But then we got our own house when my baby was about six months old and I knew I needed to work at being a mum, so I didn’t even think about drinking any more. I felt like I had to make myself be his mother. Like I felt the more I was with him, the more I did for him, the more I'd bond with him, and these feelings would go away.

But then his dad started being violent again. He was so angry at me because he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t bonding with our baby properly. I was still too scared, but he couldn't understand. And every time he would see me upset, he would just beat me, like he thought that he could make me happy by knocking the sadness out of me or something.

And then, one day, he tried to hang himself in front to me because he felt like he had failed. I think he was just trying to make me feel bad now that I look at it. But I tried ringing the police and he took the phone off me and broke it. But my SIM card was registered to my parents house, so the police response went there because all they’d heard was me screaming. And then before I knew it, I had my parents, family members and the police - I had everyone at the door, and that was the first that anyone knew there was any violence, but by the time they got there I didn't even recognise myself in the mirror anymore.

And that got worse over a few days. And then I stupidly decided to go back anyway, but my nan’s words still haunted me. But I felt like I was robbing my son by not taking him back to his father, he was the better parent and I should only be there if he was there too. But obviously it was harming us both what he was doing. And then a few days after I went back home, my best friend told me that she was pregnant by him. How do you deal with that? Like, thanks!

I'm still only just 18 by now. And I found out then that he’d got my best friend pregnant. And he was still harming us by being violent, so I packed our secret bags and I hid them.

A couple of weeks later my mum was going away for the week and I phoned her about half 12 the night before and said mum, come and get me in the morning, I’m leaving. They had absolutely no idea what I’d been going through at that point, they just knew there’d been one incident. She was like why, why am I getting you so early, I was like you have to be here, you have to be here before 7. And she was like why, and I was like just be here, please promise me you’ll be here.

He came in drunk that night, and I knew that I had to get out because I wasn't gonna take many more of those beatings. And she came and got me the next morning and we went away for the week, and I didn't say a word about anything that had happened. I just tried to be with my son and pretend it hadn’t happened. But then when we got home he was waiting for me, outside my parents’ house.

There was a big incident between him and my dad, and he went away in the end. He just completely left us alone for a little while, just completely vanished. Went to spend time with his new baby. And I think that hurt a lot more than some of the beatings to be honest, the fact that he could just walk away from us like that.

Then after about eight or nine months he came back. He started saying he wanted to see the baby, I want you back, all that kind of stuff. And it kinda did suck me in there for a little while and I was secretly seeing him and things. But then I realised that he was still with my best friend, and that she was having another baby by him, and I was like no, you're never gonna change, I'm done.

But then he started a vicious court battle for my son.

*******

I hadn’t really received any proper support at this point. I just kept turning it away. I was ashamed. I didn't want people to know what had been happening. I felt like such a failure and I didn't want people to know that I had messed up as bad as I had. Like my parents were the only people I told about the violence. And I didn't really go into much detail with them, you see the pain in their face and you stop talking.

And it wasn't until after I'd moved out of my parents again, that my parents even realised that I had a problem with alcohol.

After moving back in with them I started going out and drinking again. But then I would do things like put orange Mad Dog in a Fanta bottle, so they had no idea that I was drinking all day. They thought with the going out that I was just trying to live the bit of my life that I’d missed. You know, trying to be a teenager and doing all the things I should have been doing when I was having the kids and going through what I had. I think they thought that they were helping me by letting me do that. Like it's what I needed.

The custody battle was just so mean, it was so vicious. And still at that point I'm not sharing everything that had happened. I was kind of like protecting him I suppose, and I was still so ashamed. I didn't really disclose the level of violence and abuse that had been happening. And he just went at me for being a bad parent because emotionally I was struggling and I had postnatal depression. He made it like I wasn't mentally stable enough to be looking after our baby.

And the harder he went at me, the more I kind of proved him right, 'cause I drank more and I started leaving the baby at my parents more 'cause I felt like I wasn't good enough to be his mother.

I was phoning him and saying you're going to have to have him for a couple of days, I need a break. I was literally feeding him the information that he needed to get custody. I just genuinely felt that I wasn't a good enough parent and that my son deserved better.

*******

After a couple of years I realised that my alcohol intake wasn’t normal. I knew I had to do something, so I went to the doctors to get medication for my postnatal depression. And I tried counselling. I say I tried counselling, I went to one session. And I just think because I hadn’t dealt with what happened to my daughter, that when the counsellor wanted to talk about it, I just couldn’t do it, and I walked out of the session. I don't think I knew what to expect from counselling at that point.

I think looking back I probably could have done with more intervention than I got, and I feel like I was just given medication and sent on my way.

My mam phoned me about six months after I'd started taking the medication - someone that lived on my street and knew my mum had told her that I was drinking a lot and that she should be concerned about my son. And she rang me and said, I know that you’re drinking, it’s OK, I'm going to come and get the baby for a couple of days. And even now that hurts. It was a wake up moment for me.

I went no, you're not coming to get him, and I went to the kitchen and I poured my alcohol down the sink. I thought that in that moment I’d cured it, I'm fine, I don't need it.

But obviously there's emotions behind the reason that you drink, and I didn't deal with any of that. But I threw myself into trying to be a better parent, and I did really well for a long time. Yeah, my son just became my everything, and his dad had got more wrapped up in his other children by now, and contact was under a set court order and we just went with that, and I was fine with that, 'cause they had him Friday and Saturday night every week, so I just would have my space and all week I would be thinking about school and stuff.

And then, because I thought that I had dealt with my alcohol problem, I thought that I could carry on drinking normally. So I started going out on Friday and Saturday nights. And I expected it just to stay as that, and obviously it doesn't.

Then I met someone new and he was a drinker, and that was my worst downfall 'cause you just feed it for each other, don’t you? You make it OK that you're doing that.

And then I got pregnant by him. My son was was five. And I was so pleased to be having another baby, and again I just, cold turkey quit.

I thought it was just what I needed to heal myself because I did do better as a parent, I made sure I did all the things I thought were the right things. I breastfed, you know, I had a home birth. I absolutely loved my experience of having him. But it was just like a sticking plaster over my mental health for a while.

*******

We were playing happy families, and I thought everything was great. And then I found out that I was pregnant again, which again was not planned, the contraception failed. I had the coil, but yeah, that didn’t work out, I’m just fertile.

I was about three or four months pregnant and I found out that he'd been seeing someone else. And then while I was pregnant I found out that my mum was terminally ill with cancer.

Of everything I've been through that’s still the hardest thing to have dealt with. Like she was my safe place. I could say and do anything and she would still love me, that’s what mothers do isn’t it.

I moved back home to look after my mum, and the violence between me and my partner started 'cause now he felt like he was neglected and he just got really angry at me. And he starting going missing for longer and longer, but obviously at that time I was heavily pregnant and my mum was dying, like he wasn’t even a priority for me, like go do what you need to do, I’m doing what I need to.

We didn't get very long with my mum, but I stayed with my dad and I nursed her through that. I did during that time get some counselling. I went to a local cancer charity who were supporting me through it, and I only did that because it was part of the criteria for keeping my son – to have counselling. We received it as a family to prepare us for what was going to happen, my mum had become like my son’s second mother because of my addiction and mental health, so I knew it was going to be hard for all of us.

Then we got our own house again because my dad said that he couldn't deal with us being in the house, and I was like I gave up everything to go and live with you. So I ended up moving back in with my partner. And that's where the violence started again. There were black eyes, I was pushed down the stairs, held at knife point. It was awful, and the boys saw a lot of things that they should never have had to see. And I was on the receiving end of all of it as well, physically and emotionally.

And then he left, because the violence just got to the point where, either he left or I was going to die. He left of his own accord and I found it really hard that he walked away from us again. And again I thought the problem must be me. If this keeps happening to me, it must be me. I can't be a good enough partner, like I can't even keep a man happy, why do they treat me that way, am I that bad?

*******

After he left, my younger son was diagnosed with learning difficulties and that was really difficult. He had global developmental delay, and then I started to feel guilty, like is it my fault? Is it everything they’ve been through?

We fought really hard to get him lots of support, but he got suspended from school aged five for violence and I realised that was because of our relationship. I felt like at that point he needed a positive male role model to show him how to be a man, and I jumped into a relationship I shouldn't have again. It became volatile, and there was drugs involved and amphetamine became my . . . god, my life, yeah, my be all and end all.

I was still drinking, I was physically addicted at that point and I knew that I had an issue, and that's where the amphetamine came in. I used to use it to be able to do school runs and to function for the children.

Then there was a massive incident of violence where the children's dad was involved with my new partner. It was just like a mass brawl, bottles and glass and screaming in the street.

And then there was obviously a social services referral from there. And they came and said that everything was fine again . . . they just did the usual assessments, we played the part, they went away, they put safety plans in place in case something happened in future. But absolutely no support really. And then there were more incidents, and I thought I was going to die. The children were in the house, and drugs had taken over making everything worse.

So we just like cocooned ourselves inside the house, kept the curtains closed. And the violence just got worse and worse and worse. And to this day I don’t know why I didn't leave. I still don't, I still don't understand.

I should have left, and I’ll obviously regret it for the rest of my life.

I think maybe it was because I always minimised what was going on. And I think partly because I felt like it was my fault. I felt like I deserved it, I felt like I caused it, if I hadn’t have said that, if I hadn’t have done that, if I’d have just cooked his tea right, and all those kind of things.

So then when the police would come, upstairs would be all smashed up but I’d tell them I was fine. I don't think people saw how bad it was getting.

And then my sons’ behaviour started reflecting what they were seeing. My middle son, who was only five at the time, gave me a black eye. My youngest son with his learning difficulties he would just go wild, like, it was like he was possessed or something. Like you would tell him no, and he would just literally smash the room up around you.

It got to a point where I had to say something, not for me, not for the relationship. It was my sons who needed help, I needed someone to do something. I didn’t know what to do anymore. And obviously as professionals came in they started looking for the problem, and the deeper they looked the more dirt they got, you know, they found the abusive relationship. They found the alcohol dependence, the drugs. My house slowly got worse and worse around me as you stop caring about everything. I stopped washing, I just gave up, like I'm just defeated. I was so exhausted. Living in that trauma state all of the time and then add addiction into that, I just burnt myself out beyond recognition.

But our social services involvement got more and more intense, and they made me choose between him and the children. No brainer, I chose my children.

*******

So I moved home and I got a full time job. And my youngest started school and he got into a pupil referral unit, and it was going really, really well. And I was working with adults with learning difficulties and challenging behaviour, which I absolutely adored every second of, and it gave me that purpose again. I felt like I was learning things that helped my son at the same time, like I would take the techniques home and use them there, and things were getting good.

And then my son had an explosive episode in school and was put on to a one hour a day reduced timetable, and I was like, how do I do this working full time? So I had to start relying on his dad to come back around. I was actually paying him in alcohol to come and mind his own son. I was like I'll buy you alcohol on the way home if you’ll just sit with him. And I would pay for his taxi to get there and things. And I knew that wasn't a healthy environment to have my sons in, like obviously I was sober myself by now because I was so scared social services we’re gonna take them away, and I got a job to try deal with that malady.

But then I was allowing alcohol in the house, so I felt like I was still making all the same failings. And then it’s, oh go on, I’ll have one with you tonight. And that started creeping.

So it all came to light via a spot check social services visit. They told me that I was no longer deemed safe to be around the children on my own

I panicked. They were going to remove my children and I couldn’t process it. I tried ringing my dad over and over and he didn’t answer. I begged them to take me to a women’s refuge but they laughed at me and said I didn’t need a refuge cos I was doing this to myself.

In the end we went to my dad’s, and two weeks later we were allocated a new social worker. And I was the most honest I’d ever been, because I was at the bottom and I needed someone to get me out, I knew I couldn't do it myself and I knew that things had to change, and I was the most honest I've ever been.

But my dad’s house was only a street away from my third ex partner, who was my current abuser. And he kept turning up at the house and shouting for me and things, so I would just go out and talk to him to keep him quiet, 'cause I was scared that they were gonna find out that he was still coming around. And when the social worker came to do a second spot check she found him outside. Because of that she was like, we can't trust you to keep the children safe. And so they decided that I couldn't be left alone with the children at all, and that I had to be supervised by my dad, but I could stay. So our family was a child in need case at first but after they saw my ex partner at the house we went to child protection register.

*****

I started using again because I was just so sad. My ex wouldn’t leave us alone. They wouldn’t take us to a refuge. I asked but they said it was because I hadn’t pressed charges. But I didn’t want all of that, it was just gonna make him more angry. I just wanted me and my children out of there. But they put me under a PLO, an order that meant I had to comply with certain conditions for twelve weeks to show I was safe to be with the children.

Within two weeks I decided that I wasn't going to win this fight, and I had to do what was best for my children and not for me. But I didn’t really know what that was.

Some support was put in place, parenting support that I took part in, but there is no record of me participating. I would say that my children had additional needs, but they’d say it was from the trauma of domestic abuse. So they kind of fell through the net.

I think they weren't looking at the bigger picture – and reports of me taking part in parenting support and stuff was a big part of the bigger picture, to show that the normal interventions didn't help, even though we were following them.

I eventually got my son into a pupil referral unit. But two weeks later, social services removed my children. When I finally got some of the help I needed, they took him from me.

So I was self-referring for help in the end and the outcome of that was removal.

After the children left my use spiralled beyond all control. Then one day, my son knocked on my door unexpectedly. He was 13 and I was in no fit state for my child to see me, It was the wake up call I needed.

I was still with my abuser at that point but that day I packed my things up and left.

*****

Today, I’m four years sober.

All three children were placed in care, and they had to remain in care until they were 18, but my eldest son was able to come home at 15 and a half. So now I still have my two youngest to get back home.

We do have some contact though. I used to have contact three times a week. But then it dropped to once a month after the long-term order was put in place, which was a massive shock on everyone.

Then last summer I was awarded unsupervised community contact.

Now I’m working in domestic violence support services I can look back and see that I didn’t really get any support at all. I think the intervention should have been domestic abuse focused and it wasn’t, it was substance misuse focused. But my substance misuse issues were a coping mechanism for the domestic abuse, I don't think the actual issue was ever truly dealt with. I also think that when I did get support that worked, that support was taken away too quickly.

So now I help other women get out the situation I was in, I help them see they’re worth more, because I now know I am worth more. And that’s what it’s about. I’ll never hand someone else my happiness again - they can share it with me, but it’s mine.

And I think I only realised more recently, looking back, that my dad also had alcohol issues, it’s just that he was able to function. All three of us kids had addiction problems too.

I now understand that I have a spiritual malady. I have an emptiness I need to fill. Being a parent was what got me through, so I didn’t feel like I needed alcohol as much. But once they were removed I just wanted to hide from the pain. And so I’ve learned in recent years to fill it with myself and my own achievements, instead of filling it with other people. When you hand someone else your happiness, you give them the ability to walk away with that. And for the first time in my life, I am genuinely happy with who I am. And I never thought that I would believe that. It’s a really powerful thing, I do things now that I never thought I could do.