I’ve been taking a training course about domestic violence in order to volunteer for a charity. The realisations have been dawning over the last few years that I didn’t just blink into being as a teenager, that I didn’t manufacture my depressive personality by myself, out of nowhere. I suppose in a way I never really felt like a child. I didn’t remember much, just flashes here and there. It was more convenient to forget, when we moved to live with our father when I was nine or ten - that became our life, never mind the life from before. Sentience only seems to dawn around that time.
The second week of our domestic violence training was about children. I had a hangover so was already feeling very fragile, an old friend and a couple of bottles of red wine made for feeling pretty awful in the morning.
The list spoke to me.
The wide range of effects children might experience in circumstances of domestic violence can include any of the following behavioural, physical and psychological effects, which may be short-term and/or long term:
There were a few that didn’t apply - physical injuries, broken bones. Then, with some others removed which didn’t apply:
Being protective of mother, being protective of siblings, advanced in maturity, advanced in sense of responsibility, introversion, withdrawn, feeling guilty, secretive, silent, self-blame, bitterness, fear, insecurity, tension, truanting, difficulties at school, disruptions in schooling, disruptions in living arrangements, emotional confusion in relation to parents, bed-wetting, nightmares, sleep disturbances, eating difficulties/disorders, self-harm, weight loss, sadness, depression, social isolation, difficulty in trusting others, low self-esteem, poor social skills, highly developed social skills, ability to negotiate difficult situations, drug use, alcohol use, petty theft and shop lifting, frightened...
The list spoke to me.
The wide range of effects children might experience in circumstances of domestic violence can include any of the following behavioural, physical and psychological effects, which may be short-term and/or long term:
There were a few that didn’t apply - physical injuries, broken bones. Then, with some others removed which didn’t apply:
Being protective of mother, being protective of siblings, advanced in maturity, advanced in sense of responsibility, introversion, withdrawn, feeling guilty, secretive, silent, self-blame, bitterness, fear, insecurity, tension, truanting, difficulties at school, disruptions in schooling, disruptions in living arrangements, emotional confusion in relation to parents, bed-wetting, nightmares, sleep disturbances, eating difficulties/disorders, self-harm, weight loss, sadness, depression, social isolation, difficulty in trusting others, low self-esteem, poor social skills, highly developed social skills, ability to negotiate difficult situations, drug use, alcohol use, petty theft and shop lifting, frightened...
I might have been reading a list of my own historical symptoms.
Children will almost certainly be affected if their mother has been subjected to domestic violence. Some will have witnessed or heard the abuse; all will sense their mother is unhappy.
Children will almost certainly be affected if their mother has been subjected to domestic violence. Some will have witnessed or heard the abuse; all will sense their mother is unhappy.
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