Why didn’t you keep me safe?

I can never truly understand why you didn’t keep me safe?

For years, you sat back and you watched, you listened and you allowed endless abuse, pain, heartache.

Every single time he called me a name, hit my across my face, used his hand to brand my skin. Every single time he hurt me, you didn’t stop him.

I know more about domestic abuse now than I did as a kid, obviously. And I try so hard to understand that perhaps you were scared. Perhaps you couldn’t leave. Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as I remember?

But I do remember.

I remember the pain.

The fear.

Treading on egg shells every single day.

Not knowing what would piss him off. What I would do to deserve being yelled out. What I would do, or not to, that would deserve being hit. I never knew what was going to happen, when or why.

I remember feeling some form of relief when the physical “punishments” came because, that I could work through. It made some sort of sense.

The anger, violence and then silence. It was over. I could hide in my room under the comfort of my duvet.

The name calling, the tension, the uncertainty and the fear, that I couldn’t plan for. That I couldn’t understand. It was so inconsistent it terrified me.

“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” a phrase that haunts me to this day. So much so that I physically struggle to let anyone see me cry.

Why didn’t you keep me safe?

Why did you stay?

Why did you let him hit me day after day. Call me names that still ring in my ears 20 years later?

You’re my mum, why didn’t you keep me safe?