was dismissed because of the emotional support which his sister’s boyfriend gave to him.
Terry is troubled by the lack of understanding demonstrated beyond his intimate circle, and this is probably the reason for his remaining very much at home. This decision has brought him to recognise the importance of learning how to cope with his strong emotional feelings and the difficulties around his brother’s behaviour at home. He is aware that he can control his feelings through avoidance and through withdrawal. He has also learnt that self-expression through physical activities such as wrestling and boxing have been beneficial. Despite being troubled by the unfairness of the world, he has created a life at home which is centred on coping with forces which enter his home over which he feels he has some control.
His independent action has moved on from a desire to physically protect his mother, which was the result of a strong attachment to her and a profound fear of what was going to happen to her, to a desire to protect her from the unfairness of a wider society, which he recognises and believes to be true as he observes his mother suffering from unjust treatment. This wider society includes solicitors, neighbours, a brother and church members, who all receive some form of his condemnation. His lack of trust finds expression in his staying at home and his keeping his friends in the setting of school. His disdain for those who discredit his family is whole-hearted.
Terry’s emotional bond with his father is broken by his refusal to call him dad any longer. His ‘divorce’ from his father is something he wants deeply, and is reflected in several mentions of the legal divorce between his mother and father. His severance can only be emotional because contact arrangements are regularly kept; however, this emotional disassociation is crucial to Terry, because it echoes his loyalty to his mother and to the family which supports her. Despite having to spend time with his father, which he says is ok, he is able to hold on to the knowledge that there can be no emotional bonding or closeness because of his father’s abusive behaviour. This indicates that Terry has found a degree of autonomy which has developed through his understanding of the controlling core of domestic abuse and violence.
Karl
Karl was 12 years old when he shared his story. Karl’s story contains a prevailing sense of loss which touches every part of his life. There is a strong desire for him to find ways of overcoming the losses of his life and he talks about them openly. Having been fearful of his father finding out where they live, he has accepted that there is a real danger of this happening through his father’s friends or his brother. He is also fully aware that he had revealed too much to his father during a phone call, and that the repercussions of this were very difficult and caused considerable anxiety. His worries around his father were dealt with by his attempting to put his father completely out of his mind. This was reinforced by a new step-father, who had played an important part in making it easier for the absent father to be forgotten. With a new father figure who provides the family with treats and fun experiences, the loss of his father is softened.
Karl had a deep affection for his dog, and talked in detail about him, and how the dog came to be given away. The sense of injustice is strong, and reveals how Karl views his father’s part in adverse and painful experiences. The list of losses is long, but he does not directly blame his father for the loss of his home and garden. However, an impression is drawn and actually expressed of a callous father who does not care about Karl.
The disruption to Karl’s life seems all the more unfair and unreasonable when considered against the backdrop of his not having heard or seen any domestic violence. There are issues around the truth of this which will be discussed later on; at this time, his denial of actually witnessing domestic violence is accepted, as is his belief that his father’s lack of involvement and idleness around the family was the main reason for the break-up.
Arguments between his mother and father are only very briefly mentioned in the form of an afterthought which almost disappears at the end of his description of life at home with his dad. The fear he feels in relation to his dad seems to have developed through his being aware of his mother’s fear, and this indicates a closeness which he does not really express explicitly. He did not really notice a change in his mother after they left except that she was taking more care over her appearance. He talks little about his relationship with his mother, which seems to reflect an increasing lack of concern about her, and a relaxing of the anxiety which had prevailed before going into the refuge. He appears to be content with his life as it has become and talks with pride and confidence that he will have attended four different schools since leaving the family home.
Karl comes across as a sociable person, who seeks out company as a way of dealing with anxiety. He talks about various people in numbers, two or three, as being friends of his mother, and describes his joining in with games and activities with the other children in the refuge. His friend from the refuge, who has remained a friend since his leaving, has a special place as he has been able to stay at his home and he clearly enjoyed his time with him. His relationships within the family are more problematic, particularly his dealings with his older sister. It seems that there has been some tension around their relationship which he sees as having developed during the time when his father was being difficult. When they lived with their father, he could not get on with his sister, and he was quite vague about the reason for this. The problems around the relationship had been carried through to their new life, and there is the feeling that this has been completely accepted by Karl as being something that will probably not change. His concerns are more focused on his younger brother. He is worried about him in that he feels their father would win him over with his gift-buying tactics and then be able to control him so that he would inadvertently divulge where the family was living. This desire to keep their whereabouts secret is a crucial element in Karl’s story, and much of his thinking and feelings are a direct result of this desire.
Rose
Rose was 15 years old at the time of her telling her story. She tells her story chronologically, with events of devastating impact swiftly following one after another. It is evident that she has experienced many traumatic changes in her life, particularly in relation to her home, and the almost nomadic existence that she describes is sequentially made sense of through her ability to remember and describe an uninterrupted flow of events. She demonstrates a masterful chronological memory for times, places and events. Her evident grasp of the consequences which proceeded out of the behaviour of the close adults in her life, namely her mum and her step-dad, shows a clear understanding of the reasons for the appalling situation she found herself in. Her enormous pain is described without hesitation. Her guilt around her unkind treatment of her younger sister is stated without reservation. Her story contains a free expression of emotions of every kind, including a remarkable sensitivity to the plight of others.
Alcohol is described by her as being a dreadful component in her life. The whole family had been adversely affected by it to such a degree that it threatened to divide her from her mum, and it seems that alcohol abuse almost succeeded in separating them permanently. This division Rose sees as being both physical and emotional. Alcohol abuse had had a devastatingly negative effect on the behaviour and wellbeing of all the family members. The domestic violence was seen by Rose as also contributing to her severance from her mum, causing a breakdown of affection and attachment. She viewed the consequences as being attributable to the combination of domestic violence and alcohol abuse which led firstly to the disintegration and ultimately to the erosion of her mum’s ability to mother her and care for her.
The horrors of her life continued even after the break-up of her mum’s marriage to her step-dad. He continued to try and exert control by stalking the family, and it was necessary to start a new life leaving all their possessions behind except for a couple of suitcases. It was essential to leave no trail that could be followed. Their only chance as a family lay in total secrecy in relation to their new whereabouts. This did occur but Rose’s troubles did not end as her mum suffered from loneliness and depression once their new life had begun. Rose, who clearly loves her mum, noted that her mum continued to be very unhappy, and that life was grim. Events did take a fortunate turn, however,
