I won’t give my real name. Let me be Nadiia – which means Hope, literally and figuratively. Perhaps my story will give someone hope and become an incentive to believe that everything can change, and change for the better.
…Every scream at home made me smaller and weaker. I lived in constant expectation of being hit.
One day in the mirror I saw not only the bruises I carefully hid under make-up, but a tired woman who deserved a life without fear. Those bruises healed faster than the pain in my heart.
I remember the evening when he came too close again, and I realised that I could not, would not and did not want to live like this anymore. Enough!
I started looking for information on how to save myself. Trainings and support groups, talking to women who had already left abusive relationships. It gave me strength.
One day I was watching our children play nearby. I watched them and felt despair and guilt at the same time: “What will they remember?”
In the end, I gathered all my strength, all my courage – everything he had failed to beat out of me – took the keys, a bag with the bare essentials, the children, and left. I had been planning my escape for a long time. I had worked everything out: where we would live, how…
We went to stay with relatives. That is where I recovered. It was not easy – I couldn’t sleep at night, I cried, I doubted whether I had done the right thing.
But the feeling of freedom that instantly awoke inside me, the one I had forgotten, gave me wings.
Step by step, the fear disappeared.
Today I have my own home, my children are happy, and my heart is finally at peace – I live without fear.
