Mom’s hair is pulled from the scalp. Her father beats her. Again

Korona means that thousands of Norwegian children are forced to stay in violent homes. Police report a sharp increase in domestic violence cases during the pandemic. The increase is due to stress, drug use and isolation.

Children become experts

A survey by the National Knowledge Center on Violence and Traumatic Stress shows that 84 percent of crisis centers in Norway are concerned about how children are doing.

It’s hard to know for sure.

It is not uncommon for children living in violent homes to cover up how they feel at home to protect their parents. Children become adept at hiding. Other adults around may be able to catch these children, for example by observing their behavior.

But for an incredible number of children, this opportunity no longer exists. They are prohibited from meeting alternative caregivers.

It is this concern that now makes me share my personal story.

Time to count

The hardest part of writing and sharing this story was letting Mom read it first.

I live with the consequences of growing up in an unsafe home as an adult.

I’ve known for a long time that it’s time to tell.

We are in 1990. I am nine years old and a little older. So it turned out. Every day I work to cover up the secret. No one needs to find out what is happening at home. I keep control of the chaos.

In the middle of the night before a school day I wake up. Mom is shaky and drunk on the living room floor. You try to say something, but you can’t. The lip is cracked and swollen after a blow. His eye is liquefied and so swollen that he cannot open it. The skin around the eyes has dark blue patches, coagulated and dripping with blood from open cuts. The hair on the head is pulled directly from the scalp. Where her blonde hair should have been, there’s a bald spot. Her father has embarrassed her. Again.

We are in 1990. I am nine years old and a little older. So it turned out. Every day I work to cover up the secret. No one needs to find out what is happening at home. I keep control of the chaos.

I’m on call every night. I only sleep halfway and listen to the sounds. When do mom and dad come home? Do they go home in their own car or taxi? Have they been drinking? I hear it immediately. The steps are a little heavier on the stairs, almost a little bent. The voices are louder, although they try to be quiet. I feel it tightening in my stomach. Like a sore stomach ulcer that radiates throughout the body. I am afraid of what may happen.

I get up to take care of my mom.

This time he hit her before they got home. My body trembles with fear. I’m trying to get Mom to bed before Dad comes home. I’m afraid he’s going to die, but I don’t dare ask for help. Because then someone will know what is happening at home. Nobody needs to know. Then I risk child welfare coming. Because daddy said so. Besides, my mother has promised me that she will never die.

The glass hit

My biggest fear now is that Dad will come home. Because mom came home alone. Someone has taken her home, but she doesn’t know who. You have to go to bed before he comes. Then we could avoid a new episode. Then he won’t attack again tonight.

She doesn’t respond to what I say to her at age nine. She responds incoherently and is impossible to reach. I beg, pray, cry and cry out in frustration, but most of all I am afraid. Terrified of things to come, and terrified to see her so hurt. The violence has been more violent than usual this time.

It’s useless. And now dad is home too. He is still angry. A glass of Smirnoff and Sprite flies through the living room. The glass is meant to meet mom, but I have time to go in the middle. The glass hits next to me and breaks. My leg feels itchy. A small cut. The shock and embarrassment of being hurt are enough to calm him down. I beg my mother one more time to go to bed. This time she is listening. And finally, they both sleep intoxicated and angry.

Someone must have called

It’s six in the morning and two hours to go before I meet my colleagues at the mailboxes. We have to go to school together. They all pass by the house we live in.

My biggest fear is that someone will listen and find out what is happening in our house.

But the crisis is not over. A police car is parked outside and two officers are standing in the yard. I manage to open the door before they knock. Someone must have called. Maybe the one that brought mom home. I remember asking them not to wake up my parents. That they are sleeping and that I am going to school. They go. I don’t remember them asking me anything. I don’t see them again either, and I’m relieved when they leave.

Do you need someone to talk to?

Mental Health Helpline: 116123 (open 24 hours)
Kirkens SOS: 22 40 00 40 (open 24 hours)
Leve Landsforeningen for Suicide Survivors: Accepts inquiries by email: [email protected] or phone 22 36 17 00 (weekdays 9-15)

The next few days it will be quiet. Mom has covered the bruises with suntan lotion. It doesn’t cover very well. He has combed his hair to hide the baldness on his head. Dad watches TV and Mom makes dinner with potatoes. Always with potatoes. According to my father, this is not a dinner without potatoes.

We are not talking about what happened. I am on guard and looking forward to the next time. Because it happens over and over again.

The body perceives the danger

Telling this story is not easy.

Traumatic childhood experiences are still in my body.

All the feelings that I had then continue to appear and today I live with the consequences. I have come to a kind of acceptance of how things were and that I am no longer in a situation where I should be afraid. Feelings can come unannounced in situations where my body senses danger. It can result in a backlash that is not related to the situation I am in.

It is possible to live with. It is possible to move on. And it is possible to be well. But it takes a lot of work.

My story is not unique. This is also happening today, without anyone seeing or doing anything. I grew up in a home with resourceful parents in a residential area of ​​Bergen.

Nobody asked

I have asked teachers, neighbors, girlfriends, family, the mother of my half sisters who I stayed with often during my upbringing. Nobody knew. Some bet. Some may have had a feeling that something was wrong. But no one asked.

Why not?

The answers I get vary. He was well dressed. I never lacked for anything. I came prepared for school and had good grades. He was sociable, outgoing, and had many friends. My survival strategies worked too well for anyone to figure out what was wrong. In school and in training, I felt safe. There I freed myself from the chaos at home with my friends. Good grades were my way of being seen. One way to secure an exit.

Why wasn’t it?

My father was not just a violent drunk. He was also fun, creative, successful at work, and full of life. It was the center of all social contexts. But he was a traumatized man with a tough upbringing behind him. No tools to deal with your own emotions. It was beyond his family.

And it goes beyond me as an adult.

My mother is the strongest person I know. Even today it says that we must remember the good and forget the bad. It is his way of life, but he carries a heavy burden. She feels guilty. She was an adult.

Why wasn’t it? “It was her fault that he hit.” That was what she thought. An eternal belief that if he changed his behavior a little, it would end. Dad said it too. If you had kept quiet, I would not have attacked. There is no one else to blame for the violence than the one it actually attacks.

The sanctuaries are gone

I worry about all the children who stay at home and do not go to school or kindergarten. All the children who no longer have their sanctuaries to take a break from what happens at home, as the school and training gave me. And although it has not happened to me, these arenas are an opportunity for someone to discover that not everything is as it should be.

It takes an average of 17 years before someone dares to tell it.

The number of cases of domestic violence has increased during the pandemic and it is more difficult to detect domestic violence when society is closed. A survey by NKVTS (National Knowledge Center on Violence and Traumatic Stress) shows that 50 percent of young people who are exposed to domestic violence do not tell anyone.

It takes an average of 17 years before anyone dares to tell it.

Two of the main reasons young people gave for not talking about experiences of violence were that they felt guilty and did not want the child welfare service to get involved. The negative image of child welfare for some abused children can prevent them and the family from receiving adequate and adequate help.

Dangerous for the next generation

A survey of the first weeks of the pandemic in March 2020 shows that one in six children reported at least one form of violence or abuse in the weeks schools were closed. 64.5% did not receive information on how to contact the school health service when the school was closed.

The isolation of the population and the closure of society make control and violence in the home more difficult to detect and the vulnerable seek help.

For children, we know that being exposed to violence has important consequences, but it is also harmful to witness violence between adults.

Trauma destroys life. If you, as an adult, do not receive treatment, it can be dangerous for the next generation. Traumas follow you. If my parents had been helped to deal with their trauma, they could have been better parents for me.

Remove the taboo

I spent a long time without being ashamed. It took 30 years before I could speak, and that only happened after Dad died. Only then did I dare to tell someone what had happened throughout my childhood. I understood that what I had experienced did not make me a bad person.

I wish someone had given me a safe space to speak, for the school to report on how to deal with domestic violence.

We can all do something. Ask how the children are doing. Talk about violence and conflict.

A nine-year-old girl asks me: What is it really like at home?

Together we can remove the taboo and the shame.