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Relate.

If you can relate to any of these posts, follow us @anxietyproblem​

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Hi look at me.

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I Have My Dad Back - And He Is A Survivor Of Domestic Violence.

I can’t count the times I’ve heard my phone ring during the night and I’ve been met with instant dread, wondering if it’s my Grandma calling to tell me my dad is in hospital again due to a beating from his girlfriend, or worse, that he’s dead. For years I’ve had this fear, living in constant limbo not knowing if he’s okay, not being able to save him, or even talk to him. The call never came, but neither did any call for that matter, until November.

I remember it vividly, it was 19:55 and I was cooking tea ready for my fiancé getting home from work at eight. I was frying a steak, his favourite. Blasting an episode of ‘Friends’ on the TV in the living room so I could hear it from the kitchen when my phone rang, a number I did not recognise.

I answered and heard a sullen voice on the other end, “Hiaye squiddles it’s daddy” - just like that, as if we’d never stopped speaking. I responded lightly back to him, taken off guard, when he began crying. “It’s so nice to hear your voice. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, I’m sorry I’ve been a shit dad, I’m sorry I turned you away and let her get in my head, I’m sorry I did everything I did to yo-“ choking on his words, he took a moment to breathe.

I hadn’t had chance to process that he was calling, let alone think of how I felt up until those words, but I now began realising that this was unusual behaviour. He never apologised, his whole life, and now he was. Although he was in an abusive relationship, there are some things that he needed to take responsibility for, and I couldn’t help but feel that this was it, this was his turning point, this was the moment we had all been waiting for. The moment when the victim has an epiphany. The moment he realised that he was being abused.

As a victim, he had always made excuses for his abuser. He was blinded by love, believed what was happening to him was normal, manipulated and brainwashed into thinking everyone but his abuser was trying to hurt him. He was isolated from me, manipulated so much into thinking that I was an awful person and that he didn’t love me. That is not his fault, not at all. But some of the things he said to me while under her spell came from his mouth, she did not put them there. And he was apologising. This is a huge revelation.

“I know I’ve been a horrible parent, and I always said I didn’t need you, but I need you now. I know I’ve asked for your help time and time again” he continued, the steak had now crisped up in the pan, and my fiancé walked through the door. “but I really do need your help now. For real this time.” At this point I couldn’t stop the tears, sat on the very corner edge of the sofa, elbows on my legs, my hand covering my mouth to stop the cries. Matty comes over and puts his arm around me, just listening, I look up at him to see that he has began welling up too.

I finally had air to respond to him. “Of course, I’ll always help you, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, to help you” my dad gathers himself, his voice becoming more coherent. “Thank you flower, I really want to see you, let’s go for dinner soon before Christmas, my treat, bring your brother and we’ll go to Panda just like old times. I’m in a wheelchair now so you’ll have to help me get there though, is that okay?” This broke my heart, thinking about all of the damage she has done to him, he was always active, enjoyed taking the dogs on long walks every day. I couldn’t help but get the image of every time I have seen her abuse him, beat him, kick him, push him, attack him with objects, every time he’s ended up in a jail cell because she lied and said he had abused her. Once when I wasn’t there she hit him over the head with a hammer, it’s all took it’s toll.

“I’ll pick you up that’s no problem.” Is all I could manage to say. How could I express my frustration? How could I tell him how much I hated her for doing that to him? It would only put the memories back in his head that he is already having a hard time beginning to understand.

I didn’t want the call to end, I didn’t want to not hear his voice again, I didn’t want to have the risk that he might change his mind, or that she would find out he had spoke to me and end his life. He took that thought right out of my head and vocalised it. “I’ll give you a call in a couple of weeks, don’t phone me because I don’t want her to find out in case she finds out and does something, so we’ll keep it just between us, bring Matty too, yeah?” I looked up at Matty and he smiled. I took that as a yes.

I pressed the phone further into my face, just wishing that it would suck me up and pop me out infront of him so that I could cry with him, hug him and show him how much I love him. Remembering when I fell off my bike as a child and he picked me up, dusted me off, cuddled me and told me to keep trying, keep getting back on and falling off again as many times as it takes to get it right. As a child we take those moments for granted, as an adult, I realise now that the he is the child falling off that bike, in need of encouragement and support.

We said our goodbyes, he told me he loves me, something he hasn’t done in a long time. I reciprocated. And that was that. I dropped the phone on the floor and Matty pulled me into his arms as I cried, and cried, and cried.

I did hear from him again, he hadn’t forgotten, he hadn’t changed his mind, and we did arrange to go to Panda. When I went to pick him up I was terribly nervous to see the state of him now, not knowing what to expect. I walked in the door, my brother and Matty in tow, and there he was, sober, underweight and frail. Cross legged on the floor he greeted me with a cheery hello, and pulled me down for a cuddle, told me how beautiful I was, and just looked at all three of us for a while, etching our faces into his brain. I could see in his eyes that he was confirming his epiphany, that he was grateful he reached out, and that we were there.

We had a wonderful time, despite breaking my heart at seeing him in a wheelchair, despite wishing it didn’t have to come to this point, I couldn’t have wished for a better day. Since then we have kept in regular contact, I have frequent visits. She still lives in the flat above him, but his head is clear, he’s getting better every day, he’s healing, he’s recovering, and he’s surviving.

It’s like old times, he’s my father again, not physically, that will come back with time, but mentally and emotionally, he’s back. He agreed to do an interview with my for my university project in which he talked openly about the abuse he has suffered, he talks about how there is a lot of stigma around men being abused by women, how he has always had the fear that he would be called a pussy if the words “she attacked me and hurt me” came out of his mouth. I told him I’m fighting to change that.

He gave some advice in his interview, “if you push people away, don’t be afraid to rein them back in. You can’t do it alone, you need help, you need support, you’re not a pussy, you’re human, and when humans are hurt, it’s fight or flight, don’t choose flight. Speak up, stand up, the only person that can get you out of this is you. People can only do so much, you have to throw them a line and stay connected to it otherwise you’re on your own and the connection is lost.”

Those words resonate today; and will for a long time to come. Let’s end the stigma that surrounds male victims of domestic violence. Let us help and support the men in our lives, the great men that brought us into this world, the men that love and care for us.

Stop abusive women.

Believe men.

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Salem Saberhagen, everyone.

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Even though more people are coming to realise Amber Heard lied about being abused, there are still some sharing this photo of her bruise (and the others which were in a different fucking location on her face) to say she couldn’t have lied, that this is “proof”

So, I’m throwing it back to the time I recreated her “bruise” with my @lorealmakeup eyeshadow palette (lol irony) in under 10 minutes.

Amber Heard is an actress, she has EASY ACCESS to makeup artists. How do you honestly think that it isn’t possible to create a bruise with makeup? How do you think bruises/cuts/injuries are created in movies? Do you think they’re real? Because honey, they’re not.

Amber Heard had zero swelling in any of the photos of her marks that she sold to the media, or when she appeared outside the courthouse. Swelling would appear before bruising.

We need to STOP assuming the worst in men, especially when there is so much evidence to look at. We need to first consider the man’s side of the story, and not automatically take a woman at face value purely because they have a vagina.

It’s all fine and well believing Johnny Depp now, but the evidence has been right in front of everyone this whole time, and the #metoo movement has tipped the scale so far that people are scared to question women in fear of being labelled misogynistic and abuse sympathisers when in actual fact, everyone is human. Everyone is capable of abuse, everyone is capable of lying, man or woman. And not one of either is less deserving of being heard than the other.

Look at facts, not gender.

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“Johnny was doing press for one of his films and I was hanging out with him at his home while he was getting ready. We were listening to music and I took these while he was in the groove. I like the idea that they look as if I’m not there.”

By:  Ross Halfin Photography

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¿ cigarette ?

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Gary Oldman as Stansfield | Léon: The Professional (1994)

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Me as fuck

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