Dear Constable 5144

At a mere twenty years old you donned your uniform and set out on your mission to bring peace and fairness to your new policing community. You had big dreams and an even bigger heart. You carried an inner wisdom, courage and maturity that was beyond your years.

It was never your dream to become a law enforcement officer, in fact, it had never crossed your mind until one day you woke up and thought ‘I too can make a difference in this world’.  

You couldn’t believe the level of dysfunction that encased every home. Children caught up in drug wars, alcohol-fuelled rages splintering walls and hearts, the elderly and vulnerable secretly tricked by con artists who were hungry for their next fix. Women were tortured, beaten black and blue, with their terrified children watching on, confused beyond measure, wondering why this so-called ‘trusted person’ is physically hurting the most important person in the world to them, and they had no strength or capacity to prevent it. Children lost, terrified, hiding, and brokenhearted. I held you all. I comforted your petrified body as it shook with fear. I desperately wanted it all to go away, to provide you with the safety and security you deserved. For a moment, as you snuggled into my being, I gave you a soft place to land. A secure place away from the devastation that surrounded you.

Domestic violence was real. It was experienced in around seventy percent of the underprivileged homes I policed around the clock. Witnessing the helplessness and the paralysed state of the beaten-up victims ripped out my heart. I wanted so desperately to find shelter for each family, but my hands were tied. We were overwhelmed fighting a very complicated system.

One day during a DV scene between a husband and wife in their 40’s you stood before this huge man and gave him a piece of your mind. Standing tall in your values and your zero tolerance on domestic abuse you told him what was NOT acceptable. He replied ‘Who are you to tell me what to do, you’re old enough to be a daughter’. This ‘no nonsense’ young cop said ‘Well if you’re old enough to be my father then start acting like a real man’. He went silent.

One day during the early hours I responded to a call to women in distress. I entered the house but couldn’t find her. I began searching the vicinity of the property when eventually I found her lying in the gutter beaten and bloodied, screaming silent tears. At that moment I asked myself ‘How does a relationship get to this point? And how does one feel the need to keep returning? As a young woman, I was baffled. Day after day my heart sank when these victims revoked their statements. I felt as helpless as they did.

Fast forward twenty years and that young cop who believed she had witnessed the worst of the worst, and in doing so had made a pact with the universe that there was no room for any kind of abuse in her life. Period! This ex-cop had an inner knowing that should an abusive person creep in, she would spot it a mile off. He would be wearing a blue beacon on his head. This ex-cop was highly attuned, wise, intuitive, and strong.

So imagine my reaction when I woke up a year ago from a twenty year coma, only to realise with an abrupt awareness that I had in fact been living a lie with a very clever, manipulative covert narcissist. Surely this was a nightmare? Surely this wasn’t happening to me, in my home with my four sons? The home of a so-called highly aware, smart, instinctual, evolved human (or so I thought).

Note *there is no berating myself for living with the wool pulled over my eyes. I am full of forgiveness*. This is more a message to others to show how easily we can live unaware.

I was told by two therapists that his behaviour was a carbon copy of a pure closeted narcissist, and the reason I was in denial was because he had done his job well, to the tenth degree and confused me beyond measure. Then the penny dropped.

Okay, so let’s look his behaviour and perhaps we can understand why I couldn’t accept the truth for a very long time. He was quiet, calm (sometimes lost his temper with the children), socially distant and detached, not this egotistical ‘look at me’ kind of person. He seemed to listen, remained calm in conflict, and allowed me to run the show (organising, planning, spending and generally running the house without much interjection or decision making from him). He would happily say ‘yes of course’ when I asked him to run errands or do tasks around the house and land. He never laid a finger on me or raised his voice. He was quite the opposite. I felt physically safe and secure (for many years), but did I?

Perhaps I spent a good ten years feeling emotionally unsafe, but I couldn’t make sense of my fear because it was being played out differently to the abuse I had witnessed as a young police officer.

I never saw emotional and coercive abuse delivered separately to verbal and physical violence. In that case, if I don’t recognise this abuse, does that mean I have to wait until he hits me for it to sink in? 

I remember wishing I had a bruise, one that was visible enough to prove to the part of me that was in denial, but not serious enough to really hurt. When that happens I will know this to be true. But maybe it will never happen because he also knew that if he did lay a hand upon me I would immediately end the relationship - period. I made that very clear from day one after growing up alongside verbal and physical abuse with my father as the perpetrator.

What would it take for me to recognise that this was a marriage of deception and destruction? What would it take for me to accept that I was being abused? If I had to sit and tell you what felt ‘off’ during my twenty year marriage I would be lost for words. I would sit in silence scratching my head with furrowed eyebrows. Where would I begin? What would it take for you to believe me? How could I convince another if I couldn’t convince myself?

I would begin to relay some scenarios that I felt were in-just, off and wrong, but very quickly you would see me stumbling for words, searching through the rubble for stories and situations that backed up my intuition. I would say things like ‘I couldn’t trust him, but there was no infidelity to support my gut feeling, just little childish lies that he kept excusing.

I would say…

• I couldn’t rely upon him

• I never believed his words

• I felt worthless around him

• He pretended he was interested in me but the blank the look in his eye told me differently

• His actions never matched his words

• His tone never seemed sincere

• He would silence me (regularly) leaving me wondering what I had done wrong

• He would withhold information so I had to beg and plead for answers

• He would make promises but never fully delivered (either fully ignored me, said yes but did not follow through, or started but then failed to finish)

• He would promise to take care of finances but never pay bills/hide mail, then say that I’m the one who’s terrible with money

• He would share my hopes and dreams but didn’t instigate any of them

• He would speak my language further confusing me with the things I needed to hear

• He would find a way to turn things around so that I was to blame, guilty or ashamed

• After moments of conflict, he would love to bomb me with long texts (never in person) pleading for me to forgive him and promising to change

• He would always sit in his victimhood asking for me to give him another chance because he was ‘useless, hopeless, a procrastinator, that he took me for granted, and that he didn’t deserve me’

• He would stand by whilst his narcissistic Mother whispered derogatory comments about me

• He would walk out of the door when I was sick even though I begged for him to stay and support me and the children

• Accuse me of being bi-polar, crazy, ungrateful, entitled, controlling, angry, dissatisfied, a perfectionist, OCD, with father issues, sister issues, and friend issues, that I lay down the law, want everything my way, I’m never happy, that no one would ever want me, my expectations are too high, I have abandonment issues that ruined our marriage etc.

• Tell me to take control of running the house but complain when things didn’t go the way he wanted

• Got us into debt by telling lies, and put his hand on his heart saying he would NEVER do it again, yet a year to the day he did the exact same thing. Somehow managed to blame me

• Silenced me, ignored me, and punished me by way of ghosting, failing to answer messages, or missing out on vital parts.

• Said I was boring (when I tried to mend our marriage) and that he wanted my voice out of his ear

• Ignored my boundaries and disrespected me (continually). Called me controlling when I tried to set healthy boundaries

• Denying words and phrases he had said. Even when I wrote things down he still found a way to deny the reality of it all, making me out to be the crazy and forgetful one.

The love bombing and his ability to play Jekyll and Hyde further confused me. How could someone in one breath gaslight, then the next talk lovingly without any apology or recognition. I would be literally speechless, but my forgiving nature always found a way to carry on regardless. Time and time again I told myself that had it not been for my four sons I would’ve left in a heartbeat.

It took me years to realise that abusers tend to hoover their victims back in with sweet promises, fake remorse, and empty words of how they are going to change, only to abuse their victims even more horrifically. I had never heard of closeted narcissists, hoovering, ghosting, or any other of the tactics they play. I didn’t wear a bruise or swelling, so all of this ‘emotional abuse’ made no sense to me. I spent months in denial, reading, researching, questioning, proving, documenting and planning my escape.  

In the abuser’s sick mind, when the victim sets boundaries, its testing serves as a punishment for standing up to the abuse, and also for going back to it. The more I realised the depths of my situation, and started to compassionately recognise it really wasn’t MY fault, the stronger and more determined I became. I started to develop wings. I could see the rainbow leading me from the abyss of suffering to the peak of the mountain top. I smelt the sweet smell of relief and freedom beckoned.  

The moment I realised I had a choice to leave was the day I will enter forget. I was like a kid in a candy store wondering which new path (sweet) I should pick. I literally never gave myself that choice beforehand. Knowing that I didn’t have to spend the rest of my life shackled to this fake person was the day my wings took flight.

I started to enforce boundaries and stand up to the manipulation, what unfolded from thereon in, reinforced all of the literature that I had been reading. The devaluing escalated. The disregard skyrocketed, and the love bombing faded. I saw through the lies and he could no longer keep up the facade. He was losing his supply. Within six months I courageously left and never looked back.

To all of you amazing people suffering at the hands of these silent assassins I feel for you. You are not crazy. You are not a control freak. You are not ungrateful or dissatisfied. You are a loveable human being who has fallen into this deadly trap because you have lost sight of your worth and did so many years ago.

I believe that every moment we live is connected to other moments. Some moments we are living now, are connected to moments 20-30 years from now. Some moments are also connected to 20-30 years ago, and so on. One day you will understand why these moments are happening for your greater good. There are moments of closure, new beginnings, greater understanding of self and others, moments that have meaning and depth, and moments that have a sweet smell of relief.

Which moment are you choosing to live right now?