I read this article in The Guardian: Why I could not tell my story of Domestic Abuse – and really wanted to respond to it. I had thoughts, a lot of them, but what I really felt was anger.

And I still feel angry that women are so often silenced. I feel angry that I have felt silenced. Angry that a woman cannot tell of her experiences, yet doctors and nurses and barristers and prison officers can write books using real women’s stories of domestic abuse, and get published (I’m not saying these books shouldn’t be published, but that our stories should be published too).

When women write about domestic abuse as a lived experience we are discouraged, silenced; ignored. Even if these experiences are fictionalised.

If we don’t talk about these issues, these experiences, if we don’t write them as ‘own voices‘ experiences there will be people (many people) who will not understand what it might be like to experience abuse – (A reviewer of The Rabbit Girls wrote that Miriam “allows herself to be raped”) – and these people form juries, are police officers and judges, these people witness incidents on the street and walk away when we are hurt, or scared or in need. These people believe that we are to blame.

We need stories written by women who have experienced domestic abuse about domestic abuse so that people can see us, can know we are here; healing. We need this to believe we are not on our own, that change will happen.

Anonymous writes: ‘If a survivor manages to overcome the fear and shame of abuse, and wants to speak out, they remain silenced by the law.’

And society silences us too. Told to keep quiet about our traumatic experiences, labelled with mental health diagnoses, told it is us, that we are the problem, minimising and shaming and shunning in almost exactly the same way our abusers did.

But, why should we stay silent when the statistics speak for themselves: 40% of homeless women state domestic abuse as a contributory factor to their homelessness. 

Two women a week in England and Wales are killed by their current or former partner.

When institutions we use to seek help System(atically) re-traumatise victims of abuse… and put children’s safety at risk, (family court) and the police are ‘institutionally misogynistic’ where do we turn?

Every year 1.7 million women in the UK experience domestic abuse.  

I cannot write my story, even if I was brave enough to do so. Yet a solicitor who represented me in family court, or the judge who I sought to help keep me and my child safe from the abuser, or the doctor who met me once, could cast their privileged view over my life and how it affected them, and that can be published. But I, me, the person who lived this is perpetually silenced. We talk about ‘victims’ but are loathe to give them agency, to hear their voice, to understand; to empathise; to care.

I sympathise with Anonymous, for I am An Anonymous too; there are 1.7 million of us; every year.