It all looks perfect

Click, click, click

The dreaded noise of the key in the front door of our house.

Creak, creak, creak

His dangerous footsteps loom closer and closer.

He is going to do it, again. This is part and parcel of my day. It has become a horrific routine that I will always fear. At this point I am helpless, alone, scared to live the shrivelling fragments that is my life.

I actually used to love my dad. I used to think he was my hero; he was my protector, he made me feel safe. He knew how to make me smile all the time with his funny jokes and, his lively persona. Every weekend we would go to the park and I would play in the playground, he’d push me on the swings so high till I felt like I was flying. We would eat ice- cream together on gorgeous summer days. I learnt what happiness really was from him. He was the best dad I could have asked for. He was

everything I wanted to be. But people change. Before you know it, they are like strangers to you.

I hate him. I hate what he does to my mother. Scars, bruises and cuts consume her body. We have had to live like this for years. He hits her, throws her on the ground, drags her across the floor by her hair. He shouts at her constantly and fractures every ounce of confidence that lies within her brave soul. Her screams forever haunt my conscience.

I feel so useless, a feel like a lost case, I feel guilty. How can I just sit here while I know what horror is going to happen to my dear mother? I love her so much, and to know that my own father is abusing her, and I cannot do anything to stop it makes me feel like I have let everyone down. The worst thing is that no one knows what is actually happening to us, the soul shaking reality. My dad pretends to be this great person in front of other people. He has everyone else fooled. Our lives all look perfect from the outside, but it is hell behind closed doors.

That was my life before my mother, and I got my father arrested. We couldn’t live like that any longer, so we managed to gather any residue of our self-confidence and drag ourselves to a police station. We reported our situation to the officers; they were grateful that we had come to them about our dangerous living situation. My dad was arrested, and my mother and I felt and sense of peace. A few months later, the radiant light in my mum’s eyes had returned, she was happy, she was finally herself.

My childhood was stripped away from me. I didn’t know what living as a normal family was like. My normality was violence, screams and torment. Crying myself to sleep became tradition. I didn’t live in a home, I lived in an inescapable nightmare. Even though life was at its worst only a few years ago, I won’t let it ruin my future, or let it define who I am or who I will be. I am going to use this experience to help others, to fix their lives so they don’t ever fell like how my mother and I felt. Because feeling safe and secure is one of the best feelings in the world.