999

I think after a while it becomes impossible to keep track. Things begin to blur. After he had smashed up his room, a mirror a lamp, other things, my husband phoned the police.

Challenging behaviour becomes too challenging...

My husband didn’t tell them about being punched. I’m not pressing charges. They will check to see if he has made a GP appointment tomorrow and revisit us next week just to see how things are.

I needed to fill in a ‘domestic’ incident form, which is basically checking to see if I’m a victim of coercive control or stalking…all I can say is the questions asked are all black and white, there is no halfway, I can either say that I’m in fear, or I’m not in fear. The question: are things getting worse, and my answer - no...means that things have been this bad for over six months now.

This misses out the nuances of living with someone who wants to be listened to all the time and gets violent when ever we go into our periodic attempt at modelling sanity (which is to pay no heed to intrusive, paranoid thoughts).