In the end, after I had climbed out on to the narrow window ledge yet again, my mum tied the bedroom windows shut with shoelaces, knotted over and over and tugged tight. Even at that young age – just six or seven – I knew, standing in the window, that if I stepped a foot off, I wouldn’t fly. I would fall.
And if that meant dying, there on the grass below, that was OK. Other times it wasn’t quite so passive; I actively craved it.
I know. It’s uncomfortable to talk about, write about, read about suicidal ideation in a child. Did I fully understand what dying would mean? Probably not. Could I have truly had intent? Who can say for sure. But still, it remains devastating to me, 35 years later, to acknowledge those thoughts I had. When most kids were thinking about whether they’d be allowed out on their BMX or what they were having for tea or if they’d see their pal at school tomorrow.
And it wasn’t just the shadow of suicide: I scratched up my arms; twisted, pinched and punched my skin. I became obsessed with, and catastrophised about Aids, UFOs and nuclear war. I had recurring nightmares where the walls swelled and loomed and closed in on me until I was trapped and dying and dead. I suffered with what I now know were panic attacks. I stuttered and stammered. I wet my pants in the daytime and my bed at night, the alarm on the special blanket meant to deter me ringing out loud, wrenching me from sleep.
There was no mystery for me then about what I was escaping on that ledge. After experiencing both sexual and physical violence in the very place I should have felt safest, at home, I felt nothing but fear, constantly. A brutal, ice-cold terror that back then could cause me to vomit and even now spins my stomach in a second. And sadly, there wasn’t just one man, one pair of fists that cracked open our house and the family trying to shelter within it.
At the time, the only thing that truly mattered was survival. Getting through it, getting out of it, in one piece. But now, decades on, it’s clear to me that I needed professional help and support – counselling and therapy. The chance to start working through what had happened to my body and my mind.
But apart from one single family therapy session after I broke down at school, that support wasn’t offered. Instead, I buried my memories, my hurt. Whenever it tried to surface, I’d dig the hole deeper. And as I became an adult, I realised I needed more help keeping it below ground, seeking assistance from booze, pills, bad relationships and self-harming. By the time I overdosed in New York, where I was living and working, eight years ago, it was clear that my almost three-decade strategy wasn’t working. And that surviving by my fingertips wasn’t enough. I engaged for the first time – properly – with professional services and started work that I continue with today.
That was the 1980s. You might say of my childhood, things will have changed now for kids, surely. But that’s not necessarily true. It was only last week that children were finally officially recognised as victims of domestic abuse in their own right (as part of the Domestic Abuse Act). Specialist support services for them are inconsistent and in many senses a lottery. Of 30 local authorities surveyed by Action for Children in 2019, kids faced barriers accessing support in at least two-thirds of them. In over 10%, there were no support services available at all.
Domestic abuse involving children has only worsened in recent years and especially since the pandemic – government data shows that last year, police made on average 669 child protection referrals a day for domestic abuse to social services across England and Wales. The NSPCC reported a massive leap of 35% in calls to its helpline about children living in violent homes. Yet this is still probably just the tip of the iceberg, with untold numbers of kids suffering behind locked doors, under the radar of any interventions.
In my case, a handful of violent incidents in our house were reported. I remember personally calling the police and then listening as they lectured my mum on not “winding up” her partner before leaving us to it.
These statistics and stories make for grim reading. But the NSPCC is now trying to ensure that kids like me are helped. It is calling for Dominic Raab to use the victims’ bill – which is in consultation this week – to ensure easy, guaranteed access to professional services for kids who’ve been victims of domestic violence. And specifically for local authorities to have a statutory duty to provide specialist, therapeutic services in the community.
Isn’t it the least we owe our kids? If we couldn’t protect them while they suffered unspeakable, unthinkable things, we at least need to give them the chance of healthy, happy lives in the aftermath. It’s unacceptable for the matter of a child receiving the help they need to be a matter of luck and location. They don’t deserve to have their lives left in ruins before they’ve even truly begun.
If I’d been offered immediate support as a child, I don’t believe that my memories and experiences would have been scrubbed from me. But would I have ended up in a locked psychiatric ward at 33, sinking into the soil under which my secrets and trauma lay? There’s every chance that no, I wouldn’t.
It’s too late to reach back through time and pull that girl off the window ledge and into safe arms; but it’s not too late for the children of today and of tomorrow.
Terri White is a journalist and the author of Coming Undone: A Memoir
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org
In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International
