I was a child victim of domestic abuse – I know how badly kids like me need support

‘Specialist support services for child vicims of domestic abuse are inconsistent and in many senses, a lottery.’ Photograph: Veryan Dale/Alamy

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.