Domestic violence survivors share their stories - YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Life Domestic violence survivors share their stories By You Magazine - November 18, 2021 It’s a horrifying fact that global levels of violence against women and children have rocketed during the pandemic. As YOU reported in 2020, many women have spent the past two years worrying more about the threat of domestic abuse than they have coronavirus, and high-profile cases such as the murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa have brought the issue of violence against women to the fore. Getty It’s a theme that will be explored in Punched, a one-off performance at the Criterion Theatre on December 6th, produced by Donna Air and Lorien Haynes, with profits donated to relevant charities. Raw, honest, funny and devastating – survivors of all demographics and nationalities write searing truths; sharing experiences between generations and nations. Punched includes the below monologue, Eve, written by Jennifer Nadel who was inspired by the story and courage of Sara Thornton. Eve, by Jennifer Nadel No, you’re not understanding. You’re not getting it at all. I loved him. Of course I loved him. Wouldn’t have put up with his behavior for twenty-two years if I hadn’t loved him. Let me try ‘n explain another away. Imagine you come into the kitchen after a drink out with your girlfriends and your bloke – and remember Adam was big – has had a few too many, you know and you can see he’s a bit unsteady and the kitchen smells like a proverbial brewery. He doesn’t look at you when you walk in. He’s furious. You’re late. The steaks burnt. He doesn’t think you’ve been out with your mates, thinks you might have been meeting someone else. Starts up trying to find more reasons to blame you, like he’s got a rolodex of reasons to be angry with you. He rifles through them. You’re late. You don’t care about him, you’re taking the piss, you’re only with him for his money blah blah blah etc etc etc. The truth is he just doesn’t like the fact you were out. And you know what, maybe you had come home a little bit later than you’d planned, you’d just lost track of time, it was so nice to just be, you know, out! Anyway he’s working himself into a right lather. You can see him doing it and then suddenly he snaps. His pupils go all tiny and he’s staggering towards you. And you’ve got to remember how big he was. You don’t get to be captain of the police rugby team if you’re not big. And not just big – heavy, pure muscle, a brick shit house… and don’t forget I’m small, five foot nothing, he always joked he could pick me up and snap me with his little finger. So, he’s coming for me and I’m in the corner of the kitchen facing the table and he’s left out the chopping board where he’s been trimming the steak with the knife I gave him for Christmas; the Japanese one that’s so sharp it’s got a lifetime guarantee and a sheath to store it in. He’s coming at me and he’s calling me all the names under the sun – whore, cheat, bitch, liar, slag, slapper, c**t and he’s coming at me. And I can’t get out because he’s between me and the door and I’m scared. When he gets like this he’s not Adam any more, the bloke I’ve lived with for 22 years; he’s someone else. Last time he got like this I ended up with three broken ribs, another time I lost our baby. He doesn’t mean to do it. He’s always so ashamed afterwards. He just can’t stop himself. So, I pick up the Japanese knife. Not to use it but just to stop him coming at me; to say stop, don’t come any closer, leave me alone. I thought it’d make him back off and then maybe I could dart round him and get out of the house and stay the night with one of the girls. But he didn’t stop. I don’t know if he didn’t see it or if he just didn’t care. I didn’t move the knife he just literally walked into it. A millimetre left or right. That’s all that was in it. I called the ambulance straight away, told them what had happened, that there’d been this terrible accident. At court they said I’d sounded calm on the call; eerily calm. Like I didn’t care. Like that made me more guilty – not being hysterical. I was in shock. And when it came to the evidence of how violent he’d been to me, it turned out that none of the time’s the police had come to break things up in the past had been recorded. Not even written down. There was literally nothing on his record. Makes sense of course; a cop isn’t going to do another cop for a ‘domestic’. They didn’t really say anything about his violence in court. Instead, they talked about me, brought up my relationship history, even the fact I’d had a couple of abortions when I was younger. The Judge told the jury that they could take the abortions into account. Like they showed that I could, you know, could – murder. My brief didn’t say a thing. Didn’t challenge him, nothing. I got Life. For murder. They said it was pre-mediated as I’d picked up the knife. I’d like to see what they would have done with him coming at them. And what nobody seemed to understand or care about was that I loved him. I’d lost the only man I’d ever loved. Wasn’t that sentence enough? Refuge is committed to a world where domestic abuse and violence against women and girls is not tolerated and where women and children can live in safety. Refuge’s aim is to empower women and children to rebuild their lives, free from violence and fear. Refuge provides a range of life saving and life changing services and if you are affected by domestic abuse, you are not alone. You can access free and confidential support from Refuge’s 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247 and digital support via live chat Monday-Friday 3-10pm via www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk. Punched will be performed on December 6 at the Criterion Theatre, buy tickets here. 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