We're The Lucky Ones

A few years ago, for a split second or two, I thought maybe my luck had ran out.

It was a cold, snowy day in December and I’d just settled my little boy down for his lunch (he was three at the time) and had returned to the kitchen to finish off making my own, when I heard an almighty crash. I ran to check on him as I thought he may have fallen off his dinky toddler chair, only to see that he was fine, tucking away into his beans on toast with not a care in the world.

Strange I thought.

And then, bang, there it was again.

I turned my head and spotted through the glass on my kitchen door, a man, standing in my hallway.

He had let himself into my house, closed our two front doors behind him and was now staggering around, crashing into the huge mirror on my wall. Hence the almighty noise.

People say when you’re in danger, that you life flashes before you in seconds. Well mine didn’t. But survival options did.

As my brain tried to make desperate sense of the situation, the adrenalin began to pump. At first I was calm.

“What are you doing in my house?” But he didn’t answer, so I began to shout.

Louder than I’ve ever shouted before. So loud, my throat burned as the words left my mouth. I could hear my son crying. I could feel the danger. And I knew – if my shouting didn’t scare him off – I had just two options.

To grab my son and my phone and try to get out of the house through the back door, leaving the stranger in my home. Or, grab the sharpest knife we own from the kitchen drawer and get ready to use it if I had too. If he attempted to hurt me or my boy.

Thankfully I didn’t need to go to plan B. My shouting worked. The man ran off, stumbling into the snow as I did my best to calm down my frightened son.

Shortly afterwards, whilst on the phone to the police, they found him.

He’d walked into another house further up the street and a lady had found him asleep on her sofa. Thankfully – for both of us – he had meant no harm. He’d taken ‘bad’ drugs and was looking for some kind of shelter, help even, said the police. But I didn’t realise that when I saw him in my house.

The man was given the help he needed. The police asked if I wanted to take it further to which I said no. He hadn’t come towards me. He hadn’t taken anything. He hadn’t even caused any damage. He clearly had meant no harm.

I was, and we were, LUCKY.

---

When I was 17, a man followed me.

From a bus station, through a bypass, across a small field and then down a busy main road, as I walked my route to college. It was about 9am and I was running a little late.

He’d been on a pay phone when he stopped me and I’d first seen him. “Excuse me” he said. “Don’t suppose you know the time?”

I never wear a watch so I half apologised. And then I spotted it. A huge bus station clock right above his head.

As I walked past him, I heard the phone click as he placed it back. He hadn’t been on the phone. He’d been waiting.

You’re in danger, my instinct screamed. And boy did I feel it.

I walked briskly and could hear him behind me. And then I ran. Through the bypass, up and across the small field, to try to get to the main road as quickly as I could, knowing I’d be safer there with people around.

He ran after me. Of course he did. And said a lot of things.

I can’t remember most of them, but they were of a vile, sexual nature. He called me a dirty bitch. I remember that. He also kept talking a lot about how he was going to look up my skirt.

I kept thinking that eventually he would get bored or that someone would notice and perhaps step in to help, but he didn’t and no one did, so I just kept walking as fast and as aggressively as I could, knowing college wasn’t so far away. Eventually though I took a chance and acted.

There was a park close to my college and I knew it would be quiet at that time. I was also scared he was going to grab me. That his satisfaction from clearly frightening me wouldn’t be enough. And so remembering something I’d read in a women’s magazine months earlier about turning around and confronting someone following you, I did exactly that.

I spun on my heels, took a good long look at him and caught him perfectly by surprise.

“F**k off!” I screamed.

And much to my relief, he did. Running across a busy road to get away from me, calling me a stupid bitch as he went.

When I got to college visibly shaken, I explained what had happened to my form tutor and then watched my friend burst into tears as she told us about a similar incident that had happened to her a few weeks earlier, with a man of the same description. She hadn’t reported it. But I did.

The police were called, an assembly was given and our male friends were told to escort us, their female friends, to the bus station after college if they could.

I was taken to the local police station and spent a couple of hours looking through police photo albums, filled with hundreds of photos of men, trying to identify him. But I didn’t spot him and to my knowledge they never found him.

But it was OK. I was unharmed. I was LUCKY.

---

When I was about 15 or 16, I did that silly thing and drank far too much alcohol at a house party.

To be blunt, I was in a bit of a drunken pickle and so was kindly taken to a spare bedroom in my best friend’s house to try and sleep it off.

It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep, but I soon woke up disorientated and confused, to find a young man next to me, touching me and trying to kiss me.

I was so drunk I could barely speak, but I can remember shoving his hands away, violently turning my head away from his drunken lips and saying no.

I don’t know if someone heard or if someone had just come to check on me, but thankfully someone opened the door, came in and saw him.

He was told to get out and leave me alone, and of course he did. He had no choice. An ally had come to my rescue. I was LUCKY.

---

My first serious boyfriend proclaimed to love me very much but that didn’t stop him smashing my head against his car door three times, because I told him I didn’t want to stay in on Christmas Eve.

Because I wanted to go out, have some fun and enjoy a few drinks instead.

He often told me I was the love of his life, but still that didn’t stop him spitting in my face in a packed bar where I worked, in front of regulars and friends. It didn’t stop him laughing demonically at me as his spit dripped down my face or as I cried with the pain, shame and embarrassment.

He often told me that I was his dream girl, but still, that didn’t stop him from putting his hands around my neck and tightening them, just enough to scare me, but never enough to do me any true harm.

He was controlling, abusive and incredibly cruel. But I got away from him. I was LUCKY.

---

These stories – my stories – are sadly not unique. They may be shocking to read but they are so incredibly common. A mere tip of the iceberg if you like, for male violence sure runs deep.

This can be hard to face and hard to admit. Even to ourselves.

It used to surprise me when I’d chat with friends and they’d tell me one of their ‘lucky’ stories, but devastatingly now it doesn’t. Rather depressingly, from experience, I have now come to expect them.

I’m now all too aware that every woman will have some tale to tell, that is similar to one of mine. About how a man once put her in danger, but that thankfully, it had turned out OK. That she, like me, was LUCKY.

Like many of us, I often don’t sleep well when another incidence of male violence against women, makes the news. When another woman is raped, tortured or murdered. So many names. So many women. On and on and on it goes.

On average two women a week are murdered in the UK. All these precious lives, lost to male violence. It truly breaks my heart.

As for the rest of us? Well, we’re the lucky ones aren’t we?

I’m still here to write my stories and to share them with you. And you’re still here to read them and perhaps remember some of your own.

As women, we’re all so acutely aware of the danger we face. We live with that knowledge every day. It may not always be at the forefront of our minds, but we know. We’ve spent years doing our best to keep safe and survive.

So we put on the brave faces. We laugh off the sexist comments. We roll our eyes when we’re told “smile love, it may never happen” as we think to ourselves, but what if one day, IT does?

We walk, but mainly during daylight.

We go out, but always check on our friends. “Text me when you’re in. Let me know you’re safe.”

We keep a set of keys between our fingers and the fingers on our other hand crossed, that we will make it home. That we will be safe at home.

That we – and our daughters, mothers, sisters, grandmothers, nieces and friends – will all continue to stay LUCKY.

Whilst we continue to weep, despair and rage, with broken hearts, for the women who were not as lucky as us and wonder when the violence, hatred and misogyny towards us, will ever stop.

---

This post was originally posted on my previous blog Pouting In Heels.