Apparently, I am now a victim (again!) and he’s a perpetrator. He being my husband. I say again because I have been a ‘victim’ before. That time it was workplace bullying but I am beginning to wonder if there really is something wrong with me that I keep finding myself in these similar situations. I’m not saying it’s my fault but obviously there is some flaw somewhere – perhaps in my ability to judge character – or perhaps I am just unlucky. Whatever it is, I don’t want to be a ‘victim’ anymore.

I don’t feel like a victim but that’s what it says on the Police report (yes, it got that bad!). That is the label I now have. He has a Police caution, which will be with him for life, apparently, whereas I just have the label ‘victim’. Will that be with me for life I wonder?

If you saw me in the street I don’t suppose you’d look at me and see a victim. I’m normal (whatever that is). I don’t necessarily stand out in any way. You wouldn’t see me as a pathetic, cripplingly-shy whimp who cries at even the slightest sudden movement of another human being’s limb. I’m not your classic ‘oh-poor-me/feel-sorry-for-me’ type of woman. I’m actually quite strong and independent and I wonder if it is this that gets me into trouble. I don’t conform, you see. I don’t follow convention. I don’t live behind a falsified facade of showy materialism. I don’t need possessions to define who I am. I am happy in my own skin and I wonder if that is what makes other people firstly attracted to me but then fearful, so fearful that they have to try and destroy my spirit.

So, what’s the difference between someone like me who’s bright, intelligent, independent and yet attracts destructive people and someone who is all of those things and yet manages to get themselves hailed as a leader, role-model, luminary? I wonder how I can go from being victim to hero? What do I need to do? What do I need to change about myself and how? Is anyone else out there in the same place I wonder?