Gita’s story

Everyone warned me, I guess I just chose to look the other way. He was so hot, although I don’t see that anymore. I just see the anger and the hatred he seemed to have towards me, though god knows why he’s so angry and full of hate, I’m the one he used as a punching bag.

So he only hit me once in a place where others could see what he had done, but it was hard and in the face and my face, well my cheek swelled up badly. He was drunk and sorry the next day but I was pregnant at the time and my family went crazy. My brother turned up with a van and we moved me out of his flat that day. I had a miscarriage.

I didn’t think I would ever get over. For months I stalked him on facebook and Instagram. I kept looking to see if there were other women and if I saw any sign that there were I was consumed with jealousy. I couldn’t stand the thought of him with anyone else, though I don’t know why. Why would I care so much? Surely I wouldn’t want an abuser back.

The worse thing is now I look back I’m relieved I lost the baby, I don’t think I lost it because he hit me, I mean I don’t think he caused me to physically lose it, I think the stress he put me under made me lose it, but it was very early on and I’m glad I’m not tied to him forever with a child.

I am ashamed to say this happened two years into the relationship. Two years of him telling me I was ugly, fat, useless and stupid. Two years of me feeling so awful every day but also so desperate not to lose him.

This was ten years ago. I won’t say recovery was easy. I was very young when this happened, well I’m thirty now so yeah, just 20. I am ashamed to say I stayed with him too long, got pregnant when I shouldn’t and then obsessed for ages about him. But then I got help.

I talked to a couple of friends who suggested counselling and I went into therapy through the NHS IAPT service Time to Talk. I spoke to a lovely lady about everything and she then suggested I have private therapy, which I did.

So I won’t lie and say I am perfect. Funnily enough I have become a single mother. I was still working through my problems when I met someone and I am ashamed to say it was almost the same the story again. This time though I saw what was happening and I left, before I had the baby.

So me and my boy, he’s 5 now live in London. I stayed in South London as my family are here and they support me so I do have a lot of help.  I’ve got my brother and my two sisters and my mum.  My family are from India and we do tend to look after each other.

My family had two different reactions to these relationships. Anger with the first one as he was white and not a Hindu, and shock with the second as he was part of our community.

So, yeah, I picked two guys the same even though there were from different worlds. So truth is really this was my ‘stuff’ wasn’t it? counselling helped me see this.

So last year I went back to Uni and started training to be a counsellor myself.  I mean, been so much easier to study since the Pandemic as I can do a lot of it online at home. So my plan is I will help women in my community as often we can be pretty closed and don’t like to talk about this stuff. We like; keep it behind closed doors.

That’s not right though is it? We’ve gotta talk about this to end the shame and the stigma and we women need to find our voices, why should we be scared and ashamed?

So, my name is Gita and I am a survivor, I am a sister, a daughter and I am a mother. And hopefully one day soon I will be a counsellor helping women find the strength to get out of bad relationships. Cos there are some good men out there aren’t there? Find me one of those, ha ha!

I also wanted to say to other women with boys that we have an opportunity to raise the next generation of men and get rid of this toxic masculinity. I do think things are changing but we still need to work harder and especially in some ethnic communities where the men still are head of the family and women are seen a bit as posessions. I don’t like that, that’s not healthy and it needs to change.

Also I want to encourage all women to speak up. Come on lets talk more. Indian women love to gossip but its so hard to get them to talk about this subject. Lets drop the shame and celebrate being survivors.

My tool for surviving, apart from my family, was the counselling. I cannot recommend it enough. I found my voice and it turned out once I found it I roared like a lion.

So, I am now super proud of my boy and me and we have found, well we’ve made our own little separate community too. I’ve got three single mum friends and a single dad friend too, we all help each other out and make suggestions about making things easier for each other. Single parents really do get each other and whilst I love my married friends, certainly my Indian ones keep telling me ‘Gita, we have a nice man for you’, and I am thinking ‘whaaaat’ like I have a nice man, he’s five years old!

So the boy and I are good on our own.  Like really good. He doesn’t see his dad very often but I have to say even he has improved as I told him there would be no relationship with his son if he was ever nasty to me. So he’s been pretty good, and does see him from time to time

I think it’s cool being a single mum, I mean it’s not what I expected. I thought I’d be married with lots of kids by the time I was 30, but that wasn’t meant to be. Still I’m working a couple of days a week, I’m studying and I get Working Tax Credits which really helps and we are doing good.

I think I wanted to write this to tell anyone suffering that it can all come good.   Don’t be scared about being a single parent, it’s actually really fun because you get to spend all your time with your kid.

I also wanted to say I don’t think I would have gone to college and I certainly don’t think I would ever have become a counsellor if the bad stuff hadn’t happened…. So sometimes good comes out of bad.

Thanks for reading my story.   G X