I am glad my girlfriend thumped me.
I wasn’t at the time, of course. I was terrified – I barricaded myself in the spare room and shoved a kitchen knife under the mattress. I texted a friend to tell her. In case. But it didn’t occur to me to leave the house or call the police. I was another “non-visible” victim of domestic abuse (DVA). That’s why I view the violence that night as my lucky break. It showed me that this relationship was going to kill me.
It still took months to break up. Months during which she told and retold her story of that night to make me the villain – telling me I deserved to be hit (“It was only a light slap” or “You made me do it”) and that
