This case study highlights the mental health consequences and costs involved in some domestic abuse cases.
I married in the 1970s after an often volatile engagement which included suicide threats on her part and fits of hysteria which on one occasion involved taking her ring off in company and hurling it across a lounge bar floor. She threatened to throw herself over The Forth Bridge if I left her.
Similar episodes continued over the first couple of years but they were interspersed with periods which were to be the only real spells of normality we had.
Once during this period on an almost unique outing together, we had settled by a riverbank with a picnic which we were unpacking when she suddenly announced that we would have to leave immediately because she feared imminent attack from the fish in the river. And leave we did.
The first violence took place during the 3rd year of marriage and continued to occur regularly over the following 15 years. The first episode involved her violently pushing me persistently in the chest across the breadth of the kitchen. I was utterly astounded and severely shaken. I left the house, phoned a doctor from a phone box, whom I informed that I was not returning to the house other than in the company of a doctor. One duly arrived. After visiting with my wife (by now reposing in bed) she emerged to tell me that my wife did not think I was taking her out enough! An early example, I fear the manipulation she developed into fine art.
Increasingly regular violence occurred thereafter, largely in the bedroom. That would involve gripping by the hair and shaking my head violently or pulling and twisting my ears. She would hiss the regular accusations of infidelity in the foulest language.
It gradually became all but impossible to go normally to sleep. I had the misfortune at that time to have a doctor who seemed willing to provide any number of Temazepam capsules without making the slightest enquiry as to why I should require them. I regularly would take 3×20 mg capsules and on occasion 4×20 mg. I could end up staggering around the house in the early hours no more able to find sleep.
I gradually lost more and more weight as she gained more – a fact which mystified me until I found Yorky Bar papers secreted on the ‘blind’ side of our suite.
Other patterns emerged over the years.
I came to have an understanding of my wife’s mental illness finally, through consultation with a Professor at Murray Royal Hospital.
The kind of multi-faceted abuse I knew, I believe will be familiar to many men.
When one concentrated an attempting to avoid one “offence” one would walk slap bang into another. When an icy silence reigned (the best I could hope for) I would be on tenterhooks waiting for the next outburst.
I felt hopelessly trapped. I could not go (I could not contemplate leaving my children); in any case, I had no capital. I could not stay. By now I felt I was living in a madhouse.
I was once told, “you don’t look at your girls the way a father should”. That kind of sickening comment would just leave me heartsick and despairing.
After a particularly violent explosion, I finally experienced a very severe episode of dissociative disorder which could have had tragic consequences and which forced my departure (1988).
My children began their own lives, all passing through University and developing relationships with partners. Naturally, I would see less of them.
I gradually descended into a severe depressive state which caused my premature retirement. I felt totally isolated. I felt physically, mentally and spiritually exhausted. Chronic insomnia became entrenched as did regular nightmares. I barely ate and began to drink heavily.
I had two spells in Murray Royal Hospital, one of 4 weeks’ duration and one of 1 week.
Through the offices of the drug and alcohol services. I got residence in a Church of Scotland rehab in Edinburgh. I was there for 5 months.
Over the years I was referred to a number of psychiatrists and counsellors. I was able to visit the same counsellor in Victim Support weekly for around 5 months.
I am now prescribed a number of drugs I believe to be directly related.
The collective cost of the above will amount to many tens of thousands of pounds.
I only ever asked one psychiatrist what was wrong with me. Right away he said: “Post-traumatic stress at the extreme end of the spectrum”.
The duration of domestic abuse experienced by men and its long-term effects are often downplayed or dismissed. To have endured this for almost two decades, unable to talk to a single person about it, is likely to have severely impacted the experience.
This abuse took place before Scotland had any support available for male victims of domestic abuse, though this man would have been well aware of Women’s Aid posters prominently displayed in the doctors’ surgeries he visited. The medication continues.
The cost of treatment and medication, in this case, would more than cover AMIS’s total running costs for a year. The cost to the individual in unnecessary human suffering is immeasurable.
