Since all this started, both my daughter and myself have had trouble sleeping. I worry about her. She was right there, right in the middle of it when he was hurting me this last time. She saw. She tried to call 911 on her cell phone, but she was too close to him and he took the phone away and hung it up. Then he turned it off so that they couldn't call back.

When it was all over, somehow, I think from sheer exhaustion, we fell asleep. Woke up the next morning curled up together. I woke up first, to find my baby girl clinging to me, whimpering and crying out in her sleep... "Mommy! Mommy! No, Mommy!" All I could do was hold her close and try to comfort her, whispering to her that Mommy was right there with her, Mommy was okay. It was heartbreaking. She finally woke up, looked at me with bleary, tired eyes, and murmured, "Mommy... You're okay, Mommy..." as she burrowed her head into the side of my neck and clung to me.

I just held her close and kissed the top of her head as tears slid silently from my eyes.

Tonight, I can't sleep. I dozed off briefly, maybe for about an hour, before it started. I woke up gasping for breath and covered in cold sweat. This time, I woke up before it got to the point of me waking up screaming and hysterical. Sometimes, I'm not so lucky. I'd love to be able to get a good night's sleep.

She's restless too. Almost 0600, and both of us have been awake for hours.

I saw this on Twitter:
Children kept awake by domestic violence, says NSPCC
(NSPCC is the UK's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children)

Labels: abuse, children, domestic violence, nightmares