Am I Destined to Miss the Red Flags?

Everleigh Hall
Mar 8
2 min read

Updated: Mar 14

“Do you feel like a man when you push her around?”

That lyric used to just be a song to me.

Now it feels like my story.

Domestic abuse doesn’t start with someone’s hands around your throat. It starts slowly. Control disguised as concern. Arguments that somehow always become your fault. Being told you’re too emotional, too dramatic, too much.

And before you realise it, you’re walking on eggshells in your own home.

I lived like that.

Behind closed doors there were moments where his hands were around my neck and I couldn’t breathe. Not once. More than once. The kind of moment where your body goes into panic because breathing suddenly isn’t guaranteed.

People don’t understand what strangulation feels like unless they’ve lived it.

It’s the terrifying moment when the person who is supposed to love you is also the person who could take your life.

There were threats too.

Threats to snap my neck.

Threats to burn the house down with me inside it.

Imagine living with someone who says those things to you and then still having to carry on with normal life. Looking after children. Smiling in public. Pretending everything is fine while inside you are constantly calculating risk.

You stop sleeping properly.

Every noise wakes you up.

Every creak in the house makes your heart race.

You begin to question everyone’s intentions. You start believing you’re the problem. That maybe if you were calmer, quieter, easier to love, none of this would have happened.

That’s what abuse does.

It rewrites your reality until you feel broken.

For years I stayed silent about what was happening. Fear does that. Fear keeps you quiet. Fear tells you that speaking up will only make things worse.

But silence protects abusers.

Not survivors.

So here is the truth.

I survived strangulation.

I survived threats.

I survived someone who tried to destroy my confidence, my voice, and my sense of safety.

And I refuse to stay face down anymore.

The shame was never mine.

The shame belongs to the person who thought violence was power.

If you’re reading this and living in fear, please hear this:

You are not weak for surviving.

You are not “too much.”