Many of you won’t know my story. 

Over the past four years, I have been subjected to domestic abuse. I was abused physically by beating. I was psychologically and emotionally abused through isolation and torment. I was financially abused through forced loans and misuse of my money. I lost control over everything through the perpetrator's coercive control. My behaviour and whole demeanour changed.

When I look back, I do not recognise the person I had become at all, I was conditioned how to behave and even speak. Living in fear. Living by rules which I was not allowed to break. I withdrew from friends and family and was unavailable emotionally. Compliments turned into insults, then eventually insults turned into physical abuse. I survived. Words I’d never thought I’d be able to say.

Domestic abuse is protected by silence. More women will continue to experience abuse unless we all speak out against it. For this reason, I will be running the London Marathon 2022 to raise awareness and highlight the signs of domestic abuse by supporting Refuge. I would like to re-pay my gratitude to Refuge for the much-needed help and support they gave me.

Without Refuge, hundreds of women and children would have nowhere to go. No one to help them escape daily horrors in their own homes. If just one woman recognises the warning signs of domestic violence and finds the courage to get in touch with Refuge, then that is potentially one life saved.

Amy