The Frog in the Pot - Escaping Family Violence

Sometimes the most dangerous situations are the ones that don’t feel dangerous at the beginning.They build slowly.So slowly that you don’t even realize what’s happening until you’re already deep in it.There’s that analogy about the frog.The frog jumps into a pot of cold water. The heat gets turned on slowly. The water warms up bit by bit, and the frog doesn’t notice. It just adjusts. It stays.And eventually… it dies.But if that same frog jumped straight into boiling water, it would leap straight back out.It would know immediately.And I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.Because I’ve been that frog.In my early 30s, I decided at the last minute to go to a meditation retreat in Sydney.I lived about three hours away, had to organize accommodation, the whole thing. And to be honest, the retreat itself was a bit bizarre. There were some really strange people there.But while I was there, I met a man.He was spiritual, attractive, and seemed intelligent. There was something about him, and we started dating after that.It all happened very quickly.A few weeks later, I was at work and realized I hadn’t had my period. I remember that moment so clearly. I went to the supermarket on my break, bought a pregnancy test, and took the test in the bathroom at work.Positive.I was pregnant to a man I had only just started dating. We had only had safe sex.It was a shock.But at the same time, I had been told I probably couldn’t have children because of severe PCOS. So even though the situation wasn’t ideal, I was actually over the moon.And I also knew, because of how I was raised by my solo-parent mum, that I could do this on my own if I needed to. That part didn’t scare me.I went to Sydney that weekend and told him.He ended up moving up to my town.At the time, I didn’t see the red flags. He wasn’t working, but he told me he was investing, that he had sold a property and was trading shares.Looking back now, it’s so obvious what was happening. The paranoia. The instability. The fact that he couldn’t hold a job.But at the time, I believed him.When he moved in, something started to change.Before that, I was happy. I was excited to be pregnant. I had a job. Life felt good.And then slowly… I started to feel really stressed.I remember thinking, what is wrong with me?Am I depressed?Are these pregnancy hormones?I felt mentally unwell. I was getting migraines all the time from the stress. I was miserable.I went to my doctor and said, I don’t feel like myself. Something isn’t right.She suggested Xanax. Even while I was pregnant. I declined her drugs and went home feeling frustrated and scared.I stayed in the relationship because there wasn’t one big obvious thing, like physical violence.It was lots of small things adding up.I kept second guessing myself.Telling myself it wasn’t a big deal.Wondering if maybe I was the problem.And underneath all of it, there was something deeper going on for me.I didn’t grow up with a dad. I had always had this quiet longing for that sense of a family. A mother, a father, a child. That whole nuclear family idea.And here I was, pregnant and trying to make the relationship it into something it wasn’t.Trying to force us into becoming the family I’d always yearned for.Some of it, when I look back, feels shocking.He would lock the front door with a key. It was a deadlock. And then he would take the key with him.I was locked inside the house. I couldn’t even get into the backyard.Even saying that now, it sounds extreme.Other things were more subtle. More insidious.I would only call my friends or family when he wasn’t home.Because if he was, he would question me.What did you say about me?Did you tell them anything?He was deeply paranoid.If I went out with friends, the same thing.What did you say about me?I remember once, when I was about eight and a half months pregnant, he had to go back to Sydney. I asked him when he would be back.And he told me I was controlling. That he would be back when he was back.Something in me was slowly being worn down.My confidence started to go.My sense of what was real got a bit shaky.And I stopped trusting myself.But I didn’t see it clearly.It wasn’t until after my daughter was born. That very week.I remember this moment where I thought, maybe there isn’t something wrong with me.Maybe it’s the situation I’m in.And once I saw it, I couldn’t not see it anymore.I realized I was in an abusive relationship.Not physically. If he had ever hit me, I would have left immediately. That was always a clear line for me.But this was different.It was coercive control.Insidious. Subtle. The kind that makes you doubt yourself and slowly chips away at who you are.When my daughter was three weeks old, I left.I didn’t sit there overthinking it.I just knew I had to go.I ended up in a small two-bedroom unit with my newborn baby.And I remember the relief.But also the shock.Because it wasn’t until I was out of that environment that I realized just how bad it had been.How much it had affected me.How much of myself I had lost without even realizing it.At the time, I didn’t think of it as brave.People told me later that it was.But for me, it just felt necessary.I knew I could raise my daughter on my own. That part wasn’t the fear.What I see now, though, is how many people stay.Not because they are weak.But because they are in the pot.And the water is heating slowly.It is so hard to see it from the inside.And it is so much harder to leave when your life is more entangled.Children.Finances.History.Dreams of the future you were building together.There’s always some kind of cost.I felt it financially when I left. That part was real.But what I know now is this:You don’t realize how hot the water is until you are out of it.After I left, some family members said to me, we knew.We knew it wasn’t a good situation.And I remember thinking… I didn’t know.I was questioning myself the whole time.If just one person had said something to me, gently, it would have validated what I was feeling.So now, when I see someone I care about in a situation like that, I say something.And not always well received.But I say it.Because I know what it feels like to be in it. To not trust your own perception. To wonder if it’s you.People have to come to their own point with it. Where they just know they can’t do it anymore.Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t.But if you are in something right now that doesn’t feel right…If you are questioning yourself more than usual…If you feel like you are slowly disappearing…You might be in the pot.And I want to say this as someone who has been there.Leaving is really not easy.You feel exposed.A bit raw.Like you have to rebuild everything.Your confidence.Your self-trust.Your sense of who you are.But on the other side of that is you.Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you didn’t realize how much it was affecting you until you were out of it?Love Ayesha xoxPS Alas, the harm didn’t stop when I moved out and I continued to be harassed for many years, even after I married the father of my son. My daughter and I moved six times to get away from him in the first two years after our relationship ended. Eventually we settled in a town in a different state and we have now lived in our current home for nearly 15 years. Early on though, he would often stand in my drive way yelling at me, I went to the police and tried to get a restraining order. The female police officer asked me if he’d tried to kill me yet. I said, no, and she told me to come back when he did. Seriously! That was in 2006 and thankfully things have changed now (I hope), but back then, there wasn’t much support for someone in my situation. Photo: My beautiful baby and I in 2006. Get full access to Fully Expressed with Ayesha Hilton at fullyexpressedwithayesha.substack.com/subscribe