There is a point where asking for help stops feeling like a request and starts feeling like a scream. I have lived in that place for years. I have begged for support while trying to keep my son safe, myself safe, and our home from falling apart. I have reached out to every service that was supposed to protect us, and every single one has stepped back instead of stepping in.

People hear the words child to parent abuse and they look away. They treat it like it is not real. They treat it like it is somehow less serious because the victim is a mum. If my son did these things to another adult it would be criminal. Because he does them to me it becomes something everyone expects me to cope with. They see a mother still standing and decide she must be fine.

I have been strangled. I have been attacked by him while he was trying to stab me. I have had a 999 call handler refuse to send anyone even while they could hear him strangling me on the phone. They listened to me gasp for air and still said no. I have had the police and social services pass responsibility back and forth until it disappeared completely. Each one said it was the other’s job. Each one stepped away. No one came. No one checked. No one cared enough to step inside our home and see what was happening.

I kept asking disability social services for help. I asked again and again. They refused to take him on because he is classed as independent. He can feed himself. He can speak. He can manage his personal care. So they decided he does not need support, even while I was being hurt in ways no parent should ever experience. They measured the wrong things. They looked at the surface and ignored the danger.

There have been nights where someone had to sit outside his bedroom door to stop him coming out and attacking me again. I have been dragged across the room by my hair. I have had my head slammed against a wall over and over. I have been bitten so hard that his teeth broke my skin. And still I was told he did not meet threshold because he can do basic tasks.

They do not see the fear that sits in my chest. They do not see the exhaustion that never leaves my body. They do not see the years of begging for support that never arrives.

My son does not want to hurt me. He does not choose this. He is overwhelmed and unsupported and scared. He needs help. He needs understanding. He needs intervention. And every system that should have stepped in has stepped away instead. He is hurting too. He does not like seeing what he has done. He needs support and he has been denied it at every turn.

This is why I am studying law while working full time. This is why I am pushing myself through a degree that I hope will let me stand up for families who are ignored the way we have been ignored. I want to become a special needs lawyer because someone needs to fight for the children who are struggling and the parents who are breaking under the weight of it. Someone needs to challenge the systems that look at suffering and decide it is not their problem.

I love my son. I want what is best for him. I want what is best for our family. I want a future where he is supported instead of judged. I want a future where I am safe in my own home. I want a future where families like mine are not left alone to survive what no one should ever have to face.

I will keep fighting until he gets the help he deserves. And I will keep fighting until no other parent is left screaming into the silence the way I have.