My Unexpected Arrest Fucked With My Shame for Years

My annus horribilis

Rushing to get my six-and-a-half-year-old daughter ready, I grabbed our coats; we were on our way to a lunch and cinema date with a friend and her thirteen-year-old twins.

As I closed the front door, I looked over at my car and hesitated while contemplating:

Should I drive?

Still, the idea of having a glass of wine with lunch popped into my mind; life had been unbearable.

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Unbearable didn’t even cut it. Life had pushed us up against the wall for three years, all because of my then partner’s decision to step into business with an affluent friend.

At the time, Tommy (not his real name) had had a well-paid job, which had enabled us to own an established gem of a home — a quirky 18th-century flint-stoned cottage. We were able to travel and provide our daughter with a private education.

For all of that, Tommy was tormented in having to work for a boss who lacked integrity and thus showed little respect for Tommy; the stress would often put his back out. And to be honest, Tommy had always vocalised his dreams about running a small bistro or café one day.

Together, Tommy and his friend set out to search for a business venue up for lease, finally unearthing a derelict and desolate four-storey structure, which his friend decided to (ambitiously) take on and buy!

Deep inside, I was nervous as fuck. It wasn’t so much about Tommy leaving his job. Just the heavy enormity of the venture; yet I did respect his why and told myself all would be okay.

Still, my anxiety was perpetually simmering, and my intuition was digging me out during many sleepless nights. I pushed these threatening thoughts down and called them out as nerves.

During the renovations, and well before the restaurant was up and running, Tommy’s friend’s enthusiasm morphed into disgruntlement. Unforeseen costs were starting to creep in at every angle.

And with a bang, he wanted out, even though it was he who had taken on the complicated path of turning a dilapidated building into a functional bar and restaurant.

Money was bleeding out like a ruptured artery.

The friendship cascaded into a bitter clash. Living with the intense pressure of this impediment over our heads pushed Tommy into dark places. How would we be able to continue with the hefty outgoings, minus his friend’s financial support?

We were too far in to pull out.

I studied two days a week, as well as caring for an infant-aged child. I worked four twilight shifts a week at an out-of-town store. I never got home until 12.30 am, or later.

Looking back, it was no surprise I developed an autoimmune skin disease. I assumed this amount of stress was normal when starting up a business.

Finally, eighteen months in, we were up and running with a soft opening on Christmas Day 2005. We organised two lunch sittings: one for his guests, and one for ours. Still, the feud escalated, as Tommy’s friend completely backed out.

Tommy and I were committed to our beautiful venue becoming successful, yet regrettably, the location was just a little too far off the beaten track, and so, too obscure to establish a regular clientele with passing trade. We managed to hold a handful of parties in our funky bar.

They brought in good revenue, yet not enough bookings came up to help keep us afloat. We now had the sole responsibility of having to pay for everything, as well as the staff wages. Tommy and I never received a penny throughout the entire business venture.

We managed to hold everything together by a thread until February 2007. Out of money and options, we solemnly closed the restaurant doors. The feud intensified; legal letters and legal battles became a daily anxiety-induced nightmare.

Gutted, we waved goodbye to our beautiful cottage and found an affordable doer-upper. The extreme stress weakened already corroded roots, as the emotional storms of the business tore through the pleasures of what had once been a balanced life.

And if tourniquets morph into human beings, then this is what transpired, as I attached myself to the carpenter we had hired to help with our house renovations.

Looking back, I can see it was a distraction — my emotional immaturity reaching out for a human life raft. His rough charm made me feel seen and heard, whereas Tommy and I hadn’t connected deeply, and if I am honest, cracks had started to form in the time leading up to the business venture.

So many of these cracks stemmed from my own coping mechanisms, and I hadn’t helped with the way I drank to avoid the complexity of our relationship, as well as the damaged part of myself: a wounded child — even though I was in my thirties. I struggled with connection as much as Tommy had.

Blindly starting the fling with the carpenter gave me the bravado to tell Tommy it was over; I couldn’t do it anymore! I naively assumed he’d happily leave our family home. But he wasn’t going anywhere for love nor money; it was his home after all.

The atmosphere was toxic, as we bickered most days. During one tense episode, Tommy twisted my arm back, and as I freed myself from his grip, jumping up, I snatched the phone, dialling 999 — only to slam the receiver straight back down. I hadn’t wanted to involve the police. I just felt powerless.

Not more than ten minutes later, there was a sharp rap at the door. Cautiously pulling it open, my mouth dropped; there stood a police officer wearing a stern, unfriendly face.

She spoke with little emotion: “There are four police cars parked further down the road!”

I gulped as I attempted to compute how or why she was standing at my front door, and what she was telling me. She took a few steps into the hall.

Seeing Tommy sitting in the corner, she asked, “Is there anyone upstairs?”

I stuttered, “Yes, my daughter, she’s asleep!”

With that, she bolted up the stairs. A few minutes later, she came back down, gave us some curt advice about dialling 999, and left.

Anxiety flooded my veins and filled my gut. My mother used to call the police on my father (who would be knocking punches through the walls or with my brothers), and so there I stood, feeling like some sort of a criminal. I had always prided myself on being a good citizen.

It couldn’t get any worse than this — could it?

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‘I’ll take the train.’

We quickly found our friends and walked around the outdoor shopping centre. It was a drab, grey February day. As we moved on to the cinema, I gave out a gasp when I realised my purse was missing from my bag. We took the steps back from where we had come, yet it was nowhere to be found!

My friend pipes up: “You never know, someone may have handed it in at the police station?”

The five of us turned back towards the train station, where the police station sat just behind. As we stepped into the small reception area, I spoke with the Desk Sergeant, and he was more than helpful, disappearing into the back room to have a look through the lost property.

He stepped back out holding my purse. I couldn’t believe my luck! I was overjoyed and thankful to the honest person who had made the effort to hand it in to the police.

We skipped the cinema and poured into a Pizza Hut; the kids ordered their food, but with little appetite those days, I just sipped through a few small glasses of wine throughout the time we sat there.

As we stepped outside into the cold, dark evening, I hadn’t felt particularly tipsy or drunk. We reached the train station and said our goodbyes, as my friend and her twins walked across the bridge to their platform, I turned to buy our tickets at the self-service booth.

I lost my footing and fell back. A couple standing not far from my daughter and me watched this happen. Concerned for my daughter, they reported me to the two British Transport Police patrolling the train station.

20th February 2008: coined my Black Wednesday, a memory painfully etched into my heart

When I think about that night, anxiety surges through my body with great intensity for my daughter. Although I am now more forgiving of myself, even as I write this memoir eighteen years later, I still grapple with the:

What ifs and Why didn’t I drive? thoughts.

As both officers approached me, the madness of my unconscious childhood wounds, the past three years and my current hell, fuelled my adrenaline; I fought back, physically and verbally. I wasn’t me anymore, and it was as if the whole event and situation shut off, and my repressed anger erupted into fight or flight. The officers had to work extra hard to handcuff me and carry me off the platform, throwing me into the back of a police van. I must have looked deranged. I had flipped, and the alcohol in my system was the switch.

I don’t know why to this day — why I just didn’t simply converse with them as I normally would have. It just happened so fast.

I recall the small crowd on the platform that gathered around to watch the commotion; I am grateful that we didn’t have smartphones back then. Being mentioned in two articles in the local newspapers felt sickening enough. Some residents where I lived stared at me with a certain look in their eyes. As I read the words in the news pieces, I remember struggling to stand, as my legs went limp, as the shame flooded over me. I wanted to faint.

The emotional backlog of three years of chronic stress: our business, our home, our relationship, the ugly separation, and being drugged and abused by our friends, just a few short months before, fuelled by the glasses of wine I had drunk on an empty stomach.

I continued to yell and swear as they threw me into a cell, at the station I had visited only a few hours earlier, to ask about my purse. Had that been a divine warning? The juxtaposition of those two visits is unsettling.

For all of this, and gratefully, over the years, my daughter has always reassured me how well she was looked after, that she enjoyed riding in the unmarked car, and eating sweets until her father came to collect her , and that she wasn’t at all scared.

I impulsively lashed out at the two Custody Officers, not having any idea of what I was doing or the implications of these ‘assaults’. You only have to touch the police for them to call it an assault. Yet I acknowledge why they can’t have any grey areas.

I hardly slept during the night on the hard concrete floor — scared and clueless as to how it escalated to where I was now. In the morning, I was back to myself again, calm, and full of remorse.

I was spoken to as the lowest of the low by all the police staff, as they pushed me around, barking at me that I was going to prison! Their faces were pumped with hate as they spat at me like I was a nasty, horrible criminal. And for that moment in time, that is what I was. I had lashed out at them, and that is a massive no-no.

Both the insides of my arms were covered with the blackest bruising from being cuffed and pushed around. They didn’t have an ounce of care, and when I showed the one officer who had his face right up to mine:

“Look what you’ve done to me!”

He snarled: “So!” as his face contorted into sarcastic indifference.

I had never experienced being despised with that much intensity, up until that point in my life.

They didn’t know that I was a genuine and good person, a loving mum, and a therapist who cared about her clients. They didn’t know the hell I had suffered or the chronic amount of stress and unhappiness from the business and my relationship.

They didn’t know my whole life had been one car crash after another. They didn’t know that my unhealthy coping mechanisms were from trying to drown out the pain I felt from my father’s shame for me and telling his new family I didn’t exist.

They didn’t know my mother had messed with my mind by incessantly criticising me growing up and manipulating me with the fear of hell.

They didn’t know I was raped at sixteen and never reported it because of my co-dependency, or that I was used and abused by other older men, too.

They didn’t know the real me.

I didn’t know the real me.

They were used to dealing with drunken and violent behaviour, dishonesty, and people who don’t give a shit — day in and day out. And to them, regardless of my mitigating circumstances, I was just one of those criminals that night.

But I was a human, making human mistakes.

I had made it worse by hitting out and being offensive. Additionally, I hadn’t been aware of the law that prohibits adults from being under the influence of alcohol with any dependents under the age of seven.

All those families I witnessed for years in pubs and restaurants. Did they know that, too? I don’t believe they do.

Had I been drunk? I hadn’t felt it earlier at the restaurant. Regrettably, I hadn’t had any self-awareness back then.

The following day, when I was released on bail, I penned genuine apology letters to each of the four officers involved; I don’t know if they read my words or cared.

I understand now how I should have paid for a solicitor to help me speak up, someone who understood the law. Since then, I have learnt about policing statistics. It’s an unfair justice system, and I had no previous convictions; yet I put my hands up to reacting badly. That station, that year were way above their quota of arrests, compared to many other regions.

I was vetted by Social Services to check if I was a fit mother and had to attend weekly probation meetings for six months. In the waiting room, I would sit amongst young male offenders, who covered their faces with hoodies, staring down at their cheap white trainers. I felt branded a criminal deep down into my very core. Would my massage and beauty clients want to come to me if they knew?

Looking back, I am sorry that Tommy was desperate and in pain himself. I would do anything to take it back. It was a traumatic and painful period, on top of all the loss. I thought I would lose my daughter over one mistake, albeit a thoughtless and selfish mistake. And possibly even dangerous.

It took a few years; nonetheless, Tommy and I managed to put our differences aside and co-parent our daughter from two different homes. She was, and is, always in the centre of our world, and we came together as much as we could for her.

As painful as the last twenty years have been, and how much it’s changed me, it has enabled me to exorcise my demons. I understand now that it was my wounded inner child who had been taking over the steering wheel of my life — because of her unmet pain. The hardest part is forgiving myself, regardless of having the need for others’ approval. Life isn’t black and white; the layers are nuanced and complex.

A few months before I had dialled 999, I had to fill out some official documents, in which I was asked if I had a criminal record. I remember laughing to myself, thinking: ‘As if — like that would ever happen!’

Now I know that life can turn around in an instant.

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