Holly Faye Dixon
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Inspiration
I was inspired to write this short story during my final year at university after watching the BBC Documentary ‘Abused by my Girlfriend’ (2019) which chronicled the horrific abuse a young man suffered at the hands of his girlfriend. What stayed with me the most was that it was speculated that the reason that the female perpetrator isolated, manipulated, cut, burned and starved her partner was that she wanted to ‘test’ him to see if he would still love her unconditionally. This motive, among a myriad of others, inspired me to write a piece from the unreliable and deeply unpleasant perspective of an abusive woman and create a fictional recreation of an abusive relationship in which the male partner is the recipient or survivor.
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Since watching the documentary, I researched similar cases to ensure that what I was writing accurately reflected the very real dangers, experiences and struggles for male victims of domestic abuse. In part, this short story was an attempt to understand how a person could possibly convince themselves that they were justified or ‘still a good person’ while carrying out heinous acts against the person they were meant to love. I attempted to achieve this partly by making the choice that my narrator would never admit to directly hurting her partner but would shift the blame or rephrase sentences - “I hit him with the remote” would become “The remote struck the side of his head” when written from the abuser’s perspective. As a society, we are often fascinated with ‘why’ and ‘how’ people commit terrible acts. This body of work aimed to examine the mindset of a female abuser and highlight how common or seemingly harmless ideas can be manipulated by the abuser to justify or rationalise abuse. Ideally, readers will come away from this piece with a better understanding of the dangerous thought processes that lead to this kind of domestic abuse and will be able to better identify domestic abuse without believing incorrectly that women cannot abuse men.
Edited Extracts:
Disclaimer: It is important to state that the following extract contains descriptions of violence which maybe upsetting.
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“He asks me for a cigarette and I give him three. He knows he can smoke them but I have to put them out.”
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“A vein bursts in his eye under the laptop’s glare. I close his tabs, cutting a new helpline with every click. He’s a hollow skeleton, sunken cheeks and ashen smoke circling under his eyes. Dark blood from his nose spurts onto the keyboard. His laptops splinters against our bedroom wall. He’s a skeleton, nothing holding him together at all.”
“The boiling water leaps in a perfect arch and lands gracelessly on his back, purring and hissing. It has so many claws that he can’t ignore me. He wakes screaming.”
Future of the Work
My intention is to extend this short story beyond its current 2,000 - 3,000 words. I believe that this story will be as realistic and honest in its depiction as it can if the story takes place over a long period of time (instead of only spanning a few days as it does currently) and if the events and character motivations are feasible, convincing and given the proper space to develop fully. To enquire further about this piece or to read a full draft, you can contact me here.
