He Kicked Our Son While Still in My Womb and I Stayed

Coping with the shame and guilt of domestic violence

Hearing that I was having a son at the ultrasound with his father, our almost one-year-old daughter, and my other children surrounding me was one of the best days of my life. I felt like our not-so-little family was complete.

Our day was very quickly ruined on the drive home when his father made it all about the technician and something I won’t mention that should have been enough to tell me to go.

Looking back I realize how far down the trauma hole I had already fallen.

I had already reached an all-time low in my mental health. I've had my share of ups and downs in life, some significant, but never enough to question the effect my mental health was having on my day-to-day life and the life of those around me.

This time was different. This time I was hitting incredible lows and my attempts at communicating the issues were not being met so I found myself in forums for depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and finally narcissistic abuse.

I found my people; thousands of people all over the world speaking the same language.

I started to feel better. I was feeling excited and supported. Unfortunately, this only angered him further and I, like many times before, asked him to leave. This particular morning, I had been kept up all night while he had one of his rants and I had simply had enough; I needed him to go. He wasn't having it so when I tried to reach for my daughter to take her off of him, he kicked me hard in the stomach.

I stood there for a second in shock knowing that something didn't feel right as well as trying to get rid of this person. When I tried to retaliate and push him away and again reach for our daughter he accused me of hitting her. He did the usual, “look at you,” “you're acting crazy,” “you're going to hurt our daughter and the baby.”

He eventually left for the morning and I sat in the toilet desperately trying to stop the bleeding.

That was not the only time I almost lost my son. I even managed to smile for the camera to fake the ‘happy family’ photos he took while sitting on a hospital bed at 22 weeks pregnant knowing I was there because the abuse meant my son was going to be premature.

Fortunately, he held on for another 11 weeks and is now a happy, healthy, and strong little 3-year-old boy. He has a developmental delay due to his premature birth and some food intolerances, otherwise, he’s physically as tough as you can get and about the happiest little soul I know.

I couldn’t even breastfeed in peace. It got to the point my nurse had to flick his fingers away from my breast because he would even try to control that!

Eventually, he smashed a window at the maternity ward and was caught being violent toward me and our son while still in his incubator, which led to considerable support from child protection agencies and eventually protection and parenting orders that keep us all safe today.

I still struggle with the shame and guilt of it all, not often, but I have my moments. I had a lot of work to do just to ‘think straight’ again and working on the shame and guilt was paramount for me.

I saw what happens to people who do not effectively process their shame; I shouldered their blame and made sure the same fate would not reach my children. I knew I needed to honor and feel my way through my shame and guilt.

I found the following three strategies the most beneficial in helping me process my shame and guilt.

1. Mind map the shame

The human mind creates shortcuts to respond to various attacks. We dissociate, regress, react, rationalize, deny, and even project our thoughts and emotions on others.

Writing down the issues of guilt and shame helped me to break down these defense mechanisms and using mind mapping allowed the free flow of connecting thoughts.

eg. “I’m ashamed that I could not stop the kick”, then branching off to the why’s, how’s, who’s, when’s, and what’s to uncover all the thoughts surrounding that shame and guilt forced my mind to process it all, rather than creating shortcuts that only served short-term solutions.

2. Develop self-love

Learning to love yourself again after abuse is tough as you’ve been tormented and gaslit, made to believe you’re unworthy of life, let alone love.

It was easy to forgive the abuser as I was forever making excuses but to forgive myself, that hasn’t been as easy. Forgiving myself, however, meant that I could be there for my babies and be 100% present.

I swear I aged 10 years in the two years I was with the narcissist. Once it was over, I bought myself some nice skin creams, got a haircut, gained back the 15kgs+ that I had lost, walked in public with my head held high (ish), ate pickled onions and blue cheese and all the other foods I wasn’t allowed to eat before, watched T.V. and movies I’d missed in the two wasted years, talked to strangers, talked to friends I hadn’t seen in those years, and basically lived again.

Here’s a 7-day ‘self-love’ challenge I’m going to try this week:

3. Help others

I struggled to talk to people again once I left. I felt like everyone knew I was a fake, I’d been pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t, I still believed everything he said about people not believing me, that I was a joke, my ideas were stupid, I’d never get anywhere in life ever, all my friends and family hated me, “you’re ugly,” “lazy,” “too skinny,” “no fun,” “a bad mother.”

I know I’m fantastic now. I might even like myself more than I ever did.

Reaching out to people helped me so I began to support others in similar positions, both face-to-face and online. I learned more from those people than the six years I spent studying psychology. In saying that, it’s my passion for the human mind and behavior that draws me to want to support others through mental health challenges.

Today, I hope I’m still reaching out to people who have been through it and continue to learn from those people too. Here’s a great article on Medium about healing from narcissistic abuse:

Also, this lovely lady, Zoe, offers online coaching for abuse victims, please check out her awesome site:

Best of luck to anyone in recovery❤