IF THE FISTS ARE FLYING DURING LOCKDOWN . . .

Cathy Park Kelly knows what it feels like to be an abused woman. She escaped her ordeal and she has a message of hope for women who are being abused right now: you can escape this

- Cathy Park Kelly

For years she was trapped in her own private hell – a relentless cycle of domestic abuse where everything and anything could lead to violence.

And now, during the lockdown, Cape Town-based writer Cathy Park Kelly knows many women are going through what she endured for years.

The statistics speak for themselves: in the first three weeks of lockdown, the government’s gender-based violence and femicide command center received more than 120 000 calls to its national helpline.

That’s double the usual volume of calls.

Here, Cathy shares her harrowing story and also offers a message of hope and comfort to women who may feel there’s no escape.

THE black-and-white bathroom tiles are cold beneath my tracksuit. I sink my forehead onto my knees and wrap my arms around my head. My scalp ached from where he’s punched me. A ball of my hair lies in the toilet bowl, like an out-of-place bird’s nest.

It’s the third night in a row he’s dragged me by the hair out of the kitchen. It’s the only room where the fear of being seen by neighbors through the window stops him from hitting me. He pulls me by the hair into the lounge. This window gives onto a river that keeps our secret.

This secret kept me in a lockdown of my own for eight years: the lockdown of domestic violence.

It was a secret I hid from my mother and my best friend. A secret wrapped in shame and self-blame stuck together with the denial I twisted around our violence, with a shiny bow of hope on top.