Today seems to be a continuation of yesterday. My mood is no better. It still sits tangibly low and tumultuous, like the grey clouds that are lurking overhead.

The house is quiet. My youngest are all at school, my adults are all at work. Silence, as innocent as it is, can hold you to a proverbial gunpoint. You sit and listen to nothing and realise that you are alone with your thoughts, and nobody is there to interrupt them, good or bad.

Silence holds the moments we never want others to see. Silence witnesses tears cried over the most painful memories. Silence holds us accountable to our most human moments. Because in silence we sit, and we have time and space to throw whatever is on our minds into the openness.

I have prayed for silence these last ten days. The half-term holiday was filled with twenty-four hours of children, bickering, siblings and obligations. It was hard. There is possibly no other word to describe it. It felt like drowning with no life jacket, nobody to save you from the constant battles that come freely with parenting. And there are no manuals, no books, no cheat code to creating a harmonious environment when the kids are off school and around each other non stop.

And so today is my first day of silence. Of peace. Of hours without hearing the words, “I’m hungry,” or “Can I have some food?” The in fighting about who has the TV remote. The guilty party defending themselves because they ate the last chocolate biscuit. My ears are recovering. My mind is slowing down.

But in a way, it is the constant hunger, the incessant need to find food, the constant refereeing of the TV remote that moderates our worries. It may well be tiring, if not hugely annoying, but there is a peace in not needing to organise our own worries or thoughts in those moments.

And now silence means there is no hiding. It is all about me and how I am feeling. And I do not like anything being about me. Someone who creates peace for others to exist whilst the turmoil swirls internally is exactly how I am.

And today all I want to do is drink and get drunk. I want to forget the pain that is crushing my ribs. The pain that stops me breathing and taking in that fresh air that would ease the tension in my muscles. There is nowhere to hide in silence. No momentary break. Silence hurts. It questions. It plagues. It is unapologetic.

And when it is done, it leaves you as a shell, with more questions than answers.

I wish I knew why.

I wish I understood why.

I wish I could be better.

But I am broken. Broken by systems that do not function efficiently. Broken by years of having to cope alone, of having to show up even on days when it has hurt so much and the pain within my heart has yelled at me to stop. To pause.

Broken by men who have taken everything I had and left me splintered. Broken by parents who could not show love, but instead showed pain, abuse, hurt and horrendous sadism. Broken by years upon years of alcohol misuse that helped to patch over the horrors I have witnessed.

If broken was visible, it would be me on the floor, curled up, yet exposed. Bleeding from a wound that perhaps can never be fully repaired.

My body feels like the car that has several issues. The ignition is worn, the brakes are grinding, the handbrake no longer holds on a steep hill. And as the problems worsen, the car becomes inactive, unavailable and ready for scrap. And that is where I stand today. Worn, broken, not functioning as I should.

And whilst we are the mediators in our own lives, there are some things we do not ask for. Some things forced upon us that we should never have had to bear, at ages when we should have been free to grow into the individuals we can only barely begin to dream of.

So today, I am broken by silence. There is nobody to hold my hand or guide me. Nobody to tell me it will all one day be okay. And yet those who hurt us seem to receive support. Receive love. Receive second chances.

Where is the second chance at a life destroyed by abusers and unlawful acts?

Broken by silence is one of the scariest places to be right now. Like looking through a glass window at the world, only for the other side to be hidden. One way glass.

I can see out, but nobody seems able to see in.