I helped domestic violence victims at work – secretly, I was one too

Nadia Manzoor, writer and comedian from Hertfordshire, speaks to Sophie Wilkinson about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-partner, and why, even as a support worker at a women’s shelter, the abuse was hard for her to recognise. I was 20 years old and had just graduated when my mum died of cancer aged 42. I was living at home in Hertfordshire with my Pakistani Muslim family. I was told that my dating of an Irish man had caused my mother stress, and when a male family member found a photo of me in a bikini at the beach, he laid down the law: if I didn’t change my ways, I’d be dead to him. To escape, I went to the US to stay with my cousin, who was doing her PhD there, while I did an internship. At first, I was deep in grief and depression, spending my days watching Roseanne re-runs and eating family-sized bags of Doritos with no family to feed but myself. Then I met him. Tall and charismatic, I couldn’t believe someone like him had paid attention to someone like me. So, when he invited me over to watch Ali G and eat Chinese food, I turned up with unshaved legs, a parka and tracksuit bottoms, fully expecting to watch TV and hang out as friends. He had a very different agenda. It was consensual, but his energy was incredibly overpowering. I thought it was a one-night stand, so afterwards I got up to leave. Instead, he asked me to stay. We ended up together for four years. The loyalty and community I’d just lost back in England suddenly existed again. Through him, I found a sense of belonging. Shorts About three months in, though, I heard him screaming at his female housemate. I can’t remember what set it off, but I later found out she’d got a restraining order against him. The next day, my boss noticed I was in shock and gently tried to talk to me. My cousin also said: “If he can do this to somebody else, he can do this to you.” I wrote him a long email ending the relationship. Instead, he turned up at my cousin’s apartment, collapsed and sobbed, begging me to forgive him. So I stayed. A few months later, I began a master’s in social work. As part of the course, I worked in domestic violence agencies for nearly three years, helping produce research and educational materials, speaking to survivors on a hotline, advocating for them at public meetings and fundraising. All the while, I was being abused. Even though I was learning about power and control every day, I compartmentalised everything. We tell ourselves incredibly powerful stories when we’re choosing not to see something. The first time he verbally abused me was because, according to him, I’d flirted with someone in a bar. While driving us home in my car, he screamed at me for about 25 minutes, calling me all kinds of things. My whole body froze. Then I started shaking and crying. Afterwards, he walked me upstairs, tucked me into bed and acted as though nothing had happened. The screaming and jealousy continued. Eventually, I learned to fight back. I learned to defend myself, raise my voice and meet him in that escalated place. Strangely, it felt like he respected me more because of it. I explained it away to friends. He’s from the streets. His mother threw plates at him as a child. He has ADHD. He’s just passionate. We moved in together. The physical violence began through restraint. Holding me down. Pinning me. Putting his knee on me. Forcing me onto the ground so I couldn’t move. He never slapped or punched me, so I convinced myself it wasn’t abuse. We tend to think abuse only counts when it reaches the most extreme versions. That’s simply not true. I was never financially dependent on him, and I always believed I could leave whenever I wanted. But by the time he became physically violent, I no longer understood how to leave. By then, he’d also got me hooked on his medication. He’d been prescribed Adderall for ADHD, and one night, seeing me falling asleep over my laptop while studying, he handed me a pill and said: “It’ll help you focus.” From then on, he manipulated me with pills, handing them out like little dog treats whenever I’d done what he wanted. I remember standing at the window one day praying that someone would end this. How could I, an intelligent master’s student working in domestic violence, be letting this happen to me? ‘Since leaving him, I’ve had to ask myself why I let him beat me. Not to blame myself, but to understand myself’, says Nadia (Photo: Madison Swart) What I was experiencing in the workplace seemed very, very extreme to me. Women were having to come to the shelter as a result of severe threats from their partners, and we were offering a refuge for them and safety and the police were involved. I told myself that wasn’t what was happening in my life. I justified it: I was in love with him, he was from the streets, he was very passionate. I now know this can happen a lot when we talk about abuse stories. We say, let’s try to understand the evil man and separate them from the rest of society. They’re not evil men. They’re just regular people. That’s why abuse is so prevalent. My friends slowly began intervening, each trying in their own way to pull me out of the relationship. Then one day my cousin called me over, handed me a key to her apartment and said: “If you ever feel like your life is in danger and you’re too scared to know what to do, here’s my key. Use it. But I can’t do this anymore.” That broke my heart. It was the first time I realised how much my relationship was affecting everyone around me. It made me understand that what was happening wasn’t just dramatic. It was dangerous. By this point, it had become as extreme as what the women at the domestic abuse agency had gone through. A close friend helped me leave. We moved to another city. But it wasn’t happily ever after. Not even close. Since then I’ve done years of therapy: EMDR, energy healing, psychedelics, deep spiritual work. Looking back, I was consumed by grief and overwhelmed with guilt about my mum’s death. I think some part of me was unconsciously punishing myself. The first stage of healing after abuse is separation. They are bad. I am the victim. That distinction matters. But with enough time and distance, I found myself asking a different question: what was I getting from that relationship? What felt familiar? What need was it meeting? If someone told me their husband beat them, I’d never ask: “Well, what were you getting out of it?” But for my own healing, I had to ask that question – not to blame myself, but to understand myself. I eventually realised he gave me somewhere for my rage to exist. Somewhere I’d never been allowed to put it before. Compassion doesn’t mean excusing what happened or wanting him back in my life. It means recognising that people carry all kinds of wounds. Including me. I also realised I was constantly looking to other people for permission before making decisions about my own life. That’s codependence. I’d been raised to believe that if I grew up, got married, had children, stayed attractive and was chosen by a man, I’d won. When we build a culture where a woman’s value comes from being chosen, we also create the conditions for violence. Today, I’m in a healthy, interdependent marriage with my husband and we have two children. Raising children to become interdependent takes enormous self-awareness, emotional maturity and responsibility. I think, culturally, we’re finally beginning to have that conversation. Jerk Off!, Nadia Manzoor’s show about her mother’s death and what happened as a result, is at the Edinburgh Fringe from 5–30 August