Deborah J Crozier

See the Human

Thirty years ago, I was a statistic. A survivor of domestic violence. A mother judged as too damaged to recover. A woman professionals expected would fail—and whose children were predicted to follow suit.

They were wrong.

Today, my children are thriving adults: graduates, home-owners, parents, partners, professionals. Societies measure of success. Good people, safe, healthy with secure lives. Empathic, compassionate regulated humans mindful of the impact they have on others and the world around them - their nervous systems mostly in a Ventral state - my measure of success. Yet, according to the system, we should still be 'in it.' But we’re not—and haven’t been for decades.

Why? Because we had space to heal. We had truth, openness, and a determination to rewrite our story. But we also had to fight for that. And too many still do.

I speak out to break the stereotypes. To challenge the mask. To dismantle the outdated, shame-based sayings like “don’t air your dirty laundry in public” or “don’t overshare.” These phrases were never about protection—they were about silence. About control. About keeping the truth hidden to protect reputations, not people.

Speaking out is not oversharing. It’s reclaiming. It’s refusing to carry shame that never belonged to us in the first place. It’s saying: I lived through this. I survived this. And I will not be quiet about it.

Because silence serves the abuser. Truth sets us—and others—free.

What’s Missing in Domestic Violence Support?

As a trauma-informed practitioner, I work with people who’ve experienced what I did. And I see a repeating pattern: the system sees the behaviour, not the human. A mother who stays is labelled weak or incompetent. A father who shuts down is deemed neglectful. Children are removed from homes not because they are unsafe, but because their parent is traumatised.

But trauma doesn’t make someone unfit to love. It doesn’t erase their bond with their child.

We must begin asking:
- What’s happening *within* the individual?
- What’s going on in their nervous system?
- What survival strategies helped them stay alive, even if from the outside it looks like passivity?
- What part of their story has been choice—and what part has been outwith their control?

And most importantly—who would ‘choose’ violence?
Abusers manipulate. They fool victims. And they often fool the very systems and those employed to serve in them, designed to protect those victims.
That’s not weakness. That’s psychological warfare.

When victims stay, it’s not because they’re blind—it’s because they’ve been systematically broken down, gaslit, isolated, and emotionally hijacked. And still, many get out. Still, they rise. And that deserves recognition, not criticism.

The Quiet Dysregulation of Professionals

Here's a difficult truth: I know social workers, support workers who are dysregulated, silently suffering behind closed doors. Burned out. Pressured. Grieving. Exhausted. And I understand why—they are working in a system that doesn’t make space for their wellbeing either.

But here's the danger: two dysregulated adults—one professional, one victim—do not create safety. They create chaos. Fear. Mistrust.

So we must ask:
How do professionals manage their own nervous systems?
How do they know whether their decision is being made from regulation or reactivity?

We can’t afford to ignore this. The cost is too high—for families, for children, and for the professionals themselves.

What the System Predicted for Us… and the Truth

According to the projections made by professionals back then, my children and I should still be in the system. By their standards, our trajectory was bleak. We were expected to fail.

But here's the reality:
- My children are now fit, healthy, successful adults.
- They’ve graduated university, hold secure jobs (one runs their own business), and live in safe, stable homes.
- They are in healthy relationships, free from addiction, criminal activity, or the trauma cycles we were expected to repeat.
- They are kind, thoughtful individuals who contribute positively to society.
I am incredibly proud of them.
We didn’t stay in the system. We moved away from the abusive person—almost three years later than we could have, because the courts forced continued contact with the abuser. But when that ended, I focused entirely on their wellbeing. We talked openly. I took responsibility for my own healing and safety. And we rose.

The Prevention Paradox

It’s interesting to me that when I first applied for funding to support prevention, I was told, “We don’t fund prevention.”

Let that sink in.

We don’t fund preventing trauma.

We wait until people are in crisis, broken, or in danger—and then we pour money into emergency responses.

It’s also interesting how, when you create a prevention-based action plan—like A Positive Start—you’re told that you can’t prove it worked.

You’re told that the positive outcome might have happened anyway, so you can’t claim credit for the transformation you supported.

And yet, no one ever questions whether a child removed from their parent might have been fine if we’d offered the right support instead.

No one challenges whether punitive responses are effective—only prevention.

Isn’t it a shame those same theories of “we can’t prove what didn’t happen” aren’t applied at the other end?

Prevention gets interrogated. Punishment gets assumed effective.

We need to flip that logic—before more families are harmed.

It was the same story when we recently applied for funding for our SPACES Project—Separated Parent And Child Emotional Support.

We were turned down.

Why? Because one of the panel members also sat on the Children’s Panel and felt it “wasn’t appropriate” to support parents whose children had been removed.

Let that sink in.

As far as they were concerned, if your child was removed, then it was for good reason. Case closed.

Essentially:

“We’re right. You deserved it. Now suffer in silence.”

How egotistical is that?

Where is the humanity?

Where is the understanding that trauma can cause behaviours that don’t define a person’s capacity for love, growth, or redemption?

If we truly believe in safeguarding children, then we must also believe in supporting parents—especially those willing to do the work, face the truth, and rebuild.

Otherwise, we’re just perpetuating pain and calling it justice.

They weren’t able to see that they might be wrong.

Or—even if they were right—that suffering still occurs.

And that suffering, left unsupported, only perpetuates the very issues we claim to want to solve.

When a parent loses a child—whatever the reason—they don’t stop being human. They don’t stop needing understanding, healing, or help.

To deny them support isn’t protective—it’s punitive.

And punishment, without compassion, never leads to change. It just adds another layer of trauma.

If we truly care about protecting children, we need to care just as much about healing the people they came from.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Let’s talk about the cost of all this—emotionally and financially.

The emotional toll on families wrongly judged, children separated without cause, and parents labelled rather than supported is immeasurable.

But there are financial consequences too: repeated police involvement, court proceedings, supervised contact arrangements, welfare officers, social worker interventions, housing teams, and more. My family was rehoused out of area for our safety—an enormous cost in itself, rather than removing one abusive person, they relocated the victims and then shared our new address openly in court in front of the perpetrator, rendering the move entirely pointless.

Why it Happens Again

To be clear, my children were never going to be removed from my care. I had already left the situation before services became involved. It may have been a different story if I hadn’t taken a different route.

If, like many survivors of domestic violence I had returned to that abusive partner or found myself in another abusive relationship, it wouldn’t have been because I didn’t want better. It would have been because of how trauma works.

Research shows that when we’ve lived in survival mode, we often mistake familiarity for safety—not because it’s safe, but because our nervous system has been wired to expect the unpredictable.

When you don’t truly know what safety feels like in the body, you’re not necessarily drawn to peace—you’re drawn to what you know.

And often, without conscious awareness, the body tries to complete an arousal cycle that was never resolved.

This can lead survivors to unknowingly repeat patterns—not out of weakness, but out of the nervous system’s attempt to finish what it started.

This isn’t failure. It’s a biological survival response in need of understanding—not judgement.

A trauma-informed approach rooted in lived experience isn’t just more compassionate—it’s far more cost-effective. It could save millions in public funds, while helping families heal instead of break.

Lived Experience, Labels, and Curiosity

They told me I was 'farthest from the labour market.' That I might never fully recover. That my children were 'at risk.'
None of it came true.

What they didn’t see was that I was also deeply capable. Reflective. Committed to healing. Determined to break the trauma cycle. I took my recovery into my own hands—and what emerged became ‘A Positive Start - initially, it was our plan for a positive start - that eventually became a community interest company committed to trauma-informed education and relational safety.

I chose curiosity over labels. I got curious about what my body was holding, what my story was saying, and what healing might look like if I gave myself permission to feel instead of fear.

Reflections on Judgement and Power

“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

That’s what comes to mind when I think back to some of the professionals who sat in judgment over me.

Those who assumed they understood me based on paperwork, not presence.

Those who overlooked my strength, but also failed to grasp the danger I was facing—until it was too late.

One of them worked in a “secure” supervised visitation facility.

The place where my child was abducted—right out from under their watch.

They underestimated my abuser.

They didn’t listen.

They dismissed the severity of the threat, because it didn’t fit their framework.

But even more so—they underestimated me.

They imagined I was “less than” because I was in a traumatising situation.

They were wrong.

I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t incapable.

I was oppressed. I was traumatised. And still, I was doing everything I could to protect my children.

Being traumatised is not the same as being unsafe.

Being abused is not the same as being unfit.

And surviving violence does not make you less—it often means you’ve had to become more than anyone should ever have to be.

A Sobering Reminder

Everything I’ve described—the judgement, the labelling, the assessments, the forced rehoming, the emotional scrutiny—

was reserved for me. The victim.

I was the one under the microscope. I was the one expected to prove my worthiness as a parent, a human, a survivor.

And the perpetrator?

He walked away.

Unaffected. Untouched by the same systems that dissected me.

Free to continue the performance, the manipulation, the abuse—often enabled by the very structures meant to protect.

This is the injustice so many survivors face.

We are left to clean up the mess, carry the blame, and rebuild from the ruins—while those who caused the harm are rarely held to account in the same way.

What Needs to Change

We need to stop treating trauma as a problem to be managed, and start treating it as a story to be understood.

Let’s build:
- A new trauma-informed training initiative for social workers and safeguarding teams.
- Honest conversations about dysregulation in professionals.
- Assessments that prioritise attachment, emotional context, and support, not just risk.

And let’s bring lived experience into the conversation—not as an afterthought, but as a guide.

Final Thought

If we want to change lives, we have to change how we see them.
Start with compassion. Start with connection. Start by seeing the human behind the behaviour.

Thirty years ago, I didn’t need judgment. I needed understanding, compassion, and empathy.
I needed someone to recognise what it took to survive.
To acknowledge that I had got myself and my children to safety.
To respect that I was still standing—still living—even when someone had tried to end me.

I didn’t need judgement.
I needed to be seen.

That’s why I do this work now. Because understanding can change a life—and sometimes, that life goes on to help thousands more.

#TraumaInformed #DomesticViolence #SocialWork #LivedExperience #APositiveStart #Safeguarding #CompassionateCare #Reform

by Deborah J Crozier