Andrea Aviet

I was told you're fat enough and you know, you don't need any food, look at you. You know, you've got storage enough and I wasn't fat, I was pregnant. The level of abuse was completely terrible. I couldn't speak to anyone, because how do you tell anyone? You just got married, you change your whole life and this is what's happening. The only people who I would reach out to was my mother in law, who I would call mum. In time I started revealing and telling her, she just kept on saying: he's a baby, he doesn't know, it's all gonna get better. He doesn't know how to handle, I'll have a word with him. What I didn't realise was that abuse ran in their family. She was only condoning it, because that's the way she dealt with it. In the beginning I didn't tell my family at all. Then later, I went back and I said: ok, now this is my route of escape. When they saw me, they were shocked 'cause they said I looked like a living dead body in front of them.

 

So I confided in my mum and I told her this is what happened and mum was very quiet. And all the food in the world you could think of, I stuffed my face literally, cause I was so hungry and I was so happy to see food. I was taken to private doctors to see the baby's ok and my mum said: ok, you gotta go back. And I didn't wanna go back and she said: you can't disgrace the family name. I, I don't know I couldn't get over that, I couldn't forgive my mum for a very long time. Because I was back in my hell. I just remember crying in pain because my stomach started to hurt. I remember waiting and waiting for him and the afternoon turned to night and I was rolling on the floor and vomiting and crying 'cause I was so hungry.

 

I broke free in 2013 which is not too long ago. And I learned to battle my way out because when I saw my 2 little babies I said: I gotta be strong for them. Some people have asked me: why did I go on and have another baby, when I was with a man like that. Nothing in my life was ever consensual. I never had a choice in anything. But today I do. And I broke through, I worked very hard, I transformed in every way possible. I transformed me, I became into a mother, I became into a survivor, into a warrior, into a teacher and I said: this is who I am. Now, I have to be a pillar of strength for them and what I do from now on marks their future. Right now my children have a very happy home. They're always laughing, they have no shortage of anything. And I work very hard. I actually feel like a phoenix rising from the ashes.