Mind How You Go
Content warning
This novel contains:
- coercive control, in a marriage and in the marriage before it;
- domestic abuse, recounted from inside it;
- the death of an abusive partner, examined in forensic detail;
- the removal of a child by the family courts, and grief for a living child;
- psychiatric hospitalisation, and a medical record used as a weapon;
- the surveillance of a woman in her own home, including while pregnant;
- repeated false alerts, in the night, that an unborn child has stopped moving;
- systematic gaslighting;
- an infant present in scenes of domestic fear;
- intrusive thoughts about harm, in a mother who does not act on them;
- estrangement from family;
- being disbelieved, at length, by design.
A note on the methods
The technology in this book exists, more or less as described. The specific techniques of intrusion, fabrication, and control have been changed or left vague on purpose, and none of it should be read as a how-to.
One more thing. Clover is watched in ways she is told are care, and disbelieved in ways she is told are concern. If that shape is familiar to you from the inside, it has a name, coercive control, and there are people who will believe you. These lines are free, confidential, and answered by people who do this every day.
- United Kingdom — National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge: 0808 2000 247, 24 hours;
- Ireland — Women’s Aid: 1800 341 900, 24 hours;
- United States — National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788, 24 hours;
- Australia — 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732, 24 hours;
- Canada — support is provincial rather than national; sheltersafe.ca will find a shelter near you.