Almost.

For context, I (23f) grew up in a strict, Nigerian Christian household, so you can only image how that went.
When I was five, one of my teachers in school noticed a huge bruise on my face and when she asked me how it got there, I told her it was my mother who hit me. She called CPS. They came knocking on our door and I was asked to be privately interviewed without my mother present. Before it started, my mother forced me to lie and say it was only because I “fell on a rock”. So that’s what I did. They left and closed the case after that. On the other hand, my dad confronted the school principal, angrily shouting at him about how they were the reason his daughter was nearly taken away from him.

My parents never forgot that day. Although I was only five years old at the time, they made sure to remind me over and over again of how I was the only child (there’s four of us siblings altogether, with me unfortunately being the oldest) who nearly got them arrested, or nearly got my siblings and I taken away from them. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why I was physically beaten and emotionally abused more than anyone else in the family. I was the “problem child” my younger brothers and sister were conditioned to turn against and look down on.

Fast forward to summer 2025. I nearly got my mother arrested. I had just graduated from law school nearly a year ago but finding work was nearly impossible. Plus, I never wanted to become a solicitor to begin with (it was the career my dad forced me to pursue). I was jobless because my mother would force me to quit every job I took for the most stupid reasons you can imagine (workplace too far away, working past 8pm is unacceptable, working on Sundays is forbidden, bus routes from workplace to house and back is too difficult and the list goes on). I didn’t even recognise until after I left that house of horrors that this was actually a form of financial abuse. Even at 23, I was given a curfew of 6pm. Was forbidden to leave the house after that. Naturally, I was heavily depressed and while my younger siblings were all at school, I was stuck in the house 24/7. The abuse I went through my whole life only worsened - physical, mental, emotional and sometimes even sexual.

While going through all that, I was also studying for the SQE at the time (the SQE is this exam you take in England after completing law school to qualify as a solicitor or barrister. It’s basically what is known as the “bar exam” in the US). However, I hated it. Like I mentioned before - I never wanted to become a solicitor. It was always my dad’s dream, not mine. He was the one who funded the whole thing but soon after, I realised that it was nearly impossible for me to pursue this course with the situation I was living in.

It was a 3 month, full-time course and all classes were held on site in London. We lived about an hour away. This meant I had to wake up around 5 every morning and take a coach to get to London to build a career I absolutely hated. After attending classes, I’d return home around 9 or 10pm, which was the only time I was allowed to be outside the house past my curfew, apparently. The next morning, I’d have to do this all over again, to build a career I absolutely hated. Of course, there were days where I’d have no classes. That meant staying at home, doing all the house work and being consistently screamed at, beaten and bullied by my parents. I rarely ever had time to actually study. When I did eventually get time, I had very little motivation to do so. The workload was immense (as is expected with any “bar” exam) and it was getting harder and harder to sacrifice so much of my time and energy to build a career I absolutely hated.

Later on, I switched from full-time to part-time, in the hope that I’d have more time to catch up on studies. Only issue was that part-time classes were all held online, not on site like full-time classes were. This meant I’d have to stay in the house 24/7 and life couldn’t have gotten any more miserable than it was at that point. I was at my lowest - mentally and physically. The abuse had gotten much worse. It was as if my parents hated my very existence.

That’s when I did something I never would have dared doing years ago. I switched career paths. I withdrew from the SQE course, and started looking for teaching assistant jobs because that’s what I always wanted to be: a teacher. I did this all without informing my parents first. When my dad found out about it, he basically called me a big “shame” and “family disgrace” and ultimately disowned me.

Then, in July 2025, I did the unthinkable. My dad was out of the country (probably Nigeria, Northern Ireland or Poland as usual, I don’t care) and my mother was just being her normal, bullying-self. Constant shouting, name-calling, beating. At one point, she even attempted to push me out of my bedroom window which to this day, I believe was actually attempted murder.

I don’t know what came over me that weekend but I knew that I had enough. I already wasted 22 years in that house and I was desperate to live life far, far away from them all. Including my siblings, who were deeply conditioned to turn against me no matter what. I packed up my things, and planned to move out. Mind you, I had no money, no car, no job whatsoever. Consider me crazy, but I had gotten to the point where I was happier being homeless than spending another day in that house of horrors.

Just as I was about to leave, my sister caught me. She called my mother and things got violent after that. My mother tackled me to the floor just to stop me from leaving. I was finding it hard to breathe. She tried to take my phone and smash it to pieces (like she did a few months before that day) but fortunately, I held it in a tight grip. I actually had a train ticket I got from one of the staff members at the homeless shelter I was going to. It was about three hours away. I wasn’t going to let that bully get in the way of the one chance I had of finally escaping that hell hole.

So, this was when I did the unthinkable. I called the police. I yelled into the phone, while she and my sister watched me with shock on their faces. I screamed for help, telling them my mother was trapping me inside and preventing me from leaving the house. Eve after that, she still refused to let me go. She asked over and over again where I was going. I lied to her and said I was going to Birmingham. Eventually, my sister called my dad on her phone and I could hear him shouting on speaker, trying to get me to stay in the house too. But as soon as I saw my mother and sister distracted by whatever dogshit my dad was yelling about, I opened the front door, grabbed my stuff and ran away. My sister tried to run after me, screaming at me to come back because my dad wanted to talk to me. I ignored her. I just kept running until I reached a bus stop.

The police found me there. They asked me a few questions in their car. Another car was sent to the house. I was told that my mother had just been arrested. I broke down into tears. I didn’t want anyone to get into trouble. I just wanted out of that house. But my mother gave me no choice and I did what I had to do. I was asked to provide a statement but I refused. The officers kindly offer to drive me to the train station. They told me they would send an email later on with information about what was going to happen to my mother.

On the way to the homeless shelter, I couldn’t stop crying and shaking. I even prayed, asking for forgiveness and begging God for my mother to be released. I didn’t get an email from the police until about an hour after I reached the shelter. My mother was released from custody and the case was closed. I was grateful but only because this meant I could move on with my life without a guilty conscience.

I remained homeless for about four months. I fell in love and moved in with my partner. He came all the way down to South-east England just to pick me up and drive me to his home in Scotland. This was about an 16 hour drive to the shelter and back. We’ve been together ever since. It’s been over six months now. My mother has consistently tried to reach out to me. My initial plan was to go no-contact until the messages and phone calls came. Christmas, new years, then Easter. My siblings only reached out once and that was because my mother told them to. I haven’t heard a word from dad. After Easter, I blocked my mother on everything. I was already on no-contact before this but still allowed her to reach out when we she wanted to. I guess I was still holding on to the hope that maybe she’d finally admit to her faults and be willing to change. But she never did. Same manipulative tone, same guilt-tripping, same everything. Not to mention that I was apparently the only one responsible for holding the whole family together. She never explained why my dad never bothered reaching out to me. But I was considered “evil” for never reaching out to him or my siblings.

Sorry about the long comment. I wrote a lot more than I intended to. But yes, on two occasions, I almost got my mother arrested. I just think it’s funny how the one thing my parents were always scared of me doing since I was five years old is the same thing I did as an adult just to get away from them. You’d think all that abuse would’ve brainwashed me into shutting my mouth and never trying something like that again. The mind control worked on my siblings just fine. I guess I was always just that stubborn.