It would take me many more lies, much more hurt and a heart full of nothing but an aching resentment, until I finally would squeeze Jamie from out of my life. I had to. He had taken everything.

My confidence.

My fight.

My esteem.

My self belief.

My dreams.

He had taken them all.

Other than actually ripping the flesh from my weary bones, he had nothing else left to take. He eventually left me with nothing but a shell of the mother that I wanted to be for our little boy. Yes, that's right, in amongst all of the pain and the madness that Jamie enjoyed giving to me, I had a beautiful son. He arrived two and a half weeks overdue, it took two prostaglandin pessaries, two bottles of gas and air, two shots of Pethidine, one failed epidural, shoulder dystocia, the possibility of an emergency c-section, an episiotomy, forceps delivery and 39 hours from beginning to end, to finally be able to bring him into my uncertain world.

I'm not going to lie, it was hell.

From beginning to end, it was hell.

I thought I was going to die.

My mum thought I was going to die.

While Jamie acted as though he couldn't care less if I did.

I didn't even want him there at my labour, it was always my plan not to have him there. But a girlfriend of one of his friends that he was staying with, thought it absolutely tragic that we weren't going to be together to bring our baby into the world, so she rang me to say that she would be coming to stay with me, being as I was so overdue.

Her name was Sarah, and one day, I'd really like to thank her for the kindness she once showed to me all those years ago.

As fate would have it, I did in fact go into labour while Sarah was with me. She called her boyfriend, who then told Jamie, who still didn't give a damn that I was about to have his baby. But his friend had apparently told him that he should be with me when his baby was born...and my god, didn't I know that he was with me during my labour.

"Just because you're having my baby, I'm not giving up DJing. I'm not giving up partying, and I'm not giving up drugs." Was all that Jamie kept telling me.

With a contraction ripping through my scared body, my voice was shattered with pain. "Right now, I couldn't give a shit what you do with your life." Is all I could tell him through a tightly clenched jaw.

At no time during the arduous, frightening labour, did Jamie offer his support. I think he was just there, just so he could tell anyone who was ever interested, that he was there.

By the time that I excruciatingly pushed our son from out of me, I was exhausted and traumatised. I couldn't even hold my son, I was just too weak to do so. While I was being sewn back up, dazed and weakened by a labour that was ridden with so many complications, Jamie was joking about how my vagina looked like it had been shot with a 12 Bore.

And yet, I still tried to make it work between us.

I still tried to create a family.

Within a week, Jamie would be back to his predictable ways—leaving me on my own while he partied and got high.

Cora did try to be there for me, but I was now a mother. Yes, I was still her friend, but I now had a child. She couldn't possibly understand my situation, and I never asked that she did. But much of what was going on, I kept to myself.

I was embarrassed.

Ashamed.

Embarrassed and ashamed that I would let Jamie treat me the way that he did. I would make excuses for him not being around. Pretend that things weren't that bad between us. I was constantly hiding my hurt and my disappointment. Yet when I was alone and the baby was asleep, I would sit in a corner somewhere and sob out all of the reasons why I ached so much inside. The ache would hurt so much sometimes, that I would rock myself over and over again, trying to rock away the never ending pain. Not even my mum could help me, for she had once again, slipped back into drugs. She was taking so much speed, that she would suffer with speed psychosis. When my son was two weeks old and while I struggled to breast feed him, my mum showed up at my flat. She was in a paranoid panic, that caused her to eventually call the doctor. Over and over, she said she was being poisoned by her boyfriend, and that he was watching her.

In the end, I just closed my bedroom door. Everyone around me, were either people who didn't understand me or people that I didn't want to understand. It was only my nan, gramp, and Jason, who I felt were still there for me. Dad tried to be, but never quite got the hang of the whole 'doting dad' thing, so I never expected too much from him.

"Your mum is clearly suffering with delusions and paranoia on account of her drug use...you now have two choices?" The kind-mannered and softly spoken young doctor had began to explain to me on that weird and stressful night.

Looking down at my two week old son, exhausted with life and not being able to feed him properly, my tired eyes dragged across to where the doctor was kneeling down by my bed. "What are my choices?" I numbly had asked.

Inhaling softly, he quietly gave them to me. "I can either give her something to try and calm her for the rest of the night, or you can choose to have her sectioned?"

My head just fell. I'd just had a baby. I wasn't sleeping. Nor was the baby. I was failing miserably at breast feeding. Failing at being a successful mum. My boyfriend was gone, getting high and probably sleeping around somewhere, and my mum was having a drug-induced meltdown—life had just hit an all-time low.

Feeling that shame and embarrassment all over again, I couldn't even look at the doctor when I finally answered him. "Just give her something, please? Tonight, I can't face the responsibility of having her sectioned."

That doctor then stood, letting me hear the exhalation of his sympathetic breath. "You really don't need this right now." Leaning over slightly, his kind hand then tapped my arm. "It's time to start taking care of you."

When that doctor left, and while my mum was in my bathroom frantically brushing her 'poisoned' teeth for the hundredth time, I thought of that doctors last words to me; I thought about them for quite an important amount of time.

Within the darkness of my bedroom, with my newborn son being held so quietly in my arms, I knew that something had to change. For if it didn't change, I wouldn't survive. I wouldn't survive the life that I was so miserably living in. That night, I cried until I couldn't cry anymore. I cried until I had cried away all the doubts that were stopping me from permanently ejecting Jamie from my life.

My love for him, was slowly killing me.

My love for him, wasn't the love that I needed.

When the two of us became three with the birth of our son, I knew that I had to make changes.

For so long, for so many years, when things went wrong in my life, I would take it upon myself to note is as a personal failure. I had failed at so many things, on so many occasions, including failing those who cared about me; that I blamed myself for it not working out with Jamie and I. But my many failures, they would eventually harm my baby...and I couldn't have that.

I had fallen into this twisted pattern of knowing that I couldn't be with Jamie, but didn't know whether I had the strength to forever be without him. I had become conditioned to stay with him. Conditioned to put up with his endless crap. Conditioned to take every hurtful thing that he hurled at me. It was only that one time when I was heavily pregnant that he ever physically assaulted me, but his mental abuse was something that had always been present in our relationship.

"What are you, a lezzy or something?" He once had hatefully taunted me with, when I had tried to cover up all the holes in the bathroom door with a collage of famous nude sculptures and paintings that I had cut out from an art magazine; unsightly holes that were angrily made from him punching it over and over again. "You are, aren't you? You want women now, don't you? Why else would you have all this shit all over this door?" In his deluded head, that was what he so immaturely thought. He wouldn't accept my explanation of me not wanting visitors to see the holes where he had repeatedly punched the door. He also couldn't possibly accept that I didn't want to have sex with him anymore because I was recovering from having a baby and that the thought of him being with other girls might be a very big turn off. No, in his drug-drenched mind, I was a lesbian.

"No one will ever want you, Mary Rose. They'll not want you, because every single time that they look at our boy...they'll always be reminded of me." Was another one of his cruel jibes. Whenever Jamie thought he might be losing me, this was constantly shouted at me. The sad thing was, I slowly began to believe it.

Why would anyone want me?

Why would anyone want my son as well?

I had taken so much from Jamie the whole time that we were together. On so many occasions, he had emotionally raped me. Discovering the truth of his lies, hurt just as much as the lies themselves. Discovering who he really was, hurt me far more than I ever could admit to. But once I had my son, it was no longer just about me. It was no longer just about my own heartbreak. Jamie's lies had fed and nourished all of my insecurities for far too long. I thought that if I loved him enough, his need to lie and sleep with other girls would stop, but when our son was born, I realised that I never would be enough. I realised that someone like Jamie, was irreparable. He had made me constantly feel inadequate. Sex with him, was nothing but demeaning. There were so many times when he made me feel just like a warm hole to stick himself inside of. A crass way to describe it, I know, but it's the only way that I can truthfully put it.

I didn't want my son to be around a man like that.

I didn't want Jamie to be his role model in life.

After many failed attempts, that man was finally ejected from out of my heart. He eventually got imprisoned for six weeks, due to him being caught driving a car without any insurance and MOT on numerous occasions by the police. Only the once did I visit him in prison, with my son, and it was during that visit that I knew I had finally taken enough. I remember looking over at my son, berating myself for even bringing him with me, and then realising what I had known all along...Jamie really wasn't a good role model for my boy.

The switch to my heart was off and the switch to my strength was back on. I was finally done.

Of course, Jamie kept calling me.

Of course, he kept writing and sending me visiting orders.

On his eventual release, he even showed up on my doorstep. I did let him in, and we did have sex, then I told him to go and to never come back. The empty and unfeeling sex that I had with him on that morning, confirmed to me that I really was finally done. I didn't feel anything when he was inside of me...nothing...that's when I knew that he no longer could hurt me on the outside.

His words.

His charm.

They no longer worked.

Jamie no longer had a physical or emotional hold on me....

.....and breaking free had never felt so good.