Once upon a time a girl met a boy, or a boy met a girl, or a boy met a boy – you know what I mean.

And in the beginning everything was great. They started dating and things progressed to meeting each other’s friends and possibly their parents. Sometimes his or her paramour would regularly surprise them with unexpected gifts or flowers or chocolate. Life indeed couldn’t be any sweeter. They were happy.

But then somewhere along the line – perhaps two months or two  years – something changed, probably because some people can only stay on their best behaviour for so long.

Perhaps their girlfriend or boyfriend lashed out at them unexpectedly but quickly apologised because they’d had a crap day, were hungry or maybe were just in a bad mood. And they were forgiven because he or she was already invested in the relationship and didn’t want to bolt at the first hurdle. Humans are, well, human after all and no one is perfect.

Sometimes their lovers were very charismatic, too, so they moved on from the first “hiccup” and the relationship often progressed to a more serious “I love you” phase.

But then “it” happened again – usually in private – which often left him or her reeling because they didn’t have any forewarning that a shit-storm was about to rain down on their head because they’d said the wrong thing, offered an opinion the other person didn’t like or dared to suggest something different for dinner.

Often the apologies were again swift and seemingly heartfelt so, perhaps by this time a little hesitantly, they forgave them again but remained on tenterhooks for a while. Then there were often presents for no apparent reason.

He or she usually didn’t talk to anyone about it because, on the outside, everything was rosy and they were lucky and in love. They were the only ones, you see, who were special enough to witness their lovers’ kaleidoscope of true colours.

Sometimes, by this stage, the relationship moved into new territory and marriage and/or children were being discussed – a conversation often started by their lover, which only now do they understand why.

Maybe he or she had always wanted children so the offer was so tantalising that perhaps it blinded them to the truth that was right in front of them.

Sometimes they married him or her and had a child. Other times they had children together without the need of a ring. And once in a while, they merely started down the path of a parenthood that he or she had thought was lost to them forever.

But having children together, or considering it, didn’t make the bad times go away. Sometimes they just got worse and there were now children there to see it, too.

The tantrums (not usually from the children), he or she learned, could be about anything and none of it was ever justified. Sometimes she was pregnant when it happened but that made no difference. Other times he or she had real drama and grief in their life and yet it seemed they cared for that not a jot.

However, over time, sometimes he or she came to believe the taunts that they were a bad person, a bad mother or father, or a bad partner who was lucky to have anyone love them at all. And so they stayed. Often if they were invested before, they were doubly so now, so they struggled to see a way out.

But sometimes, after a few years or a decade or more, they bravely decided to act.

Perhaps it was the opportunity of time away alone when he or she saw the possibility of a new life – one lived without fear – and finally walked out the door for good.

Maybe it was realising that the damage to the children was too great from a partner who was increasingly unstable and prone to verbal threats that were becoming physical.

Or possibly it was a nondescript day where he or she experienced a volley of venom in a public place with other people present who did nothing but turn the other way. They didn’t help because they were used to it and at that moment he or she knew they never wanted to get used to it. So, if they had any self respect, then they had to make a choice.

And perhaps he or she goes on to meet the love of their life and soon realises a peace that they thought was nothing more than a pipe-dream in this lifetime.

Or maybe they become a single mother or father and do everything they can to give those children the happiest of childhoods and dampen the impact from the other side.

And possibly he or she learns to forgive but not to forget and restarts their life with a better understanding that it’s okay to be single because they’re at their most joyful and most creative then.The mood of the house only depends on how happy they are now.

But when there are children involved, sometimes the cycle of abuse continues through text messages or phone calls, and they do all they can not to react and try to stay positive for the sake of their kids – even as their ex-lover quickly moves on to their next victim.

And sometimes, after waiting months for an apology that never comes, there is nothing but silence but he or she comes to learn that maybe this is the final (and most appreciated) “gift” of them all.

And they come to understand that hurt people hurt people, but he or she is not the person directly in the firing line any more – even though they wonder how “love” ever led them there in the first place.

And so perhaps an allegorical love story is written, albeit with some trepidation.

And then he or she moves on – towards the light and towards a new life.

And they never look back.

The end.

The inaugural National Family Violence Summit is being held in Canberra this week.

The thing about thumbs is that you don’t truly appreciate them until they’re no longer playing ball or doing anything useful at all really.

On the first day of my new life as a self-employed writer a few weeks ago I fell over. Now this wasn’t a spectacular event brought about by alcohol or impressive interpretative dance, it was brought about by (I learned too late) not drying my feet properly after having a shower. How very pedestrian.

That day had already been a mish-mash of trying to get into the groove of working for myself, mixed with a few hours where I gave up and went to the movies instead. Having only a weekend between finishing my “old” life and starting my “new” one meant motivation was sorely lacking.

Later that same night, after doing stuff-all all day let’s face it, I debated whether I really needed to have a shower. I’d already had one that morning and really hadn’t been up to much so it probably wasn’t hygienically necessary. Alas, more than a decade of living in the sub-tropics meant that two showers a day is a long ingrained habit, so off I trotted to the bathroom. How I wished I’d listened to what my intuition was possibly trying to tell me.

About 15 minutes later, having dried myself (or so I thought) and put my nightie on, I sauntered out of the bathroom without a care in the world. Tomorrow I’ll start my new life again, I was probably thinking. Unfortunately as I was day-dreaming – and as has been the basis of many of my accidents throughout my life – I slipped over. As I was tumbling towards the hard wooden floor, I saw my leg was on a funny angle and must’ve decided to break my fall with my thumb instead – what a “Dumbelina”.

As I soon as I hit the floor, pain seared through my body. I checked my leg and saw it was fine, but my hand – and specifically my thumb – was another matter entirely. The pain was excruciating and deep down I knew that I’d done myself a serious mischief but as I picked myself up off the floor, somewhat in shock, I told myself that it was just a sprain. That line of thought ended up being an unreliable narrative that I would hold dear for the next week, even in the face of fairly obvious signs that it was a load of bollocks.

Funnily enough on my first day of being a self-employed writer, I realised that there is no sick leave and, you know, I’m a writer so I need my hands to do my work – of which I had quite a lot booked.

That night I iced the offending appendage, swallowed painkillers before going to bed, and even taped my thumb to my forefinger such was the agony whenever I accidentally moved or bumped it. The next day, I contemplated a trip to the doctor or the ER, but after the past few weeks with mum’s injury, I just didn’t want to spend any more time in a medical environment than I had too.

Ironically that same morning I had a hospital visit scheduled to go and see mum. Coincidentally she was in the orthopaedic ward. On the way up to see her I tried to buy a brace for my thumb at the chemist on site at the hospital, but the rude woman wouldn’t sell me one and suggested I go to emergency instead. Pffffttt, I thought, what would she know?

My step-dad was with mum when I got to her room and he mentioned my hand didn’t look good. By this stage the bruising (which would eventually invade my whole hand) was coming out and every single one of my fingers, as well as my thumb, were also swelling quite dramatically. “I’m too busy,” I said, “plus I’m going to Sydney tomorrow for five days”. Clearly what I really wanted to do was find a rather large hole in the sand that I could put my head in.

So, we hatched a plan to get one of the nurses to check my thumb out. She took one look at it and said “you probably need to get an x-ray”, which wasn’t what I wanted to hear, so she added “well, if it doesn’t come right in a few days, then you better go to the doctor”. Now that was a “diagnosis” that I was happy with.

Over the next six days I carried on like nothing was wrong, all the while only having one good hand and becoming increasingly concerned by my inability to move my thumb – at all. My saving grace was that it was my left thumb and I am right-handed, however I quickly realised that thumbs are awesome tools, that are helpful with many mundane tasks. For example, over the past three weeks I’ve learned that thumbs are very useful for:

• Pulling down your undies/pants
• Pulling up your undies/pants
• Putting on your bra
• Taking off your bra
• Using a knife to eat dinner (while I’m right-handed, I strangely use a knife and fork left-handed)
• Putting in hair ties
• Taking out hair ties
• Carrying a beer in each hand (admittedly I haven’t done this but you never know when you might need too)
• Doing up zips (ditto buttons)
• Undoing zips (ditto buttons)
• Putting on a car handbrake (right-hand drive cars)
• Taking off a car handbrake
• Putting on your car indicator (in a Fiat)
• Cleaning your house (okay, it’s still probably doable but it seems like a good excuse to me)
• Removing bank cards/coins/money from your wallet
• Opening cans/jars/the front door/milk cartons et al
• Carrying anything at all in that hand, which is impossible when you can’t grip it.

So after a week, my better (but horribly delayed and not overly smart judgment) saw me finally at my doctor, which resulted in an x-ray, an ultrasound, a hand specialist/surgeon appointment, an MRI and now a sexy splint on it for a month or two.

It seems that I’ve torn the ligament in my thumb, you see. Medically it’s called an ulnar collateral ligament tear of the thumb. No wonder it hurt “a little”. Movement is still much restricted so there’s a possibility that I might need surgery, which again wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

It appears that my strategy of ignoring my injury for a week wasn’t a winner (who would’ve thought?) and that in the past eight months, while I’ve run some 700 kilometres, the only injuries I’ve sustained has been spraining my ankle walking to my car and now tearing the ligament in my thumb walking through my kitchen. Obviously I should run instead of walk.

It seems that becoming self-employed meant I was more worried about not being able to work, rather than relishing having time off work – paid – as is often the mindset of an employee.

I can still write though and, again, the whole experience gives me something to write about so, to use one of my new turns of phrase, it’s one and half thumbs up from me!

Clint Eastwood may be famous for doing the unthinkable, attempting to escape from Alcatraz, in the movie of the same name in 1979, but recently our family has experienced its very own great escape, which really is deserving of celluloid treatment.

As grown ups it’s not very often that we climb fences any more – especially not to just get to the other side. The “seriousness” of adulthood means we probably don’t spend much time hanging upside from trees nor skipping down the road singing the theme song from the Smurfs either… unless, of course, we’re drunk or high and then both of these activities are perfectly acceptable in my opinion.

But the past few weeks have involved a lot of time in hospital rooms for our family because one of us decided to climb a fence to “make a break” when no one was looking, which alas didn’t end well.

I’ve written before about the first time that mum spent time in respite and over the past year she’s stayed in a few different places with varying degrees of success.

We’ve learned along the way that part of the “respite” process is that the family needs a break, too, so visiting has been kept to a minimum.

Four weeks ago, however, an event took place, which may mean that mum will never go into respite again. Simultaneously a story was created that will live forever in the mythology of our family’s “achievements”.

The thing about secure dementia wards is that they’re supposed to be just that – secure. Residents can’t come and go as they please because many of them would go and not know how to come back again.

The thing about our mum is that she is younger than many people in respite, which means she’s more agile, she’s stronger and, let’s face it, she’s a hell of a lot sneakier (but that’s more to do with her personality than her illness and we love her for it).

On that particular afternoon, we’re led to believe, mum must’ve decided that she’d had enough of respite. She reportedly spied a wheelbarrow in the garden, which we can only presume was left out by accident, and used it to launch herself over a six-foot fence. Mum is five foot four. Later that night I asked her what she was trying to do and she said she just wanted to get to the other side. Fair enough I think.

With super-human strength she managed to get to the top of the fence, but it was at that moment (we presume as no one saw it happen) that she fell over the other side, breaking her ankle very badly in three places in the process. It makes me sad and very fucken angry to think about how frightened she must’ve been but that’s a rant for another day.

Just like a movie, she landed in some type of no-man’s land, which required a hole to be cut in the fence for the ambulance officers to tend to her. Poor mum. Her great escape clearly didn’t go according to plan. Although Escape from Alzheimer’s does have a certain ring to it….

The next few hours were a mix of emotions – begrudging respect for her Houdini-like escape attempt coupled with fear as her condition worsened due to complications while in the emergency department.

The situation wasn’t helped by the registrar’s demeanour, who I christened “Dr Happy” behind his back, who’d fill us in on various hurdles and setbacks as the evening wore on with a gravitas better suited to a mortician.

His speech was punctuated with long pauses and over-emphasised sighs, which made my step-father and I think he was going to tell us mum had carked it at any given moment. It’s not an experience I want to revisit any time soon. No wonder I had to have a large scotch when I got home many hours later.

So here we are, a few weeks on, with mum still in hospital following surgery on her ankle and a recovery directive that requires 24-hour care. She’s mainly in good spirits, although regularly confused about the (now) bright purple cast on her leg.

She has visitors each day and we take turns singing Elvis tunes with her, while also deflecting her daily insistence that we smuggle in some scissors so she can cut the pesky cast off. Such a feat will no doubt ensure in her mind that she can engineer another great escape – this time from a hospital and hopefully one with a more successful outcome. Mum always was very crafty, so even after everything she’s lost she’s still there – as cunning as a weasel. Just like the good old days.