I have a fear and dread of hysterical out of control shouting screamie women. For the past twelve months I have been regularly challenged by women who have, for one reason or another, wanted to scream, shout and attack me. 

My landlady followed me around my home shoutng at me and calling me names. I hadn’t done anything to her. I had merely pointed (again) to the black mould patches.

The fear and anxiety which follows repeated attacks in your own home is vile. It is an occurrence which I have lived with for most of my life. Many women have enjoyed the reaction I have to being under attack.

My doctor cannot help me. I need psychotherapy in order to properly witness the early childhood stuff, in order to find a way to move on.

When you attack me, I crumble inside. When you raise your voice and call me names or put me down, my body has a chemical fight or flight instinct. Except the fight part has never worked properly. I tried many times as a child to hide from my mother and, all trough adulthood, I have feared women who abuse.

Growing up I was told I was too sensitive and should be more able to manage the shouting and name calling. It is only now in peri-menopause that I can even begin to understand that I have a choice here. I have to find a way to deal with bullies. The time has come for me to stand in front of these screamie wimmin and tell them, ‘it isn’t attractive, I think you are disrespecting our sex and if men acted in this way we would put them in jail.’

In order to do anything like that, I have to disengage the ‘flight’ mode of whatever chemical reaction or learned habit it is that happens to me. I cannot avail of psychotherapy because it is too expensive. All I can do is regulate my breathing.

I have a genuine fear of my landlady and she is due to arrive in Scotland from Germany any time soon.

My landlady has a pattern of evicting her tenants in order that she has a wee cottage for her Summer holidays. She would like to evict me rather than repair her property and does not want to do this legally.

Legally, your landlord now has to apply to the courts and state one of twelve reasons for eviction. A solicitor’s Notice to Quit is no longer sufficient.

All my life my home has been under threat. I have been under threat in my own home. And I am not alone. I belong to a community of mothers across the Highlands who are regularly forced into flitting, shifting, starting again and again and again.

How many times in your life have you been homeless?

How many times in your life has someone screamed abuse at you, in your home?

How many times have you felt the threat of losing your home?

I tremble. I stutter. My hands stop working. My eczema returns, with asthma. When you come into my home, my safe place and threaten me, my child, my life then I die inside. When you yell and scream and hurl your toxins at me, I want to leave my body and be as breath on a breeze. You scare me with your poisonous projections. Your anger makes my stomach heave and turn.

The landlady is due to arrive in the country for her holidays.

I am not ready, I do not feel able, but I am going to do it. I am going to stand tall and breathe and face the repulsion and disgust I feel for women who feel the need to yell, scream and abuse others.