Caledoniyya is now a sturdy two-years old, a fact I almost missed amidst the haste of moving to start a new job (more on which anon).

When I started this site in 2007 I resided under drastically different circumstances, notably ones which this blog succeeded in raising me from in the darkest hours.

Women’s empowerment is an ongoing theme that I am deeply passionate about, which renders my (albeit former) reality all the more hypocritical.

Up until recently I was engaged in a relationship of the worst variety: the kind that we, both men and women alike, perceive on daytime talk shows and gesticulate in disbelief while vowing we would never be so foolish as to fall into that abyss.

Certainly, brought up as independent and – so I thought – savvy to the wiles of men, I never imagined that I would.

But life has a funny way of teaching us that we are never too smart, too cognisant or too worldly wise to escape such experiences.

At first he was charming: smart, out-spoken, confident and in a very alluring manner that appealed to my base instincts, protective.

With time these features became less positive: his smartness was limited; his out-spokeness became a rudeness that isolated our departmental colleagues and his protectiveness became a possessiveness that ultimately saw my freedom dwindle to next to nothing.

These things never happen suddenly; had I perceived him from the outset as he evolved to become, I would never have engaged him as a friend, let alone anything else.

In such cases, the freedom and life-blood is tapped away gently, eroded by an acidic drip that is at first imperceptible, before you awake to realise that your life has changed beyond recognition and the door through which you came is lost in the darkness.

I cast my eyes down to admit that the situation continued for three years.

I cringe to recall how I lacked the courage to leave him.

It is easy for dear friends to urge flippantly, “leave him/her”; it is not so easy to do it.

Often, they do not witness the violent rages, the smashing of furniture, the confiscation of your phone if someone dares to text, the rifling through your drawers to eliminate any memory of that happy past, nor the persistent calls and ringing of the doorbell when you do venture away.

They do not understand that coiling hot feeling that raises the bile in your throat when he starts to rage, that white heat that makes the room spin, breathing difficult and your heart pump like it will burst with fear.

Rage became a daily feature of life: whether it was silent, the herald of a greater storm, or the explosive kind that made the rafters tremble and the birds scatter from the trees outside the window.

When I triumphed, he raged: on the publication of my first article (a milestone in a fledgling academic’s career) in a journal, he bellowed expletives and shook the apartment with his fury.

The moments that were supposed to be the happiest were the direst of my life.

This blog provided a voice in a time when my world was narrowed and closed to one room, one man, one life dictated by his views, needs, and deficiencies.

The blog also reminded me who I was before; my voracity ironically attracted him, yet it was what he sought to crush most.

The past nine months have been diabolically worrying: as each month ticked by and the rejection letters continued to arrive, I was heedless to the reassurances of colleagues that it could take up to three years to secure an academic job.

Ultimately, I did – from the most unlikely and wonderful of universities – and for that I thank God a million times over.

I feel as though I have been plucked from the jaws of Hell both professionally and personally.

Yet equally, I understand now why it took so long.

Returning home has rebuilt my life: it has given hope, restored faith and most of all imbued the strength to confront and eliminate that which has over-shadowed and restricted for too many years.

Tomorrow I leave for a new start and it is a double celebration: not only will I realise my professional dream, but also I am free.

For without freedom, there can be no life.