‘After the robbery, I felt terrified just walking through my house’

Tessa (41), married, mother of Fien (7) and Jaap (4): “When you give birth, everything around you disappears. You feel like a lioness with only one goal: to bring your child into the world in the best possible way. This is like the feeling I had when two men broke into our house that Monday afternoon and pointed a gun at me. My focus: how do I manage this as quickly as possible?

My husband had just left for the office and because of the lockdown the kids were home. Fien didn’t take any afternoon naps anymore, but because she was very tired, I put her to bed anyway. She had fallen asleep like a log. Jaap was playing in the living room when my colleague called. While calling, I opened the door for a parcel delivery person – we must have ordered something again – and just kept talking until he stomped far into my hallway with the package. As I looked toward our path, I saw a second man in a balaclava running. Heavy footsteps in the gravel. He pushed me roughly into the hallway and snatched the phone from my hands. Meanwhile, he pointed a gun at me. The other man yelled loudly, “Keep calm!” Through the glass door of the living room I saw my son standing.

Anywhere

While the man kept yelling, ‘Where’s the cash? Where’s the safe? Hurry up!’ I yelled back, “First the children!” In my head I repeated this phrase like a mantra. I picked him up from the living room, put him over my shoulder and put him in the hall in front of his sister’s bedroom. ‘Just go to Fien’, I said with my biggest smile, hoping he wouldn’t notice. I watched him walk into the room and closed the door behind me. ‘Hurry up!’ the robbers repeated. I tried to buy time by reaching for a key in the kitchen. I led the men to the basement and went down in front of the stairs. For a moment I thought: am I seriously going into the basement with two robbers? No one knew they were inside, no one could see me and my kids were upstairs.

“Maybe I’m going to die now, I thought.”

In the meantime, one of the two men appeared to have disappeared, looking for valuables in our bedroom. The other I led down, we ended up in the wine cellar. The robber then went to the garage. There an automatic lamp came on, which upset him for a moment. I found a moment to push the button on the automatic garage door. He yelled for me to close that door and pointed the gun at me again. I pretended to be stupid and screamed that I didn’t know why that door opened. Meanwhile, it was my escape. In my tights, I ran as fast as I could out under the half-open garage door. Under the door I saw that weapon. Maybe I’m going to die now, I thought. Leaving my kids in the house and running out on my own is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I had no choice.

Staff

When I was on the street, I heard myself loudly ‘Help!’ screaming, just like in a movie. Still, it seemed like it would be hours before anyone responded. It wasn’t until the third time I screamed that I saw the robbers run away. A car from the parks service stopped, the man called 112. In no time the street was full of police cars. When I was standing in the garden a little later, a helicopter was already hovering over my head. I took a deep breath and realized I had to do something with the kids. I dare not say how long it all took, maybe only fifteen minutes.

I took the eldest out of bed, the youngest sat playing quietly on the floor, as if nothing had happened. I put them in the living room and closed the curtains. Then I put on a movie and put a carton of Fristi, a carton of chocolate milk and a bag of chips in front of them. I got two happy faces, because it suddenly seemed like a party. When I was outside again, they waved merrily. Luckily they didn’t notice what was going on.

Fear

I immediately called my husband and calmly told him what had happened. But he didn’t realize how serious it was until he got home when he saw the four police cars parked in front of our door and when men in white suits walked through our garden. A little later he took the children to my parents. I picked them up that evening and thought I was fine. The blow didn’t come until the next morning.

“I felt terrified just walking around my house.”

I woke up and had a panic attack. Such a stuffy feeling, like I was dying. My husband called the GP who prescribed me sedative tablets. It helped a little, but the fear was in my body. I felt terrified just walking around my house. It’s hard to describe how that feels. It was terrible, because due to the corona period and the lockdown I couldn’t go anywhere and I was condemned to my house. Exactly the place I didn’t want to be. It felt like the nerves were under my skin. When I was in bed and a scooter roared by, I would sit up in my bed. Sweating I would look out the window because I was afraid they would come back. Although I had no idea why, because why exactly they chose our house has never become clear. In the end they got nothing.

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Therapy

I ended up with a trauma therapist. He said: ‘With EMDR therapy we cannot erase your memory, but we can defuse your memories.’ He ‘reset’ me. Already after the first session I dared to be home alone with the door open, it made a world of difference.

Yet I still wake up every day with the robbery and go to bed with it. I don’t know if that will ever fade into the background. I don’t talk about it that often. I also find it difficult that they have been all over our house. We’ve only been living there for a few years and I was very happy there, but that carefree feeling is gone because of this event. I react more violently. When one of the children suddenly jumps and startles me, I almost flip. I didn’t tell them exactly what happened – I’ll do that later – but I did explain to them that I don’t like it when they do that.

open-mindedness

The guys who did this to me have been arrested, the lawsuits against them are still pending. When I told my story, their lawyer was so moved that she cried. I told that there is some kind of plastic film between me and the outside world and that bad movie is shown on it all the time. I have lost my sense of security and open-mindedness because I now know what terror feels like.

“Now that I know I could drive two men out of my house, I can handle anything.”

I am proud that I can rely on myself and want to show that to other women. No matter how difficult the situation is. Now that I know I could drive two men out of my house, I can handle anything.”

This article appears in Kek Mama 14-2021.

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