Maybe it was all the running and hiding I have had to do? All the times I had to cope and survive on autopilot? Maybe it was all things that Right from the start my life was not destined to be easy.
I was abused at such a young age. 3yrs old. Something like that. I know it could have only happened around that time because that was when my half brother moved in with us and there was a short time between him moving in there and us moving from a flat into a house. I was 3 or 4yrs old. I was keen to start school, I loved to learn. I knew I had a new half brother and sister to learn to live with. I wanted them to like me. I knew my dad came and went. I didn't know him very well. I knew my mum's parents best of all. They were my security blanket.
One of my first memories was of my mum telling me I had to be a big girl and get myself up and dressed in the mornings. I did that one morning and I undid the front door and walked to my grandparent's flat, a block of flats between us. Their door was always open. ALWAYS. I sat myself at the table and they exchanged looks. Asked me if I was hungry because I was looking hungrily at my grandfather's plate of porridge, an island of sugar surrounded by cool creamy milk. Would I like some? YES PLEASE!!! A small plate of porridge soon appeared on the table. My grandmother in the kitchen, trying to sound casual as she asked me if my mum knew where I was. I don't remember my reply. I do remember the sound of the front door opening in a hurry and me diving under the table, telling them not to say anything. I was scared. Up until then I think I felt very proud of myself. Mum's voice was trembling and she flopped onto the sofa crying that I was missing. I felt guilty and surprised but desperate not to be found out. I cowered under the table. My granddad, I could see his face and he was gesturing under the table. Nan was trying to be a bit more canny. Let her feel scared for a minute or two. Granddad was keen to let her know and I was tugging at his trouser leg, desperate to stay hidden. Then it was all out in the open and with a warning to mum, about staying calm, from my grandmother, I sneaked out from under the table. I got the biggest hug and stern words to not do that again. I am pretty sure I was more concerned about my porridge.
I think that was before these two older children arrived. They seemed practically grown up to me. Things get blurry after this. A blur of my dad being there, of arguing, of this new older sister, singing and dancing and me joining in. The boy, surly, aggressive and cold. He seemed to hate me to my marrow. I was glad of company though. I wanted to follow him around. I wanted to play with his cars and toy soldiers. I remember one day we were at the grandparent's flat for tea and he complained that I copied every single thing he did. He rolled a slice of ham in his leaf of lettuce and had a melt down when I copied him. I didn't understand. What was so bad about that?! I thought it would let him know I liked him. They all fussed over him and told me off. They seemed to know him and he them and I wasn't that keen on that.
I would follow him around at the park outside our block of flats. There was a little hut made of bricks and logs on the roof. He would lift me up there and I would watch him whittle sticks with his little pen knife. Nothing I said got a warm response. He hated me, like I said, to the marrow. It was cold and disturbing. His exaggerated cutting of the wood as he looked me in the eye was horrifying but I couldn't make sense of it like I can now. I only had the pleas in my mind of please like me, please let's have fun together, let me join in. He was 9yrs older than me. I seemed to be left with him a lot. He would leave me stranded on the roof of the hut. He would keenly offer to play hide and seek but then I would look for a long time, only to find he had sneaked off. He would test me in every way. He would shout out sums and laugh when I got them wrong. He made me feel small. He would shut me in the bottom of the sofa bed in the front room. He would twist my arm around my back until I said submit. He would rip heads from my doll's bodies and he let me know just how powerful he was at every opportunity.
The first abuse I remember is when he was left to babysit whist my new sister and my parents went out drinking. The promise of a game of something was his favourite trick. He knew I was desperate for a playmate. I remember him opening out the sofa bed and him climbing on me and my head was under his chest. I protested and tried to tell him I couldn't breathe but he didn't notice. I am pretty sure I passed out. I was scared and upset and he just told me to go to bed.
After that I begged them not to leave me with him.
We moved house. It happened there too. He was always cruel and I always fell for his promise of a game. Seems so pathetic now. Seems so stupid of me.
I got so fed up with him using me and leaving me with this disgusting patch of goo in the bed. He would put his hand over my mouth and nose, I think he liked the idea of me suffocating. I dreaded him being left to babysit. My pleas were not heard. I warned him that last time. I told him I would tell what he was doing and he LAUGHED AT ME! He said 'GO ON THEN!' I am not sure if that was what he actually wanted, maybe he thought that would make me think it was so trivial it wasn't worthy of a mention. Whatever he thought, I don't think he really believed I would tell. I did though.
My mum's friend was there with her in the living room and upstairs my new brother did something to annoy me. Just something usual, general bullying but I marched downstairs and told my mum that he kept 'Getting on top of me' and then, all hell broke loose!
There was shock and disbelief. I had to explain what had been going on and then the police came and they asked me questions and he admitted that he had done that last night BUT when I said he had done it before, he denied that. They were shocked because I was about 5yrs old or so by then and it was a long time since we had lived in the flat but they reeled when I said it had DEFINITELY happened there.
I had to be examined by the police doctor and though they now deny it, I had my fingerprints taken and I felt like I had done something pretty terrible, In all honesty, I thought he would get a telling off and that would be that. No. Next thing I know he is moving back to where he came from, his dad. Everything changed. His friend approached me one day in the street and asked me why I had said those things. I felt I was surely to blame. Mum said that it wasn't but she didn't tell me in a nice way, she spat it at me. 'Don't think he is moving because of you!'
Over the years I had to look at my grandmother with his photo peeping out from over her shoulder. They spoke about him like he had just chosen to live with his dad. I was regularly updated on his progress, asked to speak to him on the phone and eventually to 'forgive' him in line with my Catholic faith. He even came for a holiday one summer and I was given a heart wrenching account of his going away again. He had been begging to stay, to be given another chance and I was made to feel bad for not allowing him to move back in. All my life mum and my new sister spoke about him and his life as if I didn't matter. How he joined the army. How well he was climbing the ranks. How he had got married. How he had two daughters now. How he got divorced. How he remarried. How he now has a son. How he has heart problems. How he is camping out in the woods. How loved he is by my new sister. If I got upset, it was ME bringing ALL THAT back up again. And still it goes on, even today. My feelings are no important. My mum swings from feeling angry with him and disgusted. How her psychiatrist thinks she should forget he ever existed, because he is the personality type that would go on to abuse again (and yes, I have reported him to social services) to how she lost her son and wanting me to forgive her and ease her burden of guilt. My new sister is bitter towards me about him. She can't wait to talk about him to me and about her family, the one she left behind. Her dad died but her step mother lives on. They are all messed up. So am I.
That's the thing about abuse. Not only do you have to deal with your own emotions and learn ways to cope, you also have to deal with the reactions of those closest to you. They ask you to ease their guilt, comfort them, never blame them. They want the nitty gritty details of what happened. They want to know about how he dressed me up in my mum's clothes and how he used pornography and that I would need to play a part in his scenes. They want to know that so they can believe it but then they can trivialise it as a game that went wrong. They scorn the monsters they see on the news, the Jimmy Savile's and the pervs in the news but when it comes to him, he is on another level, they can't make these connections.
All in all I didn't turn out too badly. I lived. I made it through. I can still be kind and caring towards others. I am not bitter. At least I do try not to be. I am not even after his blood. It sounds like he is getting what he deserves out of life. It's catching him up. Some,like Savile ,don't even get that!
So, I tried a few years ago when I WAS in angry mode, to see if I could get some justice for the situation. It felt at the time like he had lived his life how he pleased with all my family loving him and begrudging me. I was in therapy, raking things over. I wanted to deal with it. All proper. Well, I got in touch with the police who told me A) No record of it and B) My parents dropped the charges and that was why there was no record of it. When I told them I remembered my fingerprints were taken they told me that didn't happen! Very 'sensitive' of them.
No though, guess what? I am JUST BLOODY TIRED. Tired of having to HIDE this SHAMEFUL SECRET. I can't go and shout out that this has happened to me. Half of my family don't know, hardly any of my dad's family know. I am still having to answer people when they ask how he is. I am still living in a shadow. I am still haunted by him and fear his very mention but also expect it from those I am closest to.
What can I do with the last nugget this abuser offered? That my own dad 'interfered' with him?! Would he lie? Why yes because I was about to tell everyone at his second wedding! Can I dismiss it as ridiculous. No, I can't and I can't because I was abused by my half brother and if he could do that, anyone could do that and they don't have labels on them. They are loving sons and grandson. They are funny, charming and endearing. They are 'normal' in the eyes of those they want to appear normal in. So, I don't say a thing and each time my dad's brother asks me how this low life scum is. I feel like I have been stabbed in the heart and try to give some sort of answer that will make him not ask me again. 'He's fine but we don't have much to do with him' . I get this when people ask me if I have brothers and sister too. It's horrible. Just awful and I know that they will always ask, forever and I just have to live with it. Deal with it. Get on with it.
Someone told me not to be bitter as it doesn't suit me. So, I will just a be good little girl. Like ALWAYS.
To be continued.
