Abuse in Childhood

The story starts, however, not with a child but with an adult. My car was stolen, taken for a joyride and pretty much destroyed. Laughably, the boot of the car was full of items for a car boot sale, everything from clothing to jewellery, some of it quite valuable, yet nothing was missing.

The police told me that they had picked up and followed the car probably within minutes of its theft but while they pursued, the thieves took it off road (it wasn't that kind of car) and 'ramped' it off a 20 foot rise in a field. I was told it was quite magnificent, my car sailed into the air majestically before nose-diving to the ground. The youths inside it escaped on foot and have never been apprehended for the crime.

You might wonder what this has to do with my subject, let me explain.

Has your home, or a friend's, ever been burgled? If so then you might understand the violation that act represents. What you may not realise is that for any individual who has suffered at the hands of others in their past, such an act against you is doubly a violation. You are hurled back into 'victim' mode, and so it was with me.

I wanted to hide. I wanted to retreat into some small dark place and make the rest of the World go away. Why me? Why is it always me?

I thought I had dealt with all this inferiority complex, lack of self-confidence, poor self-esteem stuff. I thought I had got over it years before when all my pain had been blasted to the foreground after my father's death.

It wasn't his death which was the shock, I knew he had little to live for, even though he was still relatively young when he died and, technically, it was an unexpected death. No, it wasn't his death which blasted open the doors to that dark place

The telephone conversation had gone like this ...

My brother - I'm afraid I have some bad news for you, are you sitting down?

Me - yes.

Him - Your father died.

Me - When is the funeral?

Him - Yesterday.

I don't remember what the rest of the conversation was but it was short. My mind was reeling. I think I asked how my mother was. After coming off the phone I swore a lot. I banged my head off the wall to try and stop what was going on in there. I didn't want to look at it but I had no choice.

It may occur to you that my brother's choice of words was interesting and, I have to admit, over the years since I have occasionally wondered if his referral to my father as 'your father' has any significance. Is there something I don't know about his paternity?

No-matter, I wasn't the only person to be snubbed over my father's funeral, his own mother was still alive and wanted him to be buried, or at least his ashes placed, in the family grave; my mother saw to it that his ashes were simply scattered in the garden of remembrance at the crematorium a million miles from my grandmother's wish.

There is a larger question looming and it takes us backwards in time.

I have not used my birth name for forty years. I left home at the age of 17 years, changed my name and tried to put everything that had happened in those seventeen years behind me. Of course, it doesn't really work that way, I know that now, but at the time it seemed like the only thing to do.

At the age of fourteen, I came down the stairs in our house and started walking towards the kitchen. My mother was having a conversation with my cousin's wife and her (my mother) back was turned to me. She was telling my cousin's wife that my birth had been a big mistake, she hadn't wanted any more children and as she rambled on about this 'regrettable error', she must have seen the look of horror on the young woman's face as she spotted me over my mother's shoulder.

I caught the younger woman's eye and shrugged nonchalantly, as much as to say 'I always knew this', the almost daily beatings told me as much. My mother turned, saw me beginning to walk away and laughed.

I can't begin to tell you how this cut me to the core. That was the day I decided I would change my name as soon as I got the chance. I would refuse to be the daughter of this heartless woman.

But it was not the beginning.

I can't speak of how I was treated before the age of 4 years but I can remember very clearly that when I was younger than 4 my aunt (my father's sister) came to look after me while my mother was in hospital for a series of operations on her varicose veins. Why does this memory stand out?

My aunt took me to the park most days when she was looking after me. She made me daisy chains, a bracelet, necklaces and a crown of daisies as we sat one the grass. She taught me how to make a daisy chain and she told me I looked like a princess.

It was all a totally new experience for me. Her eyes were beautiful when she looked at me. She was kind, considerate and smiled a great deal. I was happy.

And then my mother came home.

About that time, my mother's parents came to visit us. They lived many miles away and we rarely saw them so they brought gifts. The gift to me, inscribed by my grandmother on the flyleaf with 'To XXXXXX, June 1956', was Grimm's Fairy Tales. Not a new book by any stretch of the imagination, it must have come from a second-hand bookstore or perhaps a church jumble sale but that didn't matter. The book had illustrations by Arthur Rackham, some in colour and many in silhouette form throughout the pages. I couldn't read but I loved the book, the silhouettes in particular fed my imagination.

The gifts were given just before my grandparents left to go home and, later that night, I overheard my mother telling my father that the book 'was far too good for the likes of her'.

I slept with it under my pillow.

In my room I had a small cupboard which held my few toys and even fewer books. During the day, I was packed off to nursery school and often couldn't find my beautiful book when I got home so I would ask and eventually my mother would find it and give it to me. I didn't know at first where it was but, as the months passed, it became clear to me that every time the book disappeared it was being found in a large cupboard in my brother's room.

So, one afternoon in March of 1957, when I returned from nursery and my book had disappeared yet again, I complained to my mother about but she was in no mood to tolerate me so I was told to go away, she wasn't going to look for it.

I went to my brother's room and opened the cupboard door and there, sure enough, on a shelf high in the cupboard my book was to be seen next to his Bible and other books. It was far too high for me to reach, there was no way I could stretch my fingers to the height of the shelf.

The cupboard was in the corner of the room, an old, built-in cupboard with a substantial door. Right next to it on the adjacent wall was a window with a fairly low sill. Using the windowsill and propping myself up with the door handle, I managed (after a few painful false starts) to wedge myself into an almost flat position, partly supported on the shelf below the tightly packed books.

Even now, I could barely reach the book. Finally, after a great deal of effort, I hooked the tip of one finger over the spine of my book and pulled. The book and I landed on the floor and a cascade of toys, footballs, other books fell on top of me.

At the same time, the door of the cupboard flew back and there was my mother.

It began with her voice followed swiftly by her fists and after that the kicking. It went on for what seemed like forever until, eventually, she was satisfied and then she picked me up by the back of my clothing.

I wasn't crying, I had gone beyond crying sometime before the kicking began, during the fists stage of this episode. I could no longer cry, all that was coming from my throat was a clicking noise as my body jerked, fighting for breath. Now the neck of the top I was wearing cut into my neck as she carried me, face down, by that clothing. I couldn't breath, my face was getting hotter and hotter and it felt as if my eyes were about to launch from their sockets.

But she wasn't finished yet.

Once she had carried me in this way to my room, she raised me to shoulder height and slammed me to the floor. I don't remember hitting the linoleum.

How long I lay there, I can't say, but when I awoke it was dark, everything was quiet.

And that was when I saw my first 'Angel'.

I can't say how long I lay unconscious but when I came to she was in the window. I thought she had come for me, I wanted her to take me away, I moved.

In that one movement there was searing pain. I had tried to lift my head and the pain caused t to fall back to the floor. The lino where it came to rest was ice cold so I sought out, with my cheek, the exact spot where I had been lying before, it was warm. Next, I realised that I had wet myself. I was lying in a puddle which extended to my midriff. I passed out again.

Sometime later I came round for the second time. It took an enormous effort but finally I managed to drag myself to the small rug by the bed and , from there, eventually I pulled myself onto the bed and passed out again.

Morning eventually came.

I must have been covered in bruises, I heard my mother telling my father that I wasn't well and later I heard her say something about not sending me back to the nursery because it would be 'Easter soon and she goes to school after the Summer anyway.' I don't know how long I spent confined to my room but from then I spent an enormous amount of time on my own there.

Thus began my misery.

I was terrified of my mother and it wasn't long before a young male relative picked up on that and used it to his own advantage. 'Mum says' became words which struck fear in my heart and to avoid her wrath I would have done anything but I didn't understand what was being done to me.

I was (just) four years old and it began as a game. My mother was out at work all day during the week and I was left alone at home with instructions to stay in my room, except for bathroom trips, of course. This was far from safe as my family lived in accommodation above a club and anyone with keys to the club also had access to the flat upstairs as there was no separating door.

When I heard someone downstairs, I would hide under my bed. I was never discovered. Laughably, I wasn't at risk from any of these strangers and if they had discovered me perhaps I might have been saved from what followed.

I was left in the care of this young male relative who was only there after school so most of the day I spent alone. The 'game' continued for the next couple of years and he invited some of his friends to join in this game. It involved me being blindfolded and my hands tied behind my back. Open your mouth and guess what this is. Of course, I never knew the answer.

I don't think I need to go into details, do I.

We moved from that property into a small house in another part of the country as my father had got a new job. My mother quickly found herself a job there too and, though I knew she would not be home when I got there, I was frightened of this place called home because of the terrors it held.

It would be no surprise to learn that I wet the bed from the age of three or four years old, I don't know when exactly that began, but let me assure you that the practice of hanging the pee-stained sheet out of the bedroom window to shame the child out of wetting the bed does not prevent a repeat of the incident. For me it was an almost daily occurrence.

That gave my young male relative, by now in his teens, all he needed. 'Mum says every time you wet the bed I have to do this.' So I was blindfolded, my hands were tied to the back of the toilet and he took down my pants. Afterwards he told me to wash myself.

I was seven years old and that abuse went on for over two years.

I used to rush home and, as long as I got there first, I would hide in a toy box in my room. While I was in there, I read the Bible by the light of the cracks in the wood, looking for some reason why this cruelty and misery was happening to me. He never thought of looking there. But I wasn't always successful, he had a bicycle and could travel the greater distance from his school almost as fast as I could run home, often faster.

In those days, my mother didn't have a washing machine, everything was washed by hand at the kitchen sink, tough stains being scrubbed out on the corrugated washboard. I remember seeing her scrubbing my pants with tears streaming down her face but I will never know who those tears were for.

Ever since the violence when I was four, my mother had been telling everyone that I lived in a fantasy land, that I was a liar, and she told me I was worthless, I would never amount to anything. She even referred to me as 'soiled goods'. Make no mistake, she knew what was going on and did nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. On a daily basis I was beaten and mentally abused and this continued for years.

I now understand that she didn't want me ever to tell the truth which would shatter her perfect illusions. She even told a neighbour, smugly, over the back fence that she had 'never lifted a finger to her kids', naturally, the neighbour knew better, after all, the wall between the houses was so thin that we could hear her setting the table for tea. I caught the look the neighbour threw me.

But that is why my mother told everyone such awful things about me. She hated and feared me because of the truth I held.

And she never wanted to lose control of me.

I thought I had dealt with all the pain and darkness when my father died. Since that day I'd had nothing to do with the rest of my family, no communication at all, even to the point of getting a solicitor's letter threatening court action to keep my mother away after the break-up of my (third) marriage.

Why did that one break up? Well, when your own husband says he has met your abuser and thought he was a nice man, it really does send you a message about your marriage. When your husband believes all the malicious lies told by a nasty, long-term alcoholic and gives you no credence whatsoever, then there really is no marriage to fight for.

My mother had been in contact with my newly estranged husband as a result of which he (having walked out on me, leaving me with the children) was trying to sue me, claiming he was entitled to alimony from me. I spent many sleepless nights fretting over what I would do if it ever came to a court case until I made a final decision.

I realised that the only thing I could do was to tell my truth, all of my truth, nothing but my truth and that it would not be easy because it would expose my mother's life as a sham, a lie pasted together by a woman who, even when I was four years old, kept a bottle in a brown paper bag (later hidden behind the flour in the cupboard) from which she took frequent sips.

Yes, my mother was an alcoholic, no it never came to court. I thought the past was dealt with.

Until my car was stolen and, as illogical as it may seem, the effects of all those years of abuse were right there on the surface yet again.

I realised that I needed to speak to someone, a counsellor, and I was lucky enough to find a phone number to call at just the right time.

The name of the counsellor doesn't matter, she wasn't using her real name anyway. We never met, we only ever talked on the phone, but she also sent me books written by others survivors of abuse and I was struck by the similarity of all their abusers to mine. The same excuses, the same threats, the same words used, the same guilt left with the abused child and soon I realised that it was the guilt I had carried with me all those years which had clouded my life and led to one failed relationship after another.

After many months of discussion with my counsellor, she told me that even now, I must report the abuse. It didn't matter that my mother was already dead, she told me 'you need to do this' and I didn't quite understand why.

The police made an appointment with me and I spilled it all out, including what I knew of an incident of sexual abuse which had happened with another young girl and my abuser, though I said it was unlikely that it had been reported at the time. They were very sympathetic and said they would speak to the male relative concerned but didn't hold out much help, unless he confessed.

Of course, he denied everything, and the police later told me there was nothing further they could do. They also told me that his wife had insisted on being at the interview.

But what no-one understood, apart from my counsellor, was that in that act of reporting abuse which had begun four decades earlier, I had handed back the guilt to where it rightfully belonged. It was the completion of healing I needed.

I said at the beginning that I left home and changed my name at the age of seventeen, I could take no more of the beatings and I feared for my life. Again, details are unnecessary and the story is long enough without them.

Two details I will give you. The first was an exercise I was given by my counsellor. Think of yourself, that child, tell what you see.

For me I saw a pale shadow of a child sitting in the centre of darkness, the nearest I could think of to describe it was like a bottle dungeon. She was like a moonshadow, pale to the point of transparency and her arms were wrapped around her legs, hugging them to her with her face resting on her knees.

It was a meditation of sorts, a re-familiarising myself with that child who was carrying the most awful burden, and over months, the walls of that dark place grew thin until they began to wear through and a beautiful place was revealed around me.

The day I spoke to the police was the day that pale child walked free and she and I were truly reunited. I was whole again.

The second is this. Do you remember that 'Angel' I saw? Well, when I recall that time of drifting in and out of consciousness, I do not see it from the point of view of being the child on the floor. Yes, I remember every little thing about that incident, I recall the pain, but when I revisit the scene, I am standing in the window, exactly where I saw my 'Angel' and I am oozing the compassion which , as a four year old, I felt.

I was lost, with help I found myself and, if you have suffered, you can do it too. I won't pretend it's easy, it is far from it, this is a rough road we travel, we survivors, but it is possible.

Others have walked this path before us and, most sad of all, others will come after us but we can all come out the other side better, stronger, more whole than other people because we have to find the ways to hold ourselves together.

Rape and abuses of every kind are all about power, confronting the abuser, even second hand through the services of the police force, hands back all the guilt that abuse left us with, the guilt which separated us from other children and marked us out, as well as might a neon sign above our heads, for the abusers who follow - and there's another tale we all know too well. Once abused, a child seems somehow to attract other abusers.

By reporting the abuse, we empower ourselves and it is our abusers who find themselves living with fear and guilt.

Know that you are not alone. You are not the only one, you are not 'different', the guilt is NOT yours. No-matter how much the abusers try to tell you it is your fault, it is their guilt, you did nothing to 'deserve' the abuse, no child in the history of mankind has ever done something which warranted such destruction of their future.

Abused children try to hide the abuse as they try to hide from it and what becomes buried under the weight is the child itself. What follows in life is a self-esteem of zero and a fear to try to excel at anything, shunning the centre of the stage because someone knows your darkest fears and could push that destruct button at any time. It can take years to understand in your heart that they can never harm you again, they are no threat to you.

You have the power to heal yourself, to find yourself and restore all that you were and should have been and, unlike those who have never suffered, you will emerge stronger, wiser, with greater understanding and more compassion than the average person can muster because you will be united in mind, body and spirit with the innocence of the child you were.

Never forget, you are a survivor.

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