I didn't intend to start writing this.
I dug out some sketchbooks from a few years back. When I looked through them, I felt like they just radiated pain. I hate to look back at the person I was. I get even more worried that I'm still that person. I spent so long in such a bad place. I acted out, I cried for attention, I wrote melodramatic prose and drew depressing pictures.
I felt, and still feel, that other abuse survivors are valid, but I'm just difficult. I don't know how people stood to be around me when I was younger. I'm sure I must have just radiated negativity. When I hear of other abuse survivors, they seem so dignified in their recovery. Was I doing something wrong? I didn't tell people what was going on with me; I just acted out and went in circles, hoping they'd notice what was happening at home. Instead, they must have just thought I was an obnoxious melodramatic girl, with nothing better to do. I feel the same way, writing this now. Why should I bother expressing how I struggle to deal with these feelings? There’s a risk that someone will come across this and think ' for god's sake - get over yourself,' or 'How long ago?'. That’s a risk I have to weigh up each time I disclose myself.
It's strange; that a survivor can develop such crazy tactics. I must have developed this persona to protect myself, and I do feel at war with myself. My body was traitorous. I wanted to be a child, and my body was sexual. It still makes me shudder with disgust thinking about it. My muscles are flinching at writing these things down; as though determined to close it all back inside. Some part of me is trying to keep me quiet. My body is traitorous, like I said.
I'm sure other survivors don't make fools of themselves. I'm sure they don't act out and make spectacles of themselves. I'm sure their tutors and work managers don't look at them with pity or annoyance. I'm sure other survivors must deal with this better. To me, they all seem brave and dignified. Their pain is valid, but mine isn't. If I ever came to terms with my own hurt, I'd have to lay down and cry and that would be too dangerous. I've come too far to do that. If I really took ownership of my feelings, I'm scared I'd cry and not be able to stop, because I'm supposed to be 'better' by now. But how do I feel I should have dealt with what I went through? I can't actually answer this. I just feel this constant sense of needing to justify to people that it's hard to go about your life when it feels like you're going mad. If someone close to me had died, people would at least understand the gravity of the situation, and I wouldn’t be ashamed of anything. I don't always want sympathy - but I do want people to acknowledge my grief as valid, and let me hurt publicly.
Rape is a sex crime, but however similar to a theft it is, is intimate and far more problematic. People still see it, in some way or another, as bad sex. People I tell feel uncomfortable, because like it or not, I was involved in a shameful sexual act. It takes two; and I was one of them. But do I really have to remind people that someone held me down?
There's nothing romantic about rape. But as a rape victim, it's easy to try to romanticise it. I think we’re trying normalise our experience. Rape is such a personal and intimate invasion, and if your rapist is someone you love and would trust with your life, the feeling of betrayal is phenomenal. It feels like all your boundaries are being crossed at once. Your body suddenly becomes 'the body'. It feels like you don't own it any longer. To stay associated with it during an attack would be madness. So you begin a process of peeling yourself away from it.
If I ever felt upset the morning after a bad nightmare, it'd be great to say 'I had a bad dream about my rape,’ and at least let people know what the matter was. Hiding it away and mumbling 'nothing', and having the hurt seep out in unexpected places is where it seems inappropriate. That's when people start saying 'she's melodramatic.' I loathe that word. I cried when a girl scuffed all my new erasers in class when I was small. If I could have said 'I'm crying because I got raped again last night,' I wouldn't have seemed half as melodramatic at the time.
I feel that melodrama is the price I've paid because society can't face what happened to me. People say that they feel uncomfortable by my rape, and that it's awful to hear about. I feel a surge of pity for those people, because if people can't even hear about it - then what would they do if it happened to them? How on earth would they cope? Who would they talk to?
Although far removed from rape, I’ve been interested in the public’s treatment of 9/11 survivors. Survivors, who for example made it out of the buildings, spoke of the sheer horrors before getting out alive. If that person then said that whenever they heard a fire alarm, they were paralysed with fear; or they had nightmares of the event; what would the public think of her? Look at the effort made in New York for these people, and the lengths the fire-fighters went through.
Could people listen with the same respect if a rape victim talked about how the smell of oil reminded them of the rapist’s hands, and could paralyse them with fear? How many viewers would sit and listen, and not change the channel?
I think it was wonderful that 9/11 survivors could talk about their experiences with the support of everyone in their lives. Mentioning that you've been raped, can often be met with fear, disgust or rejection, which can be devastating to a survivor. To be a rape survivor is often to live your emotional life in the shadows, constantly trying to appear normal while you're dealing with your grief on the inside. We do this out of fear for those people that feel uncomfortable with us and we fear our stories being rejected. I feel that rape deserves to be treated with respect like other traumatic experiences.
It’s common for people to want to keep us quiet, as I’ve said, because people don’t want to feel uncomfortable. I can understand this, but it is problematic as it amplifies the feelings of shame that naturally accompany rape. Many rapists tell their victims to shut up, and this reminds us of it. We weren't to blame for our attacks, and although we may know that rationally, it’s hard to believe it and not feel shame. When we’re encouraged to be silent, it can feel like being burdened with the responsibility and shame that should be the rapist's alone.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have, like 9/11, to get that simple public support to help us through the day. The difference it could make, to have people face it, would be staggering. Especially when you consider that one in three women has been raped. Coming back to my 9/11 comparison, people identified so strongly, because it was the whole world's problem. It could happen to you. People knew people in the buildings, and in the planes...
But who around you is a rape survivor? When did you last discuss it with them? Take a guess how many around you are victims, yet would never tell you? Think you don't know a rape survivor? Think again. Statistics show that one third of rape survivors never fully recover the trauma, because the level of trauma is so immense that they need to talk about it, and often, can't. If people would just understand that just by acknowledging someone's suffering, even if it means you feeling uncomfortable for a little while, you could change someone's world? Rape is a worldwide problem. It happens every second of every day, to all sorts of people, in every culture and in every country. It doesn't matter what gender you are, or what colour your skin is. It isn't because of religion, or the price of oil.
We need rape survivors need to speak up. We need to be able to grieve, talk and understand what happened to us so we can recover. Keeping us quiet for other people's comfort levels isn’t fair. It's also important for us to be openly acknowledged as survivors, not participants. So how about it? How about allowing us the dignity of grieving openly for being hurt?
I would love to see people proceed with the same attitude the world had for 9/11 survivors towards rape survivors. Imagine if the public proceeded with the same caring display as seen in New York? Would the government start taking as much trouble to challenge potential rapists, as they do chasing potential terrorists?
Where are our fire-fighters?
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Memoirs
Memoirs
My first memory, real or imagined, was being wheeled under an archway in my pram. I was later told that this might be from my first home in Wales as a baby. I like to believe it was my real memory, I think it’s pretty.
One of the times I remember being raped, I was sat up on a cold kitchen bench. There was spilt sugar against my bare thighs that scratched. There was stubborn oil on his hands, and I could always smell old spice mixed with sugar soap. That day, I was thinking of my toy pony with the green feathered legs, and wondering whether we could be seen through the tiny frosted glass window beside us. I always wondered about the family next door, worried they’d see. I was stinging amidst the chilled air. The sugar under my skin reminded me of the Princess and the pea story, and that I could feel each grain.
In those years, I loved to race my bike as fast as it would go. I would fly over curbs, speeding faster, then I would freewheel for metres at a time. Days like that, it would be sore to sit down, so I would stand up on my pedals. It made me feel higher; like flying. In later years when I horse rode often, I would continue to stand up in the saddle when I galloped.
I loved to go fast. I would go for compact adventures around the small town we lived in. I would hunt the different natural obstacles; at the shopping centre the curbs that separted the carpark. If you didn’t pick up enough speed, the curbs would stop your bike dead and you’d have to jump off before it toppled. Or along the roads; the town was quiet enough; and I would ride carefully like they showed us in our Cycling Proficiency at school. Except I passed that test on a horrible girls bike; purely for pretence. Not enough feminine influence for a girl being raised by a single parent father and a brother. So I rode the girls bike grudgingly.
But when I rode as myself, I was on my mountain bike. My bike before was my brothers hand me down, a blue and white BMX. One white wheel, and one blue. My bike actually went up curbs, not like my friend’s bikes. Girl bikes didn’t go up curbs.
Another early memory I have, is of sitting with my brother on the landing upstairs, holding the banisters, and just listening. There was shouting downstairs. Mum and Dad were arguing. Soon afterwards, on my birthday, I continued to have Birthdays every day for a week. We stayed with Dad.
Visits become regular, and trips to McDonalds and the shops with a social worker. He bought us things, and asked us if we really want to live with our mother. I did, but I didn’t say it. Dad had already told us all about social workers. They were trying to take us away from him. We ate the food, but kept quiet.
Trips to Mum’s new house began to happen. My brother at first refused to go, so I went alone. She had a new husband and a new baby. I loved my new baby brother. I’d sit in the sandpit as I made daisy chains. I liked Mum’s new husband a lot. Mum’s new house was a bungalow, and I shared a room with my new brother. I’d line all my teddy bears along the bed beside me and kiss every one religiously before sleep. If the line was long, I’d have to kiss the first couple again, since they’d have gotten jealous by then. I’d eat marmite soldiers, and co-ordinate which toy ‘my little ponies’ came with me by rump mark categories.
Back at home, My Dad would keep the light beside my bed on for hours, making me tell him every little detail of my visit. Was my Stepdad there? I lied often. I liked my Stepdad. I’d say I hardly saw him at all. Or that he hadn’t been at the house at all. Dad told me he was a monster, but I was never convinced. I had seen too much evidence for myself. Seeing and enjoying my Stepdad’s company was a guilty secret. So were all the details of my visits. But Dad would still interrogate. I would be tired, and his teeth would clench. I used to space my father out, until my head felt fuzzy , and his face faded out of different colours. But when I refocussed, he was still there, still angry.
We were taught constantly of the enemy; the social workers, the courts. We rehearsed our lines. They were trying to take us from our Dad, leave him with nothing; “To wander alone for the rest of my life with nothing left to live for” he’d say.
I was often threatened with being sent to live with my Mum. I had to plead not to be, to calm my Dad. His anger would cool, to know that we would ‘rather die’ than live with Mum.
{“She wants to leave me with nothing.”}
(“I’ll never love anyone else. I love your Mum.”}
{“Would she take me back? One day we’ll be back together.”}
{“Should I try?”}
So life went on, and I knew how to lie about my visits, the right things to say to social workers. Our mother had left us, and didn’t care about us, we were told. She just wanted custody of us, to get back at our Dad. Our dad gave us other names to call her, and listened in on our phone calls. We sent back her presents and Birthday cards.
Around this time, I put my Mum on a pedastal. I had seen too much evidence of her to believe anything bad about her. I defended her when I could, when it wasn’t too risky. I thought she’d save me one day, if I was patient and loyal.
I was told later, that around this time, My mum had taken pictures of me in the bath. There was concern of the number of bruises and marks on my body. My Dad was often rough when he was angry. And me and my brother loved to fight like cat and dog. People were always telling me that I was 'in the wars.' These photos went in my file. I saw this legendary file later on when I was 13. It looked like a phonebook.
One day, I was at my Nan’s house, and my stepdad was there when my Dad had came to pick me up. I tried to leave the house, but my stepdad blocked the path. My Dad was outside, and both men were shouting at each other. I was scrambling; desperate to get to my Dad but I couldn’t get out. This memory has stuck as one of my worst. I had to get to my Dad. How dare they stop me?
I had an Auntie and Uncle, who weren’t really. They fostered kids, and I always wanted to be fostered by them. My Auntie would sing “Killing me Softly” around the house. She taught me to sing, and I made her sing “Tell Laura I love her” over and over, as I loved the story.
One Christmas we spent there, my Dad got angry at me and whipped me with a towel. My Auntie hugged as I cried about it all, and said she wanted to adopt me, and would I like to be adopted? Jokingly, she’d meant it, but I cried harder and wanted it desperately. I wondered how kids qualified to be fostered. But I thought I had a normal life, and it wasn’t messy enough.
Because I was never adopted, I thought my Dad wasn’t abusive, like the parents of the foster kids. He was just difficult, and I’d have to live with it. Dad was usually tired, and that made his anger flare. At this time, I was also being regularly abused, though my mind didn’t register it. And as much as I argued back to my Dad these days, I pitied him more and more.
I's decided that I wasn’t an abused kid, I had to just deal with Dad. I was taking care of my Dad in a strange way. He was becoming pitiful, childish in his thoughts, and paranoid. The world was against him, and he had nothing left but us kids he told us.
{“If they ever take you from me, I’d move to Spain and spend all my money on drink and drugs. I’d have a couple of great years before I died.”}
{“If you left me, I’d have nothing to live for.”}
I remember calming him, talking over his fears and uncertainties. I couldn’t leave him, he’d fall to pieces.
He would go to jail if anyone found out. {“They’d take me away. They’d put me in jail; do you understand?”} He also compared me to his girlfriends. He had a few girlfriends, and each I would cling to. But each he would stop dating within weeks.
{“She wasn’t you.”}
My visits to my mum were stopped to my horror. My Dad, Auntie and Uncle decided that the small visits I had with her, were emotionally damaging me. I was becoming difficult and argumentative. I answered back to my Dad now, and told him his irrational thoughts were idiotic. I protested, and kicked up fusses.
I’d sit on my hands in the passenger seat of the car. {“Did I hurt you?”}
“No, no... it’s ok. This is just comfortable.”
I watched a film once, where a man had said to rape victim, that “it didn’t happen if you hadn’t wanted it to.” I think this was a little idealistic, but I liked the idea. It was romantic.
Most days I'd feel desperate. It didn’t fade over time. I feel like curling up with this self loathing. Then, it turns to anger. It burns inside of me, and I feel defensive of myself. I can do anything, because the pain is constant and makes the simple things in life feel useless.
The rules and layers of my entire existence are like paper. Nothing but everything matters. I can do anything, all I have to do is try my hardest. I can't fail because I feel like I have nothing left to lose.
When I was told I’d won my court case, I cried. I was mad that I hadn’t faced my father in court. Of all we’d been through, he hadn’t had the decency to fight me face to face. My victory felt empty, incomplete. They had plea bargained, and dropped 10 out of the 13 charges.
One day, we were driving down the motorway, me and my Dad. I was 14, and visiting him. He played a Chris De Burgh song that he said reminded him of me and my brother. I’d always liked the Christmas song, ‘Spaceman came travelling’ by the same artist. The countryside was a blur alongside the car, and it was just me and him. We were Bonny and Clyde. I felt a deep protectiveness over him. It was me and him against the world. I was happy beyond words. I knew that he felt it too. I remember thinking, ‘If this was it and this car crashes right now... I’d die happy.’ My heart was high in my chest.
I was in a caravan in Mousehole, Cornwall when I heard my Auntie who fostered kids had died. I was talking to my real Auntie, and telling her about her. My Auntie stopped me, confused, and asked why I was talking in the present tense. I said ‘because she’s still alive.’
My Auntie shook her head, and told me she’d passed away. I was silent for maybe a few seconds, before I broke down in tears. My Dad hadn’t told me out of spite, and not even told me about the funeral that he had attended. I hadn’t even said goodbye.
I was stood with my family in our house. I went to the toilets, and I was bleeding. There was blood in my knickers. I was 10 or 11. I told my Dad, and he told me I’d started my periods. He went back into the room with all my family, and announced it to everyone. I nearly died of embarrasment as they congratulated me. I next started my periods when I was just about 16. I didn’t realise then, but he’d covered his tracks well. He knew he’d torn me.
{“The girls on my bus got me Valentine cards.”} My Dad told me one day when I was 12. {“I don’t know whether to follow them up or not.”}
I reasoned with him that he shouldn’t. I don’t remember feeling particularly worried or shocked. Just anxious. I just knew I had to persuade him not to date schoolgirls. I couldn’t even fathom that he might be hurting someone else other than me.
Repression, in my experience, feels like there’s a part of your mind that you can’t access. You can see it, see the information, but you have no emotional connection to it. If it was a sum or puzzle, you’d stare for ages, but not register what it was even asking of you. I spent years looking at my experiences, and trying to find excuses for my emotional outbursts and depressions. Still, I couldn’t link them together. For years, I assumed myself still upset by my parents divorce.
When I was 17, and living with my Mum, I woke up one day, and thought to myself. “My Dad has been raping me.” Suddenly, a rush of realisation. So, that’s why I’d escaped when I was 13. That’s why I had felt low all those times. It was as if something in my head had clicked. Until the click, none of this had seemed possible. I knew what had been happening to me, but, I hadn’t accepted it. I had thought I wasn’t an abused kid. I could look at the facts in my head, but not make sense of any of them.
I thought that my Dad was just difficult. Foster kids seemed lucky, whereas my situation would just have to be endured.
There was a second click to come however. Next, who to tell? What to do? I told my best friend first, sat in my bedroom. She didn’t know how to react. I felt a quell of fear, as I realised my Stepdad might have been painting outside my door. He hadn’t been, I was safe.
I didn’t know how to tell my family. It seemed like there were no options. I’d hurt my family. There was no way out, I was certain. The area of my thoughts that should have presented options were dark and unreachable. It’s hard to describe. But I couldn’t think of an escape, my own mind wouldn’t let me, as if there were a wall there. I couldn’t think of a way out. This second click came along a month later. Then suddenly, like the first click, my mind was working properly. I have no way to describe it, other than how I’ve tried to.
I’d destroy my whole famillies happiness, I was sure of it. I told a couple of friends in my sixth form a basic truth; I had a secret that would do a lot of damage.
I thought I was selfish when I finally did. First, I told my brother. I cried when I told him. My words were strangely mechanical. “Dad was abusing me.” He made me promise to tell my Mum soon. The Mum I struggled to get close to in the first place, thanks to my Dad.
I did tell her the next night, and she hugged me and told me I was allowed to cry. I wasn’t used to this. Whenever I had cried, and even afterwards, she reacted badly, so I thought I couldn't express my emotions. When I was younger, I was devastated by this behaviour, thinking we had a bad relationship, and she was rejecting me.
She instead shows she loves me by being practical for me and by being strong when I’m struggling to be. I know she’s always done this. She was strong, and I understand she wanted to be strong for us all. This made me want to be just as strong. But it also made me feel like I couldn’t deal with things the way I felt I should. I felt guilty for crying. But I needed to cry oceans that I’d held back for years. I wanted to cry until there was nothing left.
I didn’t; or couldn’t. I don’t know which. I was hollow. A chocolate egg, with no prize inside.
My best friend eventually got sick of me. I had panic attacks because there was too many people at a party we went to. She made me feel like I was a bad friend for her. I believed her for a short time.
I started fuelling my anger into my writing and artwork. It was my salvation. I would be successful. I’d make up for everything.
Dad was in my dream a night ago. The dream made me wistful. It was precious as it was upsetting. The pieces of him I have left lay dormant here, in my mind. I will build the memory of him; as he has built me. In my dream, we were on a journey, the three of us. Me and my brother, being led across country. The countryside was lush and green. As we walked, we came across a burnt out old car. Dad was talking; always talking. Irrational ideas, thoughts. But we followed, regardless.
I think I’ll piece these moments back together. I’ll stitch them up tenderly. I’ll sew him back together carefully, and soothe his words that never made sense. I won’t just remember the good, I’ll remember everything he was, and I’ll build my shrines here. I’ll take the bad; rape, anger, too much love; because without all this, I’d be remembering a ghost.
But life is big, and he won’t be there with me. Once I lost my Mum and had my Dad, and now I have my Mum I've lost my Dad. Perhaps the trick is not to need anyone, because people come and go, and this is my life, and I will owe no-one for it.
So I’ll keep my Dad alive here in my heart and in my mind, although he's living somewhere now without me. He always told me I could do anything, and that I could be anything I wanted to be if I put my mind to it. I’ll be successful. I’ll conquer this. I'll make myself worth something.
So I’ll romanticise all of this. I’ll take this anger and I’ll use it to be strong, because my Dad always told me I could do anything. Out of all he ever said to me, that's worth remembering.
My first memory, real or imagined, was being wheeled under an archway in my pram. I was later told that this might be from my first home in Wales as a baby. I like to believe it was my real memory, I think it’s pretty.
One of the times I remember being raped, I was sat up on a cold kitchen bench. There was spilt sugar against my bare thighs that scratched. There was stubborn oil on his hands, and I could always smell old spice mixed with sugar soap. That day, I was thinking of my toy pony with the green feathered legs, and wondering whether we could be seen through the tiny frosted glass window beside us. I always wondered about the family next door, worried they’d see. I was stinging amidst the chilled air. The sugar under my skin reminded me of the Princess and the pea story, and that I could feel each grain.
In those years, I loved to race my bike as fast as it would go. I would fly over curbs, speeding faster, then I would freewheel for metres at a time. Days like that, it would be sore to sit down, so I would stand up on my pedals. It made me feel higher; like flying. In later years when I horse rode often, I would continue to stand up in the saddle when I galloped.
I loved to go fast. I would go for compact adventures around the small town we lived in. I would hunt the different natural obstacles; at the shopping centre the curbs that separted the carpark. If you didn’t pick up enough speed, the curbs would stop your bike dead and you’d have to jump off before it toppled. Or along the roads; the town was quiet enough; and I would ride carefully like they showed us in our Cycling Proficiency at school. Except I passed that test on a horrible girls bike; purely for pretence. Not enough feminine influence for a girl being raised by a single parent father and a brother. So I rode the girls bike grudgingly.
But when I rode as myself, I was on my mountain bike. My bike before was my brothers hand me down, a blue and white BMX. One white wheel, and one blue. My bike actually went up curbs, not like my friend’s bikes. Girl bikes didn’t go up curbs.
Another early memory I have, is of sitting with my brother on the landing upstairs, holding the banisters, and just listening. There was shouting downstairs. Mum and Dad were arguing. Soon afterwards, on my birthday, I continued to have Birthdays every day for a week. We stayed with Dad.
Visits become regular, and trips to McDonalds and the shops with a social worker. He bought us things, and asked us if we really want to live with our mother. I did, but I didn’t say it. Dad had already told us all about social workers. They were trying to take us away from him. We ate the food, but kept quiet.
Trips to Mum’s new house began to happen. My brother at first refused to go, so I went alone. She had a new husband and a new baby. I loved my new baby brother. I’d sit in the sandpit as I made daisy chains. I liked Mum’s new husband a lot. Mum’s new house was a bungalow, and I shared a room with my new brother. I’d line all my teddy bears along the bed beside me and kiss every one religiously before sleep. If the line was long, I’d have to kiss the first couple again, since they’d have gotten jealous by then. I’d eat marmite soldiers, and co-ordinate which toy ‘my little ponies’ came with me by rump mark categories.
Back at home, My Dad would keep the light beside my bed on for hours, making me tell him every little detail of my visit. Was my Stepdad there? I lied often. I liked my Stepdad. I’d say I hardly saw him at all. Or that he hadn’t been at the house at all. Dad told me he was a monster, but I was never convinced. I had seen too much evidence for myself. Seeing and enjoying my Stepdad’s company was a guilty secret. So were all the details of my visits. But Dad would still interrogate. I would be tired, and his teeth would clench. I used to space my father out, until my head felt fuzzy , and his face faded out of different colours. But when I refocussed, he was still there, still angry.
We were taught constantly of the enemy; the social workers, the courts. We rehearsed our lines. They were trying to take us from our Dad, leave him with nothing; “To wander alone for the rest of my life with nothing left to live for” he’d say.
I was often threatened with being sent to live with my Mum. I had to plead not to be, to calm my Dad. His anger would cool, to know that we would ‘rather die’ than live with Mum.
{“She wants to leave me with nothing.”}
(“I’ll never love anyone else. I love your Mum.”}
{“Would she take me back? One day we’ll be back together.”}
{“Should I try?”}
So life went on, and I knew how to lie about my visits, the right things to say to social workers. Our mother had left us, and didn’t care about us, we were told. She just wanted custody of us, to get back at our Dad. Our dad gave us other names to call her, and listened in on our phone calls. We sent back her presents and Birthday cards.
Around this time, I put my Mum on a pedastal. I had seen too much evidence of her to believe anything bad about her. I defended her when I could, when it wasn’t too risky. I thought she’d save me one day, if I was patient and loyal.
I was told later, that around this time, My mum had taken pictures of me in the bath. There was concern of the number of bruises and marks on my body. My Dad was often rough when he was angry. And me and my brother loved to fight like cat and dog. People were always telling me that I was 'in the wars.' These photos went in my file. I saw this legendary file later on when I was 13. It looked like a phonebook.
One day, I was at my Nan’s house, and my stepdad was there when my Dad had came to pick me up. I tried to leave the house, but my stepdad blocked the path. My Dad was outside, and both men were shouting at each other. I was scrambling; desperate to get to my Dad but I couldn’t get out. This memory has stuck as one of my worst. I had to get to my Dad. How dare they stop me?
I had an Auntie and Uncle, who weren’t really. They fostered kids, and I always wanted to be fostered by them. My Auntie would sing “Killing me Softly” around the house. She taught me to sing, and I made her sing “Tell Laura I love her” over and over, as I loved the story.
One Christmas we spent there, my Dad got angry at me and whipped me with a towel. My Auntie hugged as I cried about it all, and said she wanted to adopt me, and would I like to be adopted? Jokingly, she’d meant it, but I cried harder and wanted it desperately. I wondered how kids qualified to be fostered. But I thought I had a normal life, and it wasn’t messy enough.
Because I was never adopted, I thought my Dad wasn’t abusive, like the parents of the foster kids. He was just difficult, and I’d have to live with it. Dad was usually tired, and that made his anger flare. At this time, I was also being regularly abused, though my mind didn’t register it. And as much as I argued back to my Dad these days, I pitied him more and more.
I's decided that I wasn’t an abused kid, I had to just deal with Dad. I was taking care of my Dad in a strange way. He was becoming pitiful, childish in his thoughts, and paranoid. The world was against him, and he had nothing left but us kids he told us.
{“If they ever take you from me, I’d move to Spain and spend all my money on drink and drugs. I’d have a couple of great years before I died.”}
{“If you left me, I’d have nothing to live for.”}
I remember calming him, talking over his fears and uncertainties. I couldn’t leave him, he’d fall to pieces.
He would go to jail if anyone found out. {“They’d take me away. They’d put me in jail; do you understand?”} He also compared me to his girlfriends. He had a few girlfriends, and each I would cling to. But each he would stop dating within weeks.
{“She wasn’t you.”}
My visits to my mum were stopped to my horror. My Dad, Auntie and Uncle decided that the small visits I had with her, were emotionally damaging me. I was becoming difficult and argumentative. I answered back to my Dad now, and told him his irrational thoughts were idiotic. I protested, and kicked up fusses.
I’d sit on my hands in the passenger seat of the car. {“Did I hurt you?”}
“No, no... it’s ok. This is just comfortable.”
I watched a film once, where a man had said to rape victim, that “it didn’t happen if you hadn’t wanted it to.” I think this was a little idealistic, but I liked the idea. It was romantic.
Most days I'd feel desperate. It didn’t fade over time. I feel like curling up with this self loathing. Then, it turns to anger. It burns inside of me, and I feel defensive of myself. I can do anything, because the pain is constant and makes the simple things in life feel useless.
The rules and layers of my entire existence are like paper. Nothing but everything matters. I can do anything, all I have to do is try my hardest. I can't fail because I feel like I have nothing left to lose.
When I was told I’d won my court case, I cried. I was mad that I hadn’t faced my father in court. Of all we’d been through, he hadn’t had the decency to fight me face to face. My victory felt empty, incomplete. They had plea bargained, and dropped 10 out of the 13 charges.
One day, we were driving down the motorway, me and my Dad. I was 14, and visiting him. He played a Chris De Burgh song that he said reminded him of me and my brother. I’d always liked the Christmas song, ‘Spaceman came travelling’ by the same artist. The countryside was a blur alongside the car, and it was just me and him. We were Bonny and Clyde. I felt a deep protectiveness over him. It was me and him against the world. I was happy beyond words. I knew that he felt it too. I remember thinking, ‘If this was it and this car crashes right now... I’d die happy.’ My heart was high in my chest.
I was in a caravan in Mousehole, Cornwall when I heard my Auntie who fostered kids had died. I was talking to my real Auntie, and telling her about her. My Auntie stopped me, confused, and asked why I was talking in the present tense. I said ‘because she’s still alive.’
My Auntie shook her head, and told me she’d passed away. I was silent for maybe a few seconds, before I broke down in tears. My Dad hadn’t told me out of spite, and not even told me about the funeral that he had attended. I hadn’t even said goodbye.
I was stood with my family in our house. I went to the toilets, and I was bleeding. There was blood in my knickers. I was 10 or 11. I told my Dad, and he told me I’d started my periods. He went back into the room with all my family, and announced it to everyone. I nearly died of embarrasment as they congratulated me. I next started my periods when I was just about 16. I didn’t realise then, but he’d covered his tracks well. He knew he’d torn me.
{“The girls on my bus got me Valentine cards.”} My Dad told me one day when I was 12. {“I don’t know whether to follow them up or not.”}
I reasoned with him that he shouldn’t. I don’t remember feeling particularly worried or shocked. Just anxious. I just knew I had to persuade him not to date schoolgirls. I couldn’t even fathom that he might be hurting someone else other than me.
Repression, in my experience, feels like there’s a part of your mind that you can’t access. You can see it, see the information, but you have no emotional connection to it. If it was a sum or puzzle, you’d stare for ages, but not register what it was even asking of you. I spent years looking at my experiences, and trying to find excuses for my emotional outbursts and depressions. Still, I couldn’t link them together. For years, I assumed myself still upset by my parents divorce.
When I was 17, and living with my Mum, I woke up one day, and thought to myself. “My Dad has been raping me.” Suddenly, a rush of realisation. So, that’s why I’d escaped when I was 13. That’s why I had felt low all those times. It was as if something in my head had clicked. Until the click, none of this had seemed possible. I knew what had been happening to me, but, I hadn’t accepted it. I had thought I wasn’t an abused kid. I could look at the facts in my head, but not make sense of any of them.
I thought that my Dad was just difficult. Foster kids seemed lucky, whereas my situation would just have to be endured.
There was a second click to come however. Next, who to tell? What to do? I told my best friend first, sat in my bedroom. She didn’t know how to react. I felt a quell of fear, as I realised my Stepdad might have been painting outside my door. He hadn’t been, I was safe.
I didn’t know how to tell my family. It seemed like there were no options. I’d hurt my family. There was no way out, I was certain. The area of my thoughts that should have presented options were dark and unreachable. It’s hard to describe. But I couldn’t think of an escape, my own mind wouldn’t let me, as if there were a wall there. I couldn’t think of a way out. This second click came along a month later. Then suddenly, like the first click, my mind was working properly. I have no way to describe it, other than how I’ve tried to.
I’d destroy my whole famillies happiness, I was sure of it. I told a couple of friends in my sixth form a basic truth; I had a secret that would do a lot of damage.
I thought I was selfish when I finally did. First, I told my brother. I cried when I told him. My words were strangely mechanical. “Dad was abusing me.” He made me promise to tell my Mum soon. The Mum I struggled to get close to in the first place, thanks to my Dad.
I did tell her the next night, and she hugged me and told me I was allowed to cry. I wasn’t used to this. Whenever I had cried, and even afterwards, she reacted badly, so I thought I couldn't express my emotions. When I was younger, I was devastated by this behaviour, thinking we had a bad relationship, and she was rejecting me.
She instead shows she loves me by being practical for me and by being strong when I’m struggling to be. I know she’s always done this. She was strong, and I understand she wanted to be strong for us all. This made me want to be just as strong. But it also made me feel like I couldn’t deal with things the way I felt I should. I felt guilty for crying. But I needed to cry oceans that I’d held back for years. I wanted to cry until there was nothing left.
I didn’t; or couldn’t. I don’t know which. I was hollow. A chocolate egg, with no prize inside.
My best friend eventually got sick of me. I had panic attacks because there was too many people at a party we went to. She made me feel like I was a bad friend for her. I believed her for a short time.
I started fuelling my anger into my writing and artwork. It was my salvation. I would be successful. I’d make up for everything.
Dad was in my dream a night ago. The dream made me wistful. It was precious as it was upsetting. The pieces of him I have left lay dormant here, in my mind. I will build the memory of him; as he has built me. In my dream, we were on a journey, the three of us. Me and my brother, being led across country. The countryside was lush and green. As we walked, we came across a burnt out old car. Dad was talking; always talking. Irrational ideas, thoughts. But we followed, regardless.
I think I’ll piece these moments back together. I’ll stitch them up tenderly. I’ll sew him back together carefully, and soothe his words that never made sense. I won’t just remember the good, I’ll remember everything he was, and I’ll build my shrines here. I’ll take the bad; rape, anger, too much love; because without all this, I’d be remembering a ghost.
But life is big, and he won’t be there with me. Once I lost my Mum and had my Dad, and now I have my Mum I've lost my Dad. Perhaps the trick is not to need anyone, because people come and go, and this is my life, and I will owe no-one for it.
So I’ll keep my Dad alive here in my heart and in my mind, although he's living somewhere now without me. He always told me I could do anything, and that I could be anything I wanted to be if I put my mind to it. I’ll be successful. I’ll conquer this. I'll make myself worth something.
So I’ll romanticise all of this. I’ll take this anger and I’ll use it to be strong, because my Dad always told me I could do anything. Out of all he ever said to me, that's worth remembering.
Why rape should be talked about.
“People out there must be told about the self-loathing that follows rape and how it's the greatest breakage in divine law to mutilate themselves, as I have done.” – Tori Amos
Rape should be talked about because silence kills people.
Rape itself causes shame, guilt and self-loathing. When a rape survivor is pressured by society to keep quiet, because it’s ‘not a nice subject’ for people to hear, this adds tenfold to the survivors shame. Shame that, the rapist should feel, not the survivor.
I want to talk about my experiences with rape for a number of reasons; I don’t want it to ‘win’, I want to show other survivors that they can pull through, I don’t want to add to the silence. I was disowned from my family because I was raped.
My greatest achievement in my life so far, is winning a rape court case. In my case, they gave me a 2% chance of winning, and that was after I actually managed to get my case past the preliminary hearings; where most cases are thrown out. I made 13 charges; out of which 10 were eventually thrown out as part of a plea bargain.
5% of rape cases are actually taken into court. 1% are convicted.
During trial you have to retell every scrutinizing detail of your rapes with complete strangers over and over again, and have your every word pounced on and made to seem like a lie, while they try to argue that you were a 7 year old lolita whore.
I only won my case by finding a childhood friend I’d told on the schoolfield when I was 9, and by her agreeing to testify. Then the defence went on to plea bargain.
People think that because rape is supposedly a ‘sex crime’, that it shouldn’t be talked about. It isn’t; it’s about power shifting; the idea is that the victim is left powerless.
I'm a rape and incest survivor. I lived in an abusive home for 13 years, until I was willingly kidnapped out of it. I lived with my father, a single parent and my brother. My Dad slowly grew more unstable, and I grew more responsible for him, often making simple moral decisions for him when he was unable to. We were close as he was emotionally manipulative, and I felt more and more like his parent. I ended up taking him to court when I was 17, managed to get my case through with no evidence, and the other girls that he'd hurt wouldn't stand up as witnesses, yet expected me to win the case. My Dad's family took his side and I lost most of them as they didn't believe me, yet had known all along what had been going on. The father I'd grown up with and loved more than anything, claimed in court that I was a lolita whore. I won with 2% odds with me, after a surprise witness from my childhood showed up. Still, the case had to be settled through a plea bargain, and 10 charges out of 13 were dropped!
I want to show survivors that it's possible to come through these experiences and still be strong. I want to speak out, as I've seen through friends who've shared similar experiences, that silence and shame can devastate people. And I refuse to add to that statistic.
Even after I destroyed my father's life, I'm sure he'd be proud of me. He always told me I could do anything, and I'm always going to believe that.
Rape should be talked about because silence kills people.
Rape itself causes shame, guilt and self-loathing. When a rape survivor is pressured by society to keep quiet, because it’s ‘not a nice subject’ for people to hear, this adds tenfold to the survivors shame. Shame that, the rapist should feel, not the survivor.
I want to talk about my experiences with rape for a number of reasons; I don’t want it to ‘win’, I want to show other survivors that they can pull through, I don’t want to add to the silence. I was disowned from my family because I was raped.
My greatest achievement in my life so far, is winning a rape court case. In my case, they gave me a 2% chance of winning, and that was after I actually managed to get my case past the preliminary hearings; where most cases are thrown out. I made 13 charges; out of which 10 were eventually thrown out as part of a plea bargain.
5% of rape cases are actually taken into court. 1% are convicted.
During trial you have to retell every scrutinizing detail of your rapes with complete strangers over and over again, and have your every word pounced on and made to seem like a lie, while they try to argue that you were a 7 year old lolita whore.
I only won my case by finding a childhood friend I’d told on the schoolfield when I was 9, and by her agreeing to testify. Then the defence went on to plea bargain.
People think that because rape is supposedly a ‘sex crime’, that it shouldn’t be talked about. It isn’t; it’s about power shifting; the idea is that the victim is left powerless.
I'm a rape and incest survivor. I lived in an abusive home for 13 years, until I was willingly kidnapped out of it. I lived with my father, a single parent and my brother. My Dad slowly grew more unstable, and I grew more responsible for him, often making simple moral decisions for him when he was unable to. We were close as he was emotionally manipulative, and I felt more and more like his parent. I ended up taking him to court when I was 17, managed to get my case through with no evidence, and the other girls that he'd hurt wouldn't stand up as witnesses, yet expected me to win the case. My Dad's family took his side and I lost most of them as they didn't believe me, yet had known all along what had been going on. The father I'd grown up with and loved more than anything, claimed in court that I was a lolita whore. I won with 2% odds with me, after a surprise witness from my childhood showed up. Still, the case had to be settled through a plea bargain, and 10 charges out of 13 were dropped!
I want to show survivors that it's possible to come through these experiences and still be strong. I want to speak out, as I've seen through friends who've shared similar experiences, that silence and shame can devastate people. And I refuse to add to that statistic.
Even after I destroyed my father's life, I'm sure he'd be proud of me. He always told me I could do anything, and I'm always going to believe that.
This may not be my skin...
I imagine myself submerged in water, deep beneath. I’m familiar with this weightlessness, this disassociation with real form. There’s factors keeping me apart, and I’m pressed in myself by this water, between these tightly packed molecules. But these fingers tap at me, and I feel their presence like morse code. Alarms {to wake me}. My world is rippled, and I can see the movement at the surface as I am pulled towards it. Severed light dapples my skin.
{Is this surfacing, I’m facing?}
I feel new born, yet I don’t have air to cry. My breath is still caught in my chest, and I feel torn from a deep dream. They’ve found my pirate transmission; {my place to go, when I can’t be here}.
I would submerge
{When I sink, I leave a stain}
If I sink;
I'll leave a name.
{Is this surfacing, I’m facing?}
I feel new born, yet I don’t have air to cry. My breath is still caught in my chest, and I feel torn from a deep dream. They’ve found my pirate transmission; {my place to go, when I can’t be here}.
I would submerge
{When I sink, I leave a stain}
If I sink;
I'll leave a name.
Capacity to trust;
What to do with love? Bottle it; give it airholes. Label it, analyse it.
Use it as your medicine or your poison. Put it on a dusty cupboard shelf. Hide it with your dreams.
I’m not clamping my silence between my teeth; I’m clamping my rape between my thighs. Am I failing to give my rapes space in my life? Do people not want to know such terrible things? It’s uncomfortable to hear.
But I didn’t change. People sometimes say that when they survive a rape, they find that they are in a way altered, and can’t find the person they were before. I don’t remember the first time I was raped. I’ve grown with the experience, it’s in my fibres.
I might have been a bitch. I don’t know my ‘before’ personality. Perhaps she doesn’t matter. My life will change me in many other ways before I die. I could look on my personality that never appeared like an abortion maybe.
In a lot of ways, I normalised the experience. I thought rape was nothing out of the ordinary. It was an uncomfortable experience that I struggled not to process.
Living without rape is difficult. There’s some aching piece of flesh in me that wants to be violated. No-one wants to change. Is some part of me like a computer? Reprogram me psychologists. Reboot me, wouldja?
How do you begin to explain being an 8 year old prostitue? How do I begin to get over how much I hate every cell of my body for it, still?
I still feel like a whore. How do I accept love and intimacy?
I would have given anything to be safe growing up. But I wouldn’t want to compromise who I am today. Perhaps I would have reached this persona eventually anyway. Maybe it’s like a relay race, and I picked up an early baton?
What to do with love? Bottle it; give it airholes. Label it, analyse it.
Use it as your medicine or your poison. Put it on a dusty cupboard shelf. Hide it with your dreams.
I’m not clamping my silence between my teeth; I’m clamping my rape between my thighs. Am I failing to give my rapes space in my life? Do people not want to know such terrible things? It’s uncomfortable to hear.
But I didn’t change. People sometimes say that when they survive a rape, they find that they are in a way altered, and can’t find the person they were before. I don’t remember the first time I was raped. I’ve grown with the experience, it’s in my fibres.
I might have been a bitch. I don’t know my ‘before’ personality. Perhaps she doesn’t matter. My life will change me in many other ways before I die. I could look on my personality that never appeared like an abortion maybe.
In a lot of ways, I normalised the experience. I thought rape was nothing out of the ordinary. It was an uncomfortable experience that I struggled not to process.
Living without rape is difficult. There’s some aching piece of flesh in me that wants to be violated. No-one wants to change. Is some part of me like a computer? Reprogram me psychologists. Reboot me, wouldja?
How do you begin to explain being an 8 year old prostitue? How do I begin to get over how much I hate every cell of my body for it, still?
I still feel like a whore. How do I accept love and intimacy?
I would have given anything to be safe growing up. But I wouldn’t want to compromise who I am today. Perhaps I would have reached this persona eventually anyway. Maybe it’s like a relay race, and I picked up an early baton?
{Pineapple}
You’d ask to be touched with love, but that’s too easy. Impact is not the scratch to and fro of spilt sugar on bare thighs. It is not the friction of a 12 year old girl against a kitchen bench. A scratch is a different form of impact altogether. A scratch is fleeting, a bitten fingertip.
It’s not because you want to die; it's because you can’t live. Because you look a little too much like your mother? It’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. You know that immediately. But if you hadn’t, you’d still be living dead. When it’s just you and the world, it’s on your terms. You want to think of yourself, and only yourself.
Are you selfish? Yes.
You look like your mother. You casually mention pineapple, and your sudden craving for them. Hospital food, right?
You don’t sleep, instead you lie awake and cry; waiting to live or waiting to die because they won't tell you which. You can rock, cry to yourself; but you believe you don’t deserve it. So you rock anyway, and cry, and hate your skin. These hospital corridors never sleep but just buzz with an unnatural schedule. You haven’t slept much at all. You’re feeling more alone than you’ve ever felt in your entire life. No-one stayed. That’s fine by you. (Except that you’re a liar.) Nothing will help, and just like a rape, no-one will talk about it.
A team of trainee doctors gather around your bed as though you're an experiment gone wrong. You hurt yourself because the pain was so bad that you couldn't face living, you mutter. They look at you hoping you'll shut up. You decide that you have nothing to lose. You might as well have a stupid, fun big career, because you feel so dead inside that nothing could get worse.
If you don't get yourself up, no-one is going to help you up.
Nothing in the universe will turn you the right way around again. The walls that pushed you out here were only flesh and blood. Suppose he’s an invert. Perhaps he was trying to understand his own creation that came from these walls he loved {never stopped loving}? Didn’t he once know these walls by heart?
Perhaps he’s jealous of your passage (through her womb, through her image). Is it confusing to see her travel across your face? What if he’s trying to know you inside and out?
In the morning, you’re waiting to be released. A little practiced smiling to a psychologist (she should know better) and they’re contemplating releasing you back into the day. The magical land of those willing; daring; or just too plain ignorant to consider not living.
If you want nothing of the word, then understand that it's very simple to switch and to want everything. Both require you to not care what happens to you. You are not strong, you are not brave, you're just a kamikaze pilot. You went to bed in that hospital wanting nothing, and woke up wanting the whole world.
She’s a survivor, your mother. She’s strong, but no matter how much she flashes in your eyes, that’s just blood, you’re just a chemical reaction that happened in her some years ago. You want to be strong like her, and impenetrable.
She smells like perfume you doubt you’ll ever wear no matter how your tastes may change with age. The scent belongs to her, she smells like a mother and you smell like a sleepless night in a hospital bed. The pink tracksuit she brought you makes your thighs look fat.
She’s brought you pineapple.
It’s not because you want to die; it's because you can’t live. Because you look a little too much like your mother? It’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. You know that immediately. But if you hadn’t, you’d still be living dead. When it’s just you and the world, it’s on your terms. You want to think of yourself, and only yourself.
Are you selfish? Yes.
You look like your mother. You casually mention pineapple, and your sudden craving for them. Hospital food, right?
You don’t sleep, instead you lie awake and cry; waiting to live or waiting to die because they won't tell you which. You can rock, cry to yourself; but you believe you don’t deserve it. So you rock anyway, and cry, and hate your skin. These hospital corridors never sleep but just buzz with an unnatural schedule. You haven’t slept much at all. You’re feeling more alone than you’ve ever felt in your entire life. No-one stayed. That’s fine by you. (Except that you’re a liar.) Nothing will help, and just like a rape, no-one will talk about it.
A team of trainee doctors gather around your bed as though you're an experiment gone wrong. You hurt yourself because the pain was so bad that you couldn't face living, you mutter. They look at you hoping you'll shut up. You decide that you have nothing to lose. You might as well have a stupid, fun big career, because you feel so dead inside that nothing could get worse.
If you don't get yourself up, no-one is going to help you up.
Nothing in the universe will turn you the right way around again. The walls that pushed you out here were only flesh and blood. Suppose he’s an invert. Perhaps he was trying to understand his own creation that came from these walls he loved {never stopped loving}? Didn’t he once know these walls by heart?
Perhaps he’s jealous of your passage (through her womb, through her image). Is it confusing to see her travel across your face? What if he’s trying to know you inside and out?
In the morning, you’re waiting to be released. A little practiced smiling to a psychologist (she should know better) and they’re contemplating releasing you back into the day. The magical land of those willing; daring; or just too plain ignorant to consider not living.
If you want nothing of the word, then understand that it's very simple to switch and to want everything. Both require you to not care what happens to you. You are not strong, you are not brave, you're just a kamikaze pilot. You went to bed in that hospital wanting nothing, and woke up wanting the whole world.
She’s a survivor, your mother. She’s strong, but no matter how much she flashes in your eyes, that’s just blood, you’re just a chemical reaction that happened in her some years ago. You want to be strong like her, and impenetrable.
She smells like perfume you doubt you’ll ever wear no matter how your tastes may change with age. The scent belongs to her, she smells like a mother and you smell like a sleepless night in a hospital bed. The pink tracksuit she brought you makes your thighs look fat.
She’s brought you pineapple.
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