Memoires of an Abuse Victim

Be warned folks, this is a long one.

This all started back some time around 1976 give or take, although from what I've been told it started even earlier than that before I was even born.  My parents had gotten married and were trying for a baby, although due to complications my mother miscarried twice and in 1978 I barely survived on the operating table after being choked to death inside my mother on an umbilical cord and coming out feet first.

The next few years were of blissful ignorance as my memories and language skills were still developing.  My first true memory was my first day at primary school as I recalled an argument taking place downstairs.  I started looking around my room taking in everything.  It felt like everything was new and had only just been put in place.  I looked inside an old dark wooden wardrobe and saw various clothes hanging inside it.  My thoughts at the time were "this is mine, this is also mine, whose are those?"  I looked at a pair of pink silken ballet shoes and an elasticated skirt that had a swimmer's badge sewn onto it.  Downstairs the arguing stopped followed by a loud slam of the front door.  That was when my mother came upstairs into the room and saw me staring at the shoes.  She quickly snatched them from me throwing them back into the wardrobe telling me not to put them on as I could break my feet in them and that I was going to be late for school.

This was the first of many memories that are still swimming around in my noggin'.  Anything prior to that my mind was numb to.  I knew nothing about how my parents were prior to this day nor what my half-siblings were like, nor did I know of the horrors they endured at the hands of said parents.  Some time around this memory they had all left home and were making lives of their own due to our 10 year difference and we rarely saw each other.

It was also some time around this memory that the assaults on me began by my father.  He developed sciatica in one of his hips however this didn't stop him from taking advantage of my innocence and both me and my mother were none the wiser.  I had no idea what he was doing was bad, I assumed this was something all fathers must do to their children.  I still loved him because he was my father and when I noticed how secretive he was being I too kept it a secret as I didn't want to get him into trouble.  It took maybe another 8 years before my mother finally had a quiet moment with me to ask me if he was doing something with me that he shouldn't.  He immediately came racing out of the bathroom when he realised we were talking but it was too late, the cat was out of the bag and her claws were freshly sharpened.

The next morning they were both downstairs dressed up, her in her best dress and him in his best suit.  I think they were their wedding clothes now I think about it.  She was holding an old leather bound bible in her hands.  I stood at the top of the stairs in my nightdress whilst she asked me if I wanted him to stay or go.  I didn't want him to leave despite all he'd done, so I said I wanted him to stay.  She made him place his hand on the Bible and swear an oath he would never touch me that way ever again.

A year went by and unbeknownst to me my mother suffered that entire year.  In the exchange of his promise to not touch me she had made a promise to give herself to him whenever he wanted.  However it was apparent she wasn't the only one who was giving herself to him and she contracted an STD and needed antibiotics and rest.  My father wasn't happy she was breaking her promise, so the assaults on me began again.  I begged him not to because I didn't want him to get into trouble, but he was unable to control himself and once again I kept it a secret.  I knew if my mother discovered it started again he would be kicked out.

Sure enough another year went by and she confronted me asking if he was doing it again.  I broke down in tears as he came to check on us and sobbed "why are you doing this to me?"  My mother screamed and hammered Hell onto him until he was out of the house.  Police were called that day and he was arrested inside his caravan that was parked on our driveway.  I was very unhappy that he was being forced to go.  I didn't know how I'd cope with just my mother raising me as I didn't feel I had that same connection with her since she often was too tired to give me much attention or too busy around the house.  I was also about to start puberty soon and this would have an impact on our relationship.

With dad out of the picture and me being forced to attend various sessions with child protection services and psychologists I started to withdraw inside.  I no longer wanted to be involved in anything, not even helping around the house.  I sort of resented my mother for sending my father away since I didn't understand, but I was also starting to see a side of my mother that sent cold shivvers down my back.  She was becoming more angry and more spiteful.  My lack of involving myself into her life and helping around the house was also causing her to become angry with me for not pulling my weight.  I just wanted to be left alone.  I was having enough problems as it was with school bullying for being neuro-diverse and hiding away in my bedroom so I wouldn't bump into said bullies on the streets.  I took to reading and gaming to help pass time and my mother was getting more frustrated and desperate that a wedge was forming between us and getting larger and larger.

Puberty hit and I started having mood swings and it was inevitable that all the pent up energy from bullying and mockery especially over my past experiences would eventually boil over.  You see, being neuro-diverse meant that I had trouble making friends.  I also had a mindset of how things should be and struggled to accept it when it all changed.  In the absence of friends to play with at school I took out to enacting scenes I'd seen in movies by myself and that drew unwanted attention.  The teachers were struggling to keep up with my constant demands for more work and wanting help with difficult equations that they decided to send me to a school for children with special needs in an attempt to slow me down and give the teachers a break.  When my parents found out what they'd done they went mental and demanded I be returned to normal school, but the damage was already done and those who knew about it weaponized it, earning me nicknames such as "Mental Mel" and "Psycho Mel."

Now I was being forced to see a psychologist who was trying to break me into having an emotional breakdown about what my father had been doing to me that nickname was being sealed.  I had already steeled myself from my experiences and accepted by that point that I didn't matter.  From what teachers had told me several times over because of the bullying there was "nothing they could do" and if I was to retaliate I would be the one to be punished instead.  I had spent a year in the previous school where every time I asked for help with my work I was told "well tough!", and nobody wanted to associate with me for being too weird.  I was fully broken, had concluded I had nobody but myself to rely on, and had built an impenetrable wall around myself, so no amount of sobbing in front of a psychologist would be enough to undo the damage done.

On top of all that my mother had also completely changed.  She was no longer the lady I used to enjoy making cupcakes with and picking berries together in the back garden.  She was now a bitter and fearful force where I had to really watch where I was treading.  She'd often come home exhausted from work and start arguing with me.  Some days I couldn't help but be snappy back and she'd come at me fists flying and leaving me sobbing in my room.  She described me as "being worse than my brothers and my sister put together" and that she used to call me the angry child when I was a toddler because I would leap onto her sore knees after she came home from work and glare at her with evil eyes.  One day however I came home when it had been raining heavily.  I pulled off my only jumper and hung it on top of a pouffe in front of the fire place then went upstairs to change into some other clothes.  At this point we were going financially broke.  Due to my fathers' sciatica he was getting a heavy disability cheque on top of her low-earning factory job that they could afford a mortgage and regular trips on holiday with 2 caravan clubs in the country.  Now we were just barely hanging on with her earnings that she was having to look at moving out into a rented home.  Any ideas of her spending money on new clothes for school were out of the picture.  I was down to 1 skirt that barely fitted and had a broken zipper, 2 shirts where one pulled in front exposing my bra and the other having once belonged to one of my half-brothers that I had modified to look like a girl's blouse, and this one jumper that had a hole in it that was starting to fall apart and smelled rancid.  I knew I needed to have it dry for the next day and that I could just wear one of the other blouses to school and the skirt itself dried easily enough overnight due to the material it was made from.

That was when mother came home.  At some point between me going upstairs and her coming home the jumper had slid off the pouffe and was now a heap on the floor.  I could hear her loudly cussing about the weather outside, and then I heard her say even more louder so I'd hear it "and you couldn't even be bothered to hang your jumper to dry!"  I stopped whatever I was doing and started to shake.  I knew if I answered back I'd be in trouble, but she had accused me of something I hadn't done and I couldn't let that stand.  "But I did hang it up" I replied.  "No you didn't, you just dumped it on the floor.  I had to hang it up because you couldn't be bothered to!" she responded, the anger building up in her voice.  "Mum, I just came in a few minutes ago and put it on the pouffe" I replied.  I was now so nervous I could feel my body tense up expecting her to scream and come at me.  "Are you calling me a liar?!!!" my mother shouted.  I turned around halfway down the stairs and decided to go back to my room.  "No, but I did hang it up" I muttered to myself.  "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!!!!!" my mother's voice screamed out.  By this point now I was exhasperated and beyond caring what I said anymore.  "Is your deaf aid not turned on?  I said no but I did put it there!" I shouted back.

My mother screached like a banshee and bolted up the stairs.  I raced into my bedroom and locked the door.  I suddenly jumped as the door knob started to rattle frantically and then the wood started to buckle with a loud thunderous and cracking noise as she threw her weight against it repeatedly.  Her voice was now in a low and loud growling tone as she yelled out "DON'T YOU LOCK YOUR DOOR IN MY OWN HOUSE!  OPEN THIS DOOR!  I WILL BREAK THIS DOOR DOWN!  IF I HAVE TO BREAK THIS DOWN YOU'LL BE IN MORE TROUBLE!"  I was crying and looking around frantically at what to do.  I tried barricading the door with a dresser and started to think about jumping out the window to get away as the door was starting to give way and the dresser was lunging forward each time she bounced against the door.  I looked down below my window.  There was a high privet bush to the left, but I had no idea how to get down if I jumped or if I might miss it.  Directly below the window was a concrete pathway that if I didn't land on the grass or missed the bush I'd likely hit the concrete and break a leg.  I began pulling covers off my bed and looking at how to use it to climb out the window.  I wasn't any good at rope climbing though and there wasn't anything sturdy that could carry my weight to tie the sheets onto.  I opened the window wider and started to climb onto the window sill.  My body started to shake and my fear of heights took over.  There was no way I was going to be able to get out this way.  The only other way out for me was through the bedroom door and the banshee behind it was waiting there for me to unlock it.  I choked on my tears knowing the punishment would be more severe than it had ever been and that I may not get out of it alive.  I side down from the window sill and nervously pushed away the dresser from the door and turned open the lock.

No sooner had I done so than a purple faced banshee burst through the door and grabbed me by my neck with one hand and punching my face with the other.

DON'T

*bash!*

CALL

*bash!*

ME

*bash!*

A

*bash!*

LIAR!!!!!!!!!!

*bash*

I tried to talk in the midst of her brutal rage and my sobbing.  "I'm not calling you a liar!  I'm just saying maybe the jumper fell down when you came home and you picked it up?"  My mother screached once again, grabbed me by my hair and dragged me into the tiled bathroom.  She pulled me up against the wall and started to repeatedly slam me against the wall, my head bouncing off each time.

"DON'T CALL ME A LIAR!!!! DON'T CALL ME A LIAR!!!!" she repeated over and over.  I felt something scrape against my head and my eyes turned to the side.  My head was millimeters away from being impaled against a metal toilet roll holder sticking out of the wall.  My eyes widened in fear that I screamed out in panic "MOTHER!!!!"

She slammed me against the wall a few more times before letting out a load roar and as I crumpled to the floor in tears cowering and holding my head that was now in great pain whilst repeatedly saying "I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!"  She stood there for a moment seething through her teeth before going downstairs and putting on her coat and demanding that I followed her.  She walked me all the way to the nearest social worker, my face red and swollen, my head crackling in pain, and a constant flow of tears soaking my shirt once more.  I was told to wait outside and after what felt like hours the social worker had talked her into not giving up on me and offered to drive us back home.  She tried talking to me too about my mother needing me but I was too caught up in fear and how much pain I was in to listen.

The experience made me too afraid to ever say anything wrong or to even argue with my mother again.  I was only a few more years away from being able to leave home and find a place of my own.  I just had to stick it out until then and then I would get out as soon as I possibly could.  In the meantime I would avoid her as much as I possibly could.  I wouldn't approach her for anything nor ask for anything.  I would back down every time she started to argue.  I would spend as much time away from home whether it meant hanging out in the park, staying late at school, watching nearby workmen working on cars near the school, or hanging out with the bus inspector and listen to his tales about his daughter and grandkids.  I'd look for any means to get me out of the house as often as possible including paper rounds and working for Avon.  I would drag my feet to and from school and if it was PE day since because my PE kit no longer fitted me and I couldn't approach my mother to ask her for a new PE kit I'd avoid days when we'd have PE class.  I even joined a religious cult as both a ways of finding healing and to get away from her.

For years I thought about those experiences and was in a conflict within my head.  I knew my father attended the army as a child after faking his age and witnessed his brother die at sea.  I attributed his behaviour as part of PTSD and that hadn't I encouraged it that he wouldn't have done those things to me.  As for my mother I felt that I was the demon child who should've died on the operating table to have saved her the trauma of raising me by herself.  For 30 years I believed this until one day I thought about it and concluded that even if I encouraged anything my father's decision to do what he did was all on him, and also how the hell could a young child know anything about that kind of stuff anyways?  His actions were inexcusable and I was not responsible.  I still felt however that I was a demon child for making my mother suffer and for not helping her as a teen and that had autism been recognised and diagnosed much earlier she might've gotten extra help in raising me and that we'd have had a far better mother and daughter relationship.

At least that was until recently when 13 years after my mother's passing and since I last spoke with my half-brothers and sister I discovered I was not the only one to have suffered at her fists of fury.  At first I was shocked that she too beat them senseless as children, then followed by me being angry at them for having knowingly left me in the hands of 2 abusive parents without alerting anyone what was happening.  I had been punishing myself believing I was the only one who was being brutally punished because I was the nightmare child to raise who deserved it and wishing I had never been born for all this time and relying on my husband and online friends to help prop me up as I poured out my heart over my experiences and how much I was messed up by it.  But what was more worse was when they asked me not to share my experiences over social media because it brought back too many hurtful memories for them and that they had my back and I just needed to talk or text them next time I wanted to discuss my experiences.

They had my back????!!!!  And what about my feelings, did they also not matter either???

They hadn't spoken to me in almost 13 years and prior to that another 10-15 years.  I had talked my husband's ears off time and time again in our 23 year-long marriage and confided with many other online friends who also had terrible experiences during their upbringing and now these guys were trying to silence me and tell me they had my back all this time?!!!

I

was

furious.

I wasn't only furious with them having left me to a fate of abuse knowing full well what was coming for me, but to claim they had my back was an insult to both me, my husband and my online friends who've been more of a family to me than they ever were.  I decided to let them know that in less angry terms and disassociated myself from them until a point that I'd feel ready to talk to them again.  My husband doesn't blame me for deciding that and so do my online friends, in fact they've fully backed my decision to disassociate myself from them.

Fuck

them

all.