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I'm not sure exactly how old I was when the abuse first started. My parents were separated and from an early age I spent most weekends and school holidays at my Dad's place. He was very controlling and sadistic. We used to have to change out of the 'dirty' clothes from my mother's and there were unusual rules to follow. His house was always immaculate. We weren't allowed to talk to each other or play, so we'd often spend our days sitting on the couch in silence. The t.v was on but we wouldn't speak. Sometimes I was allowed to read or draw, but other times I would be 'punished' cruely for those same activities.
In contrast, my mother was unpredictable and 'absent'. She loved us and we had a lot of freedom to play, but she struggled with her own mental health and traumatic history. She considered herself to be somewhat of a gypsy or a free spirit; by the time I was nine I had lived in as many houses. That's the age that the turmoil really began for me. My step-father left her for another woman. My sister was two months old. Two weeks later our house burnt down to the ground and we barely escaped with our lives.
My mother had several breakdowns and I became her confidente and her care-taker. Sometimes she would go out "for a couple of drinks" and just not come home for weeks. I would try to cover for her, dropping my youngest siblings off at day care on the way to school and lying about where she was. We had a few short stints in foster care, but when we were home I was in the parenting role.
I think these different roles are a contributing factor to where things got a little muddled for me. I lived in two entirely different worlds in each of my parents houses, and then I went off to school where I thrived ... I hid the extreme darkness that I was living with, and I believed that I wasn't really as good as people thought I was. I was terrified people would find out who I really was.
And who was I really? I was a little girl. A little girl who had several predators in her immediate family.
This photo was taken right after my nan's husband had sexually assaulted me in the garage downstairs. He used to play rough games, and part of the 'game' was to tell him when it started to hurt. Usually he'd laugh after I said, "Stop," and continue hurting me for a few more seconds. This time he didn't stop.
I was sexually abused and raped repeatedly most weekends for the next five years. My dad would take me to the horse stables where his 'friends' would take turns alone with me in an empty room. I don't have a vivid recall of exactly what happened in that room most times, but I remember walking out with a thick buzzing in my ears and a foggy kind of weight. Sometimes my dad would give me money in front of them all and they'd laugh. I have always loved horses and find there's something really healing about being around them; but to this day I fight back an instinctual terror from the smell of hay.
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| My first horse, Mouse. I treasure the journals my maternal grandmother left for me. |
When I was 12, I had a friend staying over at my Mum's house. We were getting ready to watch a movie when my Dad showed up drunk. My Mum let him in. He pulled out the phone cord and sat with us while the movie played. I don't think I watched a single second of the movie. We were all going to bed and he still refused to leave. I lay awake on the top bunk listening to him rape my mother. A rage came over me. I was so incredibly ashamed that my friend could hear what was going on. I can't remember how I got from my own bed to my mother's room, but I flew at him and told him to get the fuck off her. I never went back to his house again, and he never showed up drunk again.
A couple of years later, there was a new boy at my high school. He was sitting by himself outside of the basketball court and he seemed completely miserable. My friends thought he was a little weird, but I felt sorry for him. By the time I realised that their instincts had been right, I was in too deep and didn't have the skills to navigate safely out of that relationship.
He would talk obsessively about things that really disturbed me; massacres, weapons, suicide, murder. I remember sitting in his bedroom trying to pretend I wasn't scared while he played with one of his knives. It reminded me a bit of the 'mind games' from my childhood.
I planned carefully how to leave him, and I broke up with him in a public space at school. I had been reaching out and had the support of teachers, friends and a counsellor. He continued to harrass me. I'd had a restraining order out on him for about nine months when he ambushed me outside of my own home with a group of his friends. I was 17.
I don’t know what you think at a time like that. I remember the silhouette outline of the tree, the way the bricks looked from that angle ... the realisation that there was blood pouring from somewhere on my face ... the sound of my own heart thumping in my head. There was a hose connected to my front tap, and they used it to hose me down with water. I think I thought that would be the end of it, but someone had found my keys in my bag. They let themselves into my house, and forced me inside. I was gang raped.
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I barely survived, not only the rape itself, but also the year following. I escaped to another city, but in doing so I also removed myself from any support system. You would think that after a violent trauma my body would have been incapable of conceiving, but a few months later I found out I was pregnant. I can't say I chose to keep the baby because by the time I realised, it was kind of too late to make any other decision. I can't say that I was excited or that I really came to terms with the idea of being such a young mother, but I was scraping by. I was working in a child care centre, I was pretending I was okay, I was making new friends ... But I was numb. I was barely exisiting. I didn't tell anyone from home about being pregnant because I was ashamed and I was afraid my rapists would find out.
One afternoon after work I was standing at a bus stop and a complete stranger, an elderly man, looked at my swollen belly and then at me. He cleared his throat and spat at me. Muttered something about babies having babies. I didn't say a word; that brief moment in time just solidified all of the shame and self-blame that I was carrying around. It was maybe a week later when I started experiencing cramps and pain at work. I went into premature labor and my son passed away a few hours after he was born. If you can imagine all of the invalidating things that could possibly be said in a time of grief, it's probably something that was said to me. The girls I was living with even 'helped' take down the nursery before I was home, and reminded me constantly that it was probably the best thing that could have happened given the circumstances. Hello years of therapy and an inability to speak openly about my grief!
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Despite
all of this, I have the most amazing life. I'm blessed with a supportive husband, two amazing children, incredible friends and a career that I am extremely passionate about. I'm sometimes not sure how I managed to get to such a positive point in my life; I used to believe that this was in spite of my early history, but I'm beginning to realise that it's maybe because of it. Each time I share parts of my story, I tell it a little stronger ... I'm a little more comfortable with my own vulnerabilities and a little less ashamed of the things that were done to me.
I share this now as a way of being more transparent, of working through my trauma with a different lens. I'm trying to come to terms with my own fragility; my own imperfections and weaknesses. Our experiences can break us, at times they do ... but if we can find insights or understanding from those experiences it can also be breathtaking, empowering and humbling.
