When I was 12 ...

There was never a clearly defined ‘end point’ to my dad’s abuse. There is no clear memory of the last time I was at his house. I never walked out of that door thinking that was the last time it would ever happen. I don’t remember the last time I was raped by him. I don’t remember the last time he took me to the stables for other men to rape me.

But there was an end.

It came unexpectedly one night. A random knock at the door, interrupting the sleepover I was having with a new friend from school. We were supposed to be watching a movie, but in came my dad. Drunk. Making himself at home even though my parents had been separated for close to a decade. I saw the moment it dawned on my friend, something’s not right here.

Could anyone read my face? He pulled the phone cord out of the wall and the message was clear. There would be no calls for help. There would be no escape. This was a hostage situation. Nevertheless, the movie kept playing. We sat there, pretending it all away, but the storm was not to be pacified. I don't remember it all. He sat right next to me. Leered all over me. Took my glasses off my face and stretched them over his own. After several hours of palpable terror and him dominating the show, my mum somehow convinced him that the rest of us needed to go to bed. I lay there quietly on the top bunk, knowing that my friend could hear the violence happening across the hall as well as I could. Silent hot tears of shame and rage, and then a sudden snap. I was not me. I was not in my bed.

An abrupt awakening to a part of myself I had never known existed. I flew at him. Lunged, attacked at him from behind. I don’t know exactly how, but I pulled him off my mother. A small 12 year old girl who’d starved herself for years had somehow been possessed with enough physical force to stop him mid-rape. Mid-rage. My fury was bigger than his. I wanted to hurt him. Wanted to kill. He took a step back and we both stood there in that dark room. He no longer loomed large. His face read like a mix of shock and anger and a registering. Was this the first time he had ever seen me? I told him to get out, to leave now. Did I spew out a string of other words, or did they just stay in my head? How long did we stay there, staring each other down before he picked up his clothes and left? I don’t remember, but just like that, he was gone and the front door was locked behind him.

I never went back to his house.

Yet, I carried the fear with me as I stepped into this uncertain freedom. Who could trust that it would be as easy as that? That I wouldn't be forced back there somehow? I could never let my guard down, never fully believe that my world was a safe place.

***

Around the same time in my life, I became quite intrigued by mythology from various world regions.  I discovered a well-known Greek myth, the story of Persephone, Demeter and Hades. There are many variations of the story, but here is the one that resonated with me then: 

Demeter, the goddess of harvest, had a beautiful and precious daughter, Persephone. One day, the young Persephone was playing with the daughters of the Oceans on the fields of Sicily when she beheld the most enchanting flower she had ever seen. The narcissus had been planted there as a trap, and it attracted her away from her guides. As she stooped down and plucked the flower, the ground opened underneath her and Hades, the god of the underworld, charged violently out of the chasm on his four-horse chariot. Persephone shrieked as Hades snatched her up with one arm and deflowered her, leaving the plain scattered with flowers of every colour as he dragged her away to be his wife in the underworld for all eternity.

Only Helios and Hecate, the three-faced goddess, hear Persephone's cries. Persephone is shortly made queen of the sunless world, but grieves for her flowers, the sun, and her mother.

Distraught and desperate, Demeter searches high and low for her daughter. She travels to the farthest corners of the Earth, searching for nine full days and nights without ever stopping to eat, drink, bathe, or rest. Rain and snow fall and the winds howl as she bewails the loss of her daughter. Finally, on the tenth day, the goddess Hecate tells Demeter that Persephone had been carried away to the underworld.

Demeter Mourning for Persephone (circa 1906) by Evelyn De Morgan

Enraged by the news of Persephone's abduction, Demeter declares an indefinite leave from her duties as the goddess of harvest and fertility, with devastating consequences. It is at this point in the story that Demeter realises her full strength. She will not relent until Persephone is released. The Earth turns into barren wasteland, and people are starving everywhere. Reluctant to see the Earth he rules wither away, Zeus sends Hermes, the messenger god, down to the underworld to order Hades to let Persephone return to her mother's earthly domain.

Before leaving the underworld, Hades tricks Persephone into eating some seeds of a pomegranate, the mere act of which binds Persephone to the underworld. This means that she will now be obliged to spend a part of each year there. Demeter embraces her daughter upon her return and restores earth's fertility, but when the time came for Persephone to return to the underworld, the earth became colder and less fertile. Seeds, like Persephone herself, are buried underground. In the Spring, Persephone reemerges and the Earth's crops come out into the sun once more.

The Return of Persephone (1891) Frederic Leighton

At its most fundamental level, this is a story about a mother who will stop at nothing to protect and retrieve her beloved daughter. Initially powerless and inconsolable in her grief, it is Demeter who does something never seen before in Greek mythology when she dares to defy the will of Zeus. Not only does she live to tell the tale, but she very nearly wins the battle.  I think for my 12 year old self, this story represented a wish ... for my own mother to rise above and have the ability to seek out, love, parent and above all, value me. I wanted someone to keep me safe.