Todays diet
Porridge
smoked salmon
makrel with broccoli sprouts, mixed spouts and avocado
5 htp, niacin, multivit berroca, chlorella, flax oil, cod liver
Mood; Exhausted, Tearful, pale, paralysed, Outlook. Blank
counselling
accupuncture
1 mile walk
http://www.bathitservices.co.uk

Recovery Day 15732

its been nearly 3 years since i blogged. trying to recover from sexual abuse has thrown me off track for some time and yet here i am again lower than Ive been before but wanting so much more to stick to my recovery.

i got lost, stuck in relationship with someone who was very controlling and then into another that was abusive and at the height of my battle with alcohol (and his).

A refuge in bath, a new home, and nearly tow years of being single, and 3 years on from these last entries I'm slowly and so very painfully back on track
Ive found a great counsellor Sarah, she's so there and in it with me, i feel hopeful that i can start to really face and address this tragedy and change the legacy of my abuse from being that victim to being a survivor with strength hope and success.

2 weeks ago today i contacted the police. its finally come to a catastrophic conclusion that my birth mother was so most definitely complicit in the abuse. He sexually abused me, but she most definitely chronically neglected me and her failure to provide a duty of care to me resulted in the abuse starting, continuing for over 10 years, and her failure to notify any services in order to protect me from further abuse. The police are coming to see me soon to take my statement

Mathew, my brother who I have been entranged from for the last 3 years is now back in touch. He is willing to to talk to the police and witness my statement. My father, although he does not fully understand is somewhere on the ladder of support. I have been abstinent from alcohol over the last year except for the odd, panic binge, but i have not used it all this year or last for any kind of social prop. It has been significant in my recovery as Alcohol has just been a way of delaying or not facing the sadness and pain that it so suppressed within me. Today I am a co dependant, survivor or child sexual abuse, a recovering alcoholic and diagnosed with PT SD. Yesterday was my lowest point, crawling on my hands and knees just to take a pee, and truth is i would of rather wet my self than get up but lying in a bed stinking of piss when my son came home from school wasn't the ansa.. so i crawled. Ive prayed a lot over the last few weeks and the only thing that dropped out of the sky was the CHILD SAFETY SEAT WITH SIDE IMPACT PROTECTION patented by none other than my step father, bold as brass, on the Internet.... still I'm trying t see it as a gift, when it forced me to vomit and vomit at the thought of him touching and abusing another child, it felt like a stake in my heart and that he was screwing his heels into my forehead and smiling that venomous smile that he would and always be able to get away with everything and that no one could ever have anything over on him. it felt like he a found a way to dig and twist that knife in further and deeper, pouring in the insult and lying there powerless to do anything but vomit.

I'm to exhausted to write anymore, other than to document a plan of self care to fight with this paralysing state I'm in.

Hey Dad - "We have a new name"

I know that until the age of 36 (since I went into recovery) I didnt feel that I had the right to like my dad, my real father. I felt like I had to feel the same way that she did. She hated him and she always let us know that, she let us believe for a lifetime that she hated him and she never once encouraged our relationship with him. When we first moved out of the family home we went to my grandfathers and a new school. Within months we became the W******* (step fathers surname) much to our dads disgust. We just thought it was a new name and I don’t even think that we were ever consulted and neither were we sat down and given a chat to say that we are no longer living with Dad and that we would only see him weekends, if we were it was just the once and we made to feel like we could not talk about it because Mum hated him so much and this new man “A*****” was the answer to all of our prayers. He paid her so much attention and she didn’t need her children. I don’t know why she just didn’t let dad have custody. She never wanted us. Not only to I feel that but and know and she confirmed it to me when I was 34. Every weekend that we went away either every other or every third we were parked in the hallway or sent outside on the pavement to await my dads arrival. She packed dirty clothes, clothes with holes in or shoes with holes in, or not enough clothes and sometimes non atall. This was her way of telling my dad that she hated him. She didn’t ever come face to face with him until I was 32 at my sons Party. I had never seem them in the same square foot in all those years. I hate the way that she hates my dad. I could punch her for that. I could punch her hard for that. What did my Dad ever do to her that was so bad, that we had to grow frightened to mention our Dads name in front of her. This was even last year, I only have to say “Oh Dads over and I am seeing him that weekend”. I know it totally screws with her and she cant stand the fact that she has lost control of that side of her life, but that is where my Dad has been a good parent. He never gave up on us, not like her.

How could I ever possible express my anger at being so badly abandoned to someone who totally denies her part in this. I went to court and A****** went to prison and publicly he has had to face some of what he did. He has faced the fact that what he did was an inprisonable offence and it is against the law ans in my opinion it is against humanity and it is cruelty to abuse a child. He abused me for over 10 years and I will never forgive him. It feels like the act of abuse I can get my head around in so much as the abuse made me feel sexual in the same way that I can feel sexual as an adult, however the effects of the abuse have dominated and continue presently to affect me deeply. Yet my mum, sitting pretty, pretending that she knew nothing of the abuse, never doing anything about the abuse, and know she thinks that she can become a counsellor. I find this really hard to comprehend that other people may one day sit in front of my mum with a story not that dissimilar to mine and that she will “feel empathy” for them. There has not been one emphatic bone in her body. There has not been one occaision in my entire life that she has ever approached me independently to say that she is sorry or how does she think about how I cope each day in my daily life. We have never got to that point because she has always said on so many occaisions pre prison of my step father “you just want to ruin my life” and post prison “I have had my therapy I have done horse shoe, and I have dealt with this”. If you have got stuff to deal with then deal with it and I am not going to take anymore. I am not going to listen to this anymore. Isnt it about time you got some counselling.
She has never been the understanding mum. She has never taken the time to find out how it feels for an abused child. Read books, ask questions, talk to me, use her intuition to look at her own life experience and impart some knowledge, to look at a deeper understanding of her own life to realize that she had a lot to do with the abuse. Certainly the length of time that it went on for and certainly for the way that it was dealt with. This is what has caused so much of my pain.

What I feel is really really f****** up now is that she is training in her third year i believe to be a counsellor - it makes you wonder. It makes me wonder how strong denail can be.

Shaming & Blaming - I didnt need parents to do that ,..I did/do it all myself

The guilt and shame of what he did to me permeates my world. The inner, deep feelings that It is my fault and I am in serious doubt as to whether that it will ever leave me.

How many times did I manipulate him to come to me and how many times did I “enjoy” the abuse. “That hurts so much to say that out loud. How could I enjoy something that was going to wreck my life, my relationships, my understanding of the world, destroy trust and every day struggle with who I am. The dysfunction that it has caused for me leaves me empty, numb, feelingless and loveless.

Everyday I feel like an abused child, the overwhelming sadness and literally the rivers I have cried. Always tears. It Never anger, although that has started to change, but still always tears. Fear of saying what I feel stops me from living. It has stopped me from being an adult. The abuse silenced me for 10 years whilst it went on and when I spoke no one helped me, and then the silence went on for another 25 years. No-one saw what I went through nobody heard me, other than I was just making up another childhood story. I wasn’t disbelieved but no body realised the effects that would take their toll, nobody cared. It was like I was just an invisible waste of space.

I went through my life with no support as the only thing that was important to me was that in the darkness of night he thought I was special and that dominated my daily life. I was going to be ok because he cared about me. I can see from the outside looking in how distorted this is, but this was my world. They didn’t care if I came first in a race, they didn’t care If I made it into the senior lacross team, they didn’t care if I was failing at school, they didn’t care that I was getting bullied, they didn’t care that my exam results were shit, they didn’t care for my further education, they didn’t care that the family had been distorted and ruined by the abuse. He cared if I stayed out to late. He cared if I had a boyfriend, he cared if I came home late from school, they cared if I wanted to stay at my friends houses all the time, they cared that I didn’t want to bring anyone home, they cared when I got into trouble with the police and they cared about themselves. They didn’t care about my relationship with my dad, my dad who was kind and always distressed that we didn’t care about him, they didn’t care about my relationship with my brother which was non existent, they didn’t care that I had another family, cousins, nans and granddads, they didn’t care about all the pornography that was left lying around the house, they didn’t care that they made me do unreasonable amounts of housework, they didn’t care that the housework became before my need to do homework or my needs to be out playing being a child, they didn’t care that I had to be an adult when I needed just to be a child, they didn’t care to see if I was ok after an argument, they didn’t care that I was just left alone in my bedroom to cry feeling like I was never good enough, they didn’t care to wipe my tears when I was in trouble. They cared if I hadn’t washed up properly, they cared if I didn’t get the dinner done on time, they cared that my free time was spent cleaning and tidying.

My needs were not met as a child. My mother was never kind to me, no cuddles, no stories, no games, no playing dolls. She never tucked me in at night and never made me feel secure. She never told me how to wash or take care of my own hygiene – that was all left for him to do. I had to have baths with him, he used to pull me back so I had to lie on his penis, and he used to wash me and watch me and tell me off if I didn’t do it “properly” .

I had no privacy growing up or any respect for my space. I was never allowed to lock bathroom doors or toilet doors, he would inevitably come in when I was using either. I still struggle to day to lock bathroom doors. I feel wrong and that I am invading others space by locking myself in. My bedroom door was never allowed to be shut it was always kept ajar, I guess for noise reasons at night and again just not allowed privacy, as if I had nothing to hide. I always felt so humiliated being seen naked by him especially and by others in the light of day, At night time it didn’t matter, because I became someone else. At school in the changing rooms even from being a really young age I repulsed at getting undressed in front of anyone, I still feel the same way today. I feel exceptional hateful of my shape body and ashamed of my nakedness. It feels really unnatural and even in long term relationships I keep clothes on until the last possible moment.

When we were on holiday in Italy I was tormented by him not to wear a bikini top as all the women were topless and anyway “you have nothing worth hiding” these kind of comments broke me inside and my mother never did anything to help or protect me.

I don’t remember starting my periods. I don’t know when it happened – there was certainly no celebration or chat that no this is the time when if I have sex …pregnancy chat or what ever. If fact I never received a chat about sex and education, yet at aged sixteen I had already had sex with my step father and was now at this stage having sex with my boyfriend. I in fact out of spite went to my mother and asked if I could go on the pill and the response was “what on earth for” she then told my step father and then I was banned from seeing him and he then seemed to be around at every possible moment, finishing work early and being around after school to make sure I was home and behaving.

It makes me wonder how I did feel as a child, because every day without fail we would sit down together as a family – generally with a meal that I organized (possibly pre cooked by mother) – and we would all sit and have a meal together – the normality of that yet with all the dysfunction underlying and all behave like the abuse wasn’t happening, and during the day and the days that it didn’t happen, it felt like it wasn’t happening, so just seeing that I can see already as a child I knew how to numb out and not feel and pretend and lie. It makes me see how little I valued my relationship or lack of relationship with my mother and I can see her face at the dinner table red and angry looking at me and then shouting turn your fork the right way, squash your peas on with something else, take your elbows off the table, sit up straight and more often than not it would be followed by a smack around the head. She used to hit me a lot, mainly around the face or head. I was always lying about something or other and always got found out. I was always trying somewhere to seek her attention, always phoning her at work and telling on my brother that he was being bad to me or that he had hurt me. She would return from work annoyed and inevitably I would receive a dose of her temper and physical strength. I remember so many times so many many times lying on my bed or being in my bedroom wondering why she hated me so much or I would be seething that I really hated her. Once I told her when I was 27 about an incident with a hammer that I wanted to hit her with unitl she died and from that she deduced it was no wonder that she wasn’t fond of me and that it ruined our lives because I was evil, nothing to do with the fact her filthy husband was abusing me sexually, nightly. This was the time when she told me that she never really loved me. It was no wonder he found it so easy to abuse me.

Only 4

I have spoken about this situation so many times and yet have never really looked at just how powerless I was. I was no more than 3ft high. I was a tiny innocent little girl who knew nothing of how these events would eventually end up nearly destroying me and never had any concept of the far reaching effects on myself, my family and those around me. As I lay there in the bed in one moment I was an innocent pure angelic trusting child and the next I had become a victim, a sexual toy, a liar, a fraud, disconnected and severely confused adult. My childhood lasted for a little under five years. When I compare that to O***** now aged 7 he still doesn’t understand the world around him, perhaps he wont ever as he will hopefully get to live in childhood well into his teens due to his Autism, Yet I would imagine that children of his age or his peers are just starting to understand the world around them. Yet my world was now filled with darkness, rules of going to bed with no knickers, late night visits from a disgusting, hairy giant that was stealing my life and I had no idea that I needed to tell him that it was very wrong what he had done and what he was doing.

That night – the first night. I was wearing a white cotton nightdress with a picture of a little girl on the front wearing a big bonnet and carrying a big basket filled with flowers. I was lying on one of the twin beds in my grandfather’s room. He must have been sat on the bed but I can’t see him in my mind, I have got my eyes open and I am looking at the ceiling, everything seems so vast and I can hear his voice telling what do to. “lift your nightie up Angie, I can remember the shame, I can remember feeling shy because I was lying with my nightie around my waist and he just sat there for what seemed an age. He asked me to move my legs apart. He just sat there smiling at me and stayed there for ages. He reached out and touched me and it sent me into my body feelings shooting all over the place, feelings that I had never know existed. Suddenly he was gone, my nightie was pulled down and the covers thrown over me. I could hear him out on the landing then down the stairs, 13 steps. I counted. Then I counted 13 again, he was back upstairs the door was opening and I shut my eyes quickly, I sensed fear and panic, I was so petrified, so scared, the covers were pulled back. He said again lift your nightie, I didn’t move – so he did it, Move you legs apart he said it twice – I didn’t move he did it. And then he touched my vagina that I didn’t even know existed! He just kept rubbing it and rubbing it. I felt like I was going to wet myself. It was starting to feel nice. It felt realy good. He kept saying over and over “Is that nice Angie, is that nice Angie.” I started to press back on his hands and I complied with everywhere he moved me. He lifted me up and put a pillow underneath my bottom, and then he put his head in between my legs and pushed his tongue out. I think some urine came out. He moved the pillow. He pulled my nightie down, pulled the sheets back over me. I heard rustling and thru the slits of my shut eyes his took off the pillow case and put the pillow somewhere. He left the room and left me there alone in the dark, feeling shell shocked but at the same time I felt so very special. He gave me some one to one, some time, some love, some touch, I felt like I had just come alive and this was to be our special thing. I wanted more.

That was the first time. I often wonder when he left the room was it because he was it because he was having second’s thoughts. But as I wrote this something feels familiar about hearing my mum’s voice and maybe he was just checking that the coast was clear.

I don’t ever remember my mother ever putting me to bed and tucking me in before or after this event. I know why I dont remember and thats because it never happened.

Cant Turn Back Time

On the outside
Don’t want to look in
Don’t need to look in
All that is there is numb

Walking down the street
Panic arises, as people stare
I thought I was invisible
They are laughing at me

Friends don’t exist
Love doesn’t exists
The abuse just lives on a on
Why was it me that has had everyone taken from her

Lost my self
My image driven mother
My fearful scared lonely brother
My dad to scared to hold me
My Step Father, "the Monster" sails happily into the sunset

Cant feel
Cant dream
Cant move on
Cant be happy
Cant ever turn back time

Only alive for 4 years
I sat on his knee and he promised
He was here to take care of me
Ive been dead ever since
He lied

From the NSPCC

NSPCC Ref 1-3VBL5
Dear Angela,
Thank you for your email to us here at the NSPCC; it has been forwarded through to us here at the Child Protection Helpline.
The comments you make are very pertinent and obviously we share your concerns about children knowing that they have rights and can not be touched for any reason.
Obviously what you refer to is of national importance and we see that you have copied your MP in to this email. We think that such a scheme needs governmental responses so you have sent your email to the correct person.
I have included the helpline for the National association of Children Abused in Childhood (NAPAC). This is a helpline specifically for people who have themselves been abused in childhood and they are very good.
They can be contacted on 0800 085 3330 or via email, mail@napac.org.uk
I hope you call or email NAPAC as they are very good at helping/signposting people on the issue of abuse.
I hope this email has helped.
Good luck and please if you need any other information or responses then please email us again.
Kindest regards
Tim Townsend.