Tag Archives: JD Stockholm

Strangers with Familiar Faces

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7

Sometimes I think of things to write about on here and then I don’t, I think I don’t want to sound as though I am depressed or only write dark kind of posts. I am not after pity, mostly support, and sharing my journey. I think sometimes I lose track of that. I post here to help me, but also to help those that might come across my words with the same issues. I know, realising  I am not alone and that one person understands means more to me than any form of sympathy.

So I think I lost sight of what I started this for and so have not posted many thoughts.

A few weeks ago, when the weather was great I had a barbeque at my house, it didn’t actually start that way, but it’s what it turned into. In many ways I am glad, what started to be something for one of my children became a day where lots of things happened for me.BBQ

For starters, I ate barbequed food. That’s huge for me. I love food cooked on a barbeque, but my OCD had stolen that from me and really it had been a good ten years since I have dared to enjoy food like that. I ate crisps with my hands (potato chips to my American readers).

I had people in my house and I didn’t watch what they touched, didn’t freak out internally every time someone wanted to use my bathroom. I didn’t freak out later that many people had used it and now I had to clean it.

I didn’t panic at my children eating food with their fingers. I didn’t panic when the children and friends took their empty plates and things into the kitchen or when someone other than me opened bread rolls or salad.

Maybe these are little things, but to me, these are things that would have sent me on some odd kind of anxiety day until I couldn’t breathe.

Perhaps though, the most important realisation was my father. I hadn’t seen him for the best part of a year, my choice really. He came with my brother and they sat away from everyone else. I talked to them and I was pleasant enough, but really, I didn’t fit there anymore. I didn’t want to. I realised that I didn’t belong with them. They were just strangers with familiar faces.

When he asked me how I was doing with my schooling I wasn’t afraid to tell him, maybe it was because there were a lot of people around and I knew that he wouldn’t belittle me then or maybe it was just because I’m happy and I wasn’t letting him spoil it.

Afterwards when he left and I saw him out, we stood around the front of my house and for the first time I looked at him, really looked at him. I thought to myself, I know what you did to me. That kind of thing has never crossed my mind before, I don’t know where it came from, but maybe that in itself was another achievement for me that day.

Think you know about child abuse? Hear it from the voice of a child.

by

5

Think you know about child abuse? Hear it from the voice of a child.

Free for five days.

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Little boy little boy,
Curled in a ball.
I know your secrets,
I know them all

I write in my journal as much as I can. I talk to Mr. Ted. He is my only friend. He understands when the bad man comes. He holds my hand when I have nightmares and my mummy doesn’t hear me cry. Mr. Ted doesn’t tell. He won’t say when my daddy hurts me. He keeps my secrets and my stories. I love Mr. Ted. He is the only one who loves me back.

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Innocence

by

14

For many years of my life I thought that what my father was doing to me, could not be classed as abuse. I was very confused by it. I really did think that I was bad or that there was something wrong with me. Abuse has and probably always is portrayed with a crying child being forced into something they don’t want and having no choices.

I would see these when I was younger and think, I am not like them, yet what I was going through was not really the same. Yes there were adults doing things with me that I knew were wrong. I was partaking in sexual activity with adults, and society told me that this was wrong. It was abuse. lady-and-the-butterfly

However, what would make me quiet was my part in it. My choices to go to my father and the fact that received pleasure from what he was doing. In short, I liked the abuse.

I couldn’t deny it, not even to myself. For so many years this rolled around my head, I must be bad because I liked what he was doing.  It wasn’t until perhaps two years ago when I had talked to someone, and she simply said, congratulations, your body works like it is meant to.

I remember the moment reading those words. I was shaking and I could hardly breathe, was it really true that my enjoyment didn’t mean I was like my father? That there was something wrong with me and I was as sick as them all?

The relief inside was so tremendous, because it had been part of my biggest battle.

Today however, I see someone that appears to be an advocate to stop child abuse and child trafficking, post a comment, that any child who enjoys sexual abuse has been turned away from God and become the antichrist. Whilst I am not religious, this kind of comment a couple of years ago would have been so devastating to me and I am sure others like me.

So today I felt like I should write this post and hope that maybe anyone who was where I was a few years ago, will realise, no matter what they enjoyed, they were not bad.

Alley Kid Fifteen

by

5

The moment before I open my eyes is the most peaceful. It’s when I don’t remember. It’s when I am awake for the first time, and everything feels right. But it is nothing more than a fleeting moment until my mind does remember, and everything crashes through my head. I am awake, and I am alive. Why am I alive? I don’t understand. I don’t want to be. I want to be gone forever where nothing can hurt any more. I don’t want to feel anything.

I curl myself up onto my side, wrapping my arms around my shoulders in the only comfort I know. In a childish move that I taught myself, I hook my feet around each other, and without thinking, I rock myself and push away the tears. I’m not supposed to be here. My chest heaves from the effort of not sobbing, but in a split second, my stomachs flips and my throat contracts; I realise I am going to vomit.

I scramble from the bed, almost falling as the sheets tangle between my feet and I half slip, half run, from the bedroom to the bathroom, as my body heaves and the contents of my stomach rises into my mouth. I try to keep my mouth closed and not let it out onto the floor. I can’t even think as I launch myself into the bathroom, and over the sink, and let everything out until I can’t breathe.

I turn the cold tap on in an effort to clean the stinking mess away, but my body has more. It retches and turns my insides upside down until there is nothing left to come out. I know this. I have been here before, with my mother and her vomit-inducing medication. She made me ill even though I had nothing to bring up other than the burning bile and stomach lining inside. But, she isn’t here. I grasp at the running water with cupped hands and shove it into my mouth, and down my throat, so there is something to bring back up.

I’m cold and shivering as I collapse on the floor of the bathroom, panting from the strain of so much vomiting. I grab one of the t-shirts from the washing pile. I don’t care if it is clean or dirty. It’s an effort to put it on; each movement causes my head to ache and my stomach to threaten another round of trying to escape. I have no idea what time it is or for how long I slept. I don’t even know why I am not dead. I drag myself backwards and manage to sit up and lean against the bath. I can’t stop the shaking, and my body is clammy and tired. I wish I could close my eyes and go away. Why do I never go away?

Joanne comes to the doorway with Colin and Angela behind her. I guess they heard me being ill. I try to look away from them. I don’t want to see them, and I don’t want them to see me, not like this. I’m such a failure in all ways. I can’t even end my own life. I should be dead, not here, and I can’t keep my bottom lip from quivering. I’m so disgusting I don’t understand why they don’t see it. It’s all over my skin. I try to make it go, but it never does. I can’t even make me gone.

“Are you sick?” Joanne asks me, keeping her distance.

I would too if I was her. I don’t answer her though, not that I can. As I try to nod my head, my body crumbles at the movement, and everything spins again inside. I hold my breath, wondering if I should try to get to the sink, to the toilet, or if it will pass.

Colin gets passed Joanne and comes to me. I wipe my watering eyes and mouth. He shouldn’t see me this way. No one should.

“Shall I call work for you?” Joanne asks.

I work behind the bar at a nightclub in town on the weekends.

“What time is it?” I ask her. Perhaps I will make it.

She tells me it is 5 p.m, and I know they I won’t be alright in five hours, not like this, but I hate to lose money. Its two days worth of phet money, but I don’t have a choice. I just nod and ask for my cigarettes. Colin goes to get them, and when he comes back, he takes one from my pack, lights it, and gives it to me to smoke. How pathetic I am, that a seven-year-old boy must light my cigarette for me.

I take it from him, but it tastes bitter in my mouth. The action of inhaling threatens to make me gag once more, but I persist. I hold it all in and keep myself still. I don’t say anything as Colin takes a cigarette for himself from my pack. I don’t approve of him smoking, and he might not be my son, but he is still a child. Unfortunately, I don’t have the energy to argue with him.

“Leave me alone,” I say to them.

They stand, gawping; there is nothing they can do for me. Joanne takes Colin and Angela. She shuts the door behind them and leaves me to it. I lean against the side of the bath as my head swims between awake and asleep. I try to tell myself to get up and secure the bathroom door so no one else can come in.

I click the lock over eventually, but I can’t make it back to the bath. I just lie where I am. I can hear them in the other room, laughing, joking and watching television. I let myself sleep on the bathroom floor until someone knocks on the main door. My heart sinks as I listen Joanne greet my father and invites him in.

I cover my ears with my hands. Perhaps, if I can’t hear him, it is not real, and he is not here. But, Joanne knocks on the bathroom door and tells me my father is here. I mutter something, but I don’t think she hears it. She tells my father I have a stomach virus and have been in there all day.

“I have to nip and get some milk and bread,” she says to him. “Do you mind staying here while I go in case he needs anything?”

My father, the fake Samaritan, says yes, and I try to curl myself into the corner away from him, even though there is a door between us. I wish he would just leave.

Joanne leaves and takes Colin and Angela with her; a chance to stock up on alcohol and cigarettes for them, to. I listen as they all leave and the front door locks behind them, leaving me with my father. I know he is on the other side of the door. I feel him, but he doesn’t move. Maybe he is waiting until he is sure they are gone.

He knocks on the door as I expected him to, and calls my name.

“What are you doing?” He asks me.

I wrap my arms around my head and pull my knees up to my chest. I don’t want to see him.

“I’m sick,” I say, but he tries the handle.

I peek out between my arms, watching it. I hope that it stays, but it’s nothing more than a hook and a loop pushed into rotten wood.

“Open the door,” he tells me, and I am grateful the lock holds.

“I can’t move,” I respond in the hope that it is a strong enough answer and he will leave me alone.

It isn’t. He pushes against the door. Perhaps he will break the lock. It’s small, and if he wants in, he will get in. I try to slide myself back to the door and lie in front of it, but the movement, and the fear of my father causes my stomach to twist in agony. I crawl to the toilet bowl and let out what’s in my stomach once more.

The bathroom door opens, and I swallow like when I was a child, and had to push the vomit back down, or be beaten. I can’t breathe from the effort of it. Vomit stings the inside of my nose and the back of my throat. My eyes water and I cough as my father’s hands grasp onto the back of my t-shirt and pull me away from where I am kneeling. He flings me into the hallway, and my head cracks off a wooden box where we keep the shoes and coats. I don’t know what I have done wrong. It will be something, it always is. I don’t ever do things right. I make everyone hurt me.

He storms out of the bathroom, his heavy feet crashing on the floor. He comes over to me and slams his hand against my already bruised chest. I try not to say anything as he winds me and with no effort, pulls me to standing. He is big and strong, built for the bikes he rides, and I am nothing more than his half-starved junkie son. My legs are weak and don’t want to take my weight; my entire body shakes from the effort and I lean against my father without thinking for support. He pushes me away, making me stumble. The wall catches me, and I let myself sink down and rest on the floor. I know he is going to hurt me. He is angry with me and won’t stop until his temper is satisfied. This is always how it is. His blows will come until his anger is gone. When I was a child, I would pray that I would pass out just so I didn’t feel it any longer.

“Just do it,” I tell him.

I am tired of this game. I want him to hit me and get it over with; my words seem to fuel his anger towards me. He crouches next to me, takes my jaw between his fingers, and digs them in. For a second, I am sure he’s going to punch me in the face. Instead, he grips my jaw tighter to the point it might break. Pain shoots up the side of my face.

“You’re not worth it,” he tells me.

 

Alley Kid Fourteen

by

3

We drive. I don’t really have a destination in mind. Where I want to be is just not here. I want to be away from everything and everyone. It doesn’t matter where.

I keep to the side roads to avoid anyone seeing us. I know them so well, it will take me nothing to drive fast and get us away if the police should be around.pill_bottle_and_pills1

Karla tries to talk to me, she twitters on about something from work, but I don’t care. I nod and say yes in all the right places and she thinks I am paying attention, but I’m not. I don’t have anything to tell her. I light another cigarette and offer her one. I take it in deeply and the phet rises up my back again, in little bubbles. I smile and Karla thinks it’s for her. She squeezes my knee as if it’s supposed to mean something, but it’s just fake affection to get what she wants from me. I have no doubt that if I were important to her; it would be about more than just sex.

“Where are we going?” she asks me. I glance around and tell her I don’t know. I just drive until we drive to the junction between motorway and country lanes. I could go either way, but I chose the lanes, dark and out of the way. It feels like we’ve escaped the world and no one is around to see us.

There is a lane just near the fuelling station. I’ve been there before. At the end is a field high up, and it’s like looking out over the world. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to jump. Could I feel like I was flying even though I was falling? My dad would bring me this way sometimes, when I was a child. We would take the dog for a walk and she could run around. I always used to get scared that maybe she would run off the edge, but he said she wouldn’t. I didn’t let her go near it anyway, just in case he was wrong. I didn’t want to take the chance.

He always told me that she would die at home. She was ill and one day, we would wake up, and she would are gone to heaven. I never wanted her to die alone and I didn’t want her to go to heaven. I didn’t like heaven when I was little. It had all the people I liked.

I stop the car at the end of the lane. The field is guarded by a locked fence. No tourists at night, not when drunken teenagers can play games and fall over the edge, and kill themselves. We don’t get out of the car. Instead, we climb in the back. I’m useless on the phet for what Karla wants. No sex for her, but that doesn’t matter, it’s only for her own pleasure and not mine. I give her everything else until she lies there leaning on me, and I smoke cigarette after cigarette.

The hours go by so fast, I don’t even notice them. Karla is tired. She dozes a little and I can feel the phet wearing off. It’s making me feel heavy. The darkness tugs at the sides of my vision, threatening to take me down once again. I could get home and buy more. I’m sure Froggy would give me some phet if I asked.

Karla gets herself dressed and straightened up. Like everyone, she is pleased to have what she wants from me and I can take her home. We get back into the front seats and I start the engine. The sun is coming up, but it hasn’t cleared the night away just yet. The darkness seeps from the outside into me and I try to drive before it takes over entirely.

I don’t know what is in front of me. Its sudden; a cat or a dog? Something small, I have no idea. I twist the steering wheel to avoid it, but the front wheel of the car catches a ditch and takes control from me. We land in the hedges with the car, a hedge that is hiding concrete wall.

We both sit there, still and staring.

“What do we do?” Karla asks after a moment and I try to make my tired mind work and answer her. I can feel my hands shaking. I feel clammy and tired. I can smell the phet on my skin.

“Are you okay?” I ask her. It’s the first thing I can think to say.

“Yes.”

I know what will happen if we call someone. It’s not my car. The police will come and I’ll be arrested.

“We need to run,” I tell her. “Now.”

As I say it one more time, I get from the car and she does too. I realise I am hurt. My chest aches and so does my knee. I must have smacked them off the steering wheel and column. I can hear the sound in my head. The way metal on metal sounds, but I know that is not this car. It’s one from long ago; the one that took my mother, and one I should have died in too. All the sounds mingle together.

My knee aches as we run, but the fear of being caught, presses against my back and forces me to keep going. We get to the fuelling station. There is a couple of taxi cabs sat there. One of the drivers is just reading his morning newspaper. We stop for a second, and I catch my breath. Karla is okay. She grips my hand tight, letting me lead the way and not saying a word. She has tears in her eyes. I guess she cried, but I didn’t notice. I knock on the window of the taxi and nod my head at him to ask if he is free. He nods back and folds his paper and we climb into the back seat.

It doesn’t take long to get to Karla’s and drop her off. After, I give the driver my address and he takes me back there. Joanne is still asleep when I let myself in. I don’t think anyone noticed that I was gone. I dump my clothes down at the foot of the bed and climb back in beside her. My chest hurts from the seatbelt, and it hurts inside, too. My emptiness is there once again.

“Where have to been?” Joanne asks, as I let my eyes close.

“To buy cigarettes,” I say to her.

It isn’t unusual for me to do that. The petrol station near where we live is open all hours, and I don’t sleep very well. She accepts my answer and moves closer to me, resting her arm across my chest; I try not to wince under the pressure.

She is like Karla and everyone else. She’s being nice to me. I know what that means and what she wants. I just want to sleep, but to do that I have to give in. I let her hand slide down my chest and body. I don’t say no to her as she climbs up on top of me. The phet has worn off, my head is pounding. I don’t think she notices I am not interested so much.

Afterwards, she slips out of bed to take a shower. I tell her I want to stay in a bed a while. I don’t feel so well. I listen as she leaves the room and goes to the bathroom. She turns the shower on and I hear the doors open and close.

I roll onto my side and listen as she showers, the way the water falls, the way it hits the shower doors, and the low hum of the radio she has playing. My head feels heavy, as if it is too much to lift it from the pillow. I lie there thinking about the next day and wonder what the point is. What is waiting for me in the next day that is so important for me to get to?

There is a bottle on the bedside table. Joanne’s painkillers that she had been taking for a twisted ankle. I reach for them without thinking. I stare at the label. Who would really care if I took them? Whose life would it affect other than mine? Will is too young, it won’t matter. There is no one else to bother.

I haven’t swallowed tablets since I was a child. Not since I nearly choked on one of my mother’s made-up pills, but I know this is the answer. Two by two, I swallow them until my throat wont take anymore, and as I swallow the last one, I feel ashamed. Not at what I have done, but at the thought that people might assume this is a cry for attention. It isn’t. I just want to slip away unnoticed.

Maybe Joanne will find the almost empty bottle, The thought that Joanne will find the almost empty bottle, fills my mind with fear. I don’t want her to know what I have done. Not yet. I’m not stupid enough to think she won’t find me when it’s over, but I don’t want her to stop me, or call an ambulance. I stuff the bottle down the back of the bed where she won’t find it without a search. If I put the bottle back on the bedside table, she’ll see it. It feels like it would draw attention to itself and she would just know.

I lie back down after the bottle is hidden. Joanne finishes in the shower and the water goes off. I hear the shower door open. I close my eyes and let the darkness of my sleep take me. Maybe I won’t ever open them again.

Please God, don’t let me wake up.

Alley Kid Thirteen

by

7

Joanne doesn’t know that I am awake. I lie here next to her unmoving. My eyes watch the door, searching for shadows; listening in a childish way for fears from long ago. I know they aren’t real. I know what I saw was nothing more than my over-used, over–drugged mind, but I can’t shake the possibility from my thoughts.

She’s oblivious to my thoughts, not that it matters, and not that she would care if she knew.

I listen to the sound of her breathing. Each breath gets longer and slower as she falls asleep. I try to keep my mind focused. It’s been a week since I last saw my father. He wrote to me. Strange, really. Why didn’t he call or just come around again? The letter doesn’t sound like him. I wonder if he wrote it or it was his bimbo wife. The letter is long and full of caring words; the mirage of a father I long for, but not the one I have.Car-and-street-at-night (1)

I roll over onto my side with a sigh. Perhaps, it was written by him. A cruel trick. A way for him to lure me into some kind of false security. I’ve read his words a dozen times at least, but each time, it makes me feel worse than the last. His words from his last visit resonate around my head. His presence and his letter argue with one another.

I’m nothing to him, he had said. Nothing. A useless waste of space.

My mind tries to piece together the lost hours from that night, but they are nothing more than blank memories of darkness. Its hard to keep my thoughts straight when they want to spin over everything, even the blood. For that, I have no explanation. Even now a week later, my body has not healed from whatever trauma it endured.

I don’t understand what happened. I don’t remember. As soon as my mind tries to answer my questions, I silence it.

Not my father.

He wouldn’t.

Not again.

Not after the last time. The last time, he had almost killed me. In some ways, I wish he had succeeded, but then I remember Will and he would be alone if I had died. But I can’t help wishing the doctors didn’t put me back together. They should have just left me.

I feel my own frustration raging at myself as I desperately keep my mind from putting pieces together the way it wants. It’s not possible.

Joanne is asleep now. Finally. I tuck my hand under my pillow and watch her. She seems content and oblivious to the way I feel inside. I hope her dreams are better than mine. I wish she understood how lucky she is.

I’m not tired. Joanne doesn’t know that I swallowed a phet bomb before I came to bed. She won’t understand I need it to take away the black thoughts, the darkness that awaits me on the side lines, reaching out to catch me.

I feel the adrenaline crawl its way up my spine. Its tiny fingers pushing in, covering and taking away my pain as it moves, and leaving a thick layer of numbness, so that I can breathe.

I clamp my jaw down to save from giving myself away. The phet is bigger than my darkness. It slips through, filling every empty cavity that I posses. My heart pounds in my chest. I wonder if it can be heard. A celebration as the phet begins to win the fight.

Every part of my body comes alive. I have to move and do something other than just lying still. I feel restless inside, but I force myself to stay there. Just for another minute, to be sure Joanne is asleep.

Her breathing is slow, and rattles in her chest. I force myself to be calm and slow, in my movements, as I try to slip from the bed without her waking. I don’t want the sudden weight shift to disturb her.

As I get free, I stand and watch for a moment at the need of the bed before pulling on my jeans and a t-shirt. I need my keys. They are on the bedside table next to Joanne. I curse at myself. Why didn’t I think to put them in my jeans pocket beforehand? Such an idiot. I step cautiously towards them, and clasp both my hands over them to shield the sound when they clang together.

I have no feelings of guilt or remorse as I stare at her from the doorway. Only anticipation of what I’m about to do. I wonder why I’m here; why I’m with her. I feel nothing for her. No emotions. Just like I am nothing to her. Just a toy for her to play with. Someone to use in her sick pleasures. I had feelings for her once, of course, but they ended long ago when she had cheated on me.

I feel only relief that she hasn’t woken as I was getting out of bed and leaving. Angela is asleep on the sofa. Colin is asleep in his bed in Will’s room, and Will is at his mother’s; away from my useless parental skills and me. I wish he had more than me. I sigh as I leave and let myself out of the flat. Locking the back door behind me, I stand for just a moment at the top of the steps that lead into the dark alley.

I put my cigarette in my mouth, light it, and inhale deeply. The smoke travels down into my chest, setting off the amphetamine even more, and I feel the rush of excitement wash over me.

Suddenly, I am alive. The darkness inside is gone. Dead and defeated in a drug haze. Nothing can hurt me. Nothing. Who cares what my dad might have done to me? It’s what I was made for. It’s why I am here.

I race down the steps and into the darkness of the alley; I don’t stop, until I reach the main street. I can see the dim lights of the fast food store Karla works at. They have begun to close down for the night. Crowds of drunken tourists walk past me, devouring kebabs and burgers, and laughing at each other as they sway and trip and share jokes about the night’s events. Tomorrow, it’ll all be some drunken memory for them, clouded by their hangovers.

They walk past me and don’t notice I am there. I stand outside the shop waiting for Karla. She sees me as she runs the mop over the floor. She smiles at me; a smile that lights up her entire face. I smile back; a smile that no doubt convinces her that I am as equally happy to see her.

In reality, she is like Joanne. She doesn’t matter to me. She is just some girl I met on my way home from working at the nightclub when I stopped to get something to eat. I’m pretty sure I mean nothing to her either.

I watch as she finishes her work and says goodnight to her co-workers before coming out to greet me. She instantly throws her arms around my neck. “I missed you,” she says to me, but I doubt that. I haven’t missed her. I hardly thought about her through my days except for the anticipation of this meeting, but its more that I am out.

“I love you,” she whispers into my ears. Her words are as empty as I feel.

“I love you too,” I say back casually repeating the words back to her. She doesn’t notice the flatness in my voice. Not that she would. People only hear what they want how they want.

People are fake. I am not someone that can be loved, nor am I capable of returning it. If I was, then Joanne and I would be happy and Will would have the perfect life. Not that I don’t love him, of course, I do. I just wish that he had better than me in his life.

I take Karla’s hand and lead her along the street. I know what I am looking for. A car, nothing spectacular, or sporty. I don’t care. I just want something to drive, to get away from everywhere for a couple of hours, and not be noticed.

“I’m not sure about this,” Karla says to me as I fight with the lock on a plain car, until it gives way and opens.

I shrug.

“You can go home if you want to,” I say.

I don’t really care about that either. She can come with me if she wants. It’s her choice. She stares at me for a moment as she makes her decision.

“If I go home will you come with me?”

The car door is open, my foot is inside already and I am about to sit down. I look at her and shake my head. I don’t want to go to her house and play happy families. I want to be in the car. I want to be on the road. I want to feel the speed of it.

I get into the car properly, crack the barrel on the ignition, and glance at Karla through the mirror, waiting for her decision. I’m not going to wait long. If she doesn’t decide, I’m going to drive away. I won’t force her to come with me, but if she wants me to get out of the car and beg her, she’ll be waiting a long time.

After a moment, she slips into the passenger seat beside me. I start the engine and smile at her, but she doesn’t smile back.

 

Not Cutting Today

by

14

Yesterday, not here but in a place I seek support I questioned healing. If it was really possible. I don’t think it is. Not properly.

Often child abuse is referred to like scars, but scars don’t heal, not properly, they are wounds that are just there as reminders. I don’t think full healing is possible. Perhaps it’s just possible to understand.

I always feel like I am searching for answers, and trying to understand the things that go wrong in my life. I try and find the why of everything.

Last night I was plagued with such flashbacks and fear of the bad man, I wonder how I’m ever going to heal that part. I felt like a 5 year old so certain that he was going to come for me. Sure that he was in my house and the moment I closed my eyes, he would be there. I could feel the imprints of his hands in my hair holding me down, his teeth biting into my shoulder and the weight of him as I tried to fight.I’ve been afraid of the shadows forever, perhaps I always will be.

And today is day four since I last self harmed. Small, but it’s still days where I have healed physically, but I’m tired today and feel stupid for my flashbacks the night before.

I don’t want to cut another day.

Blame Take Two

by

5

Blame: Take Two

I guess, like anyone, blame and shame are my biggest issues. In reality, I would never blame a child for the atrocities of its parents; I would see him or her as innocent, and a victim of their parent’s wrong doings. Yet, when it comes to me, I cannot. I blame myself and no matter how much the evidence is stacked up against my parents, I cannot change it. If I even try, it feels like lies.

One of the factors of blame, is understanding the’ why’ question, and because that is almost impossible to answer, the only conclusion a child can draw on, is that it must be their fault.

For those who read this blog and don’t know, I study Psychology and during a recent lesson, we studied a Psychologist named, Stanley Milgram.blame_700

He investigated why Nuremberg war criminals in WWII, carried out acts of genocide. Was it simply because Germans were made different and, therefore, cruel?

He believed they were, and tested his theory with an experiment. He asked ordinary people to volunteer as teachers and had actors as the learner. The teachers thought they were simply there for a memory test, but that was not the case.

Milgram set up the teacher and the learner in different rooms. The learner was strapped to a chair and attached to a buzzer that gave them an electric shock. The teacher was in another room and asked the learner a question. For each question they got wrong, the teacher would administer an electric shock. These shocks went along a scale, starting at nothing more than a quick nip of volts, to 450 volts, which was fatal.

In the room with the teacher, was an experimenter, (an actor) who appeared to be taking notes and watching. The teacher could not see the learner, only hear them.

However, what they really heard, was a recorded voice. They weren’t really electrocuting people, they just believed they were. Eventually, as the voltage got higher, the voice would plead, asking for no more, and eventually it went silent, leaving the teacher not knowing if the learner was unconscious or simply not responding.

Of course, as the cries or the silence got worse, the teacher often became stressed, but the experimenter in the room would simply state that it was vital to the experiment and to please continue (they did have the right to leave at any time).

Milgram found that over 60% of people went to the fatal 450volts and, when asked later, he concluded that like the Nazi, it was not down to ethnicity, but rather obedience. If people did not hold the blame, they could continue.

My father, like many the same, told me, it was my fault. I wanted it. I asked for it. I liked it and his personal favourite that I gained everything in my life through sex. It would seem the case, even using it to gain my father’s love and attention. The way he worded thing caused me to  take the blame because what he said was logical.

What if Milgram’s theory applies here? My father convinced himself that it was what I wanted. He believed his own lies, removed blame, and gave it to me. He believed he was doing what I wanted, what I liked and what I offered.  He was being obedient.

Making it my fault and not his, made it okay for him to do what he did.

Some Days

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10

Some days, everyday feels like a fight. Usually, I have had a trigger when it gets this way that goes like a snowball. One thought and my mind is off for days until it gets to a place where it can rest, or perhaps, I simply have too much and it gets too big and I can’t carry it on.

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A couple of weeks ago, I got stuck in the snow on the way to University. Every day, I have to drive through the area I grew up in; so many places, so many memories. Some good and some bad.

While driving a road that normally takes less than five minutes, and took me almost forty-five through the snow, my mind wandered. I spotted the fish and chip shop my Nan would take me to when my parents had left me. I saw the shop owned by my Nan’s friends. She would drive me insane as she chatted about all the boring things adults say, while I, a seven year old, just wished she’d say goodbye. I got to the main part of the road where my Nan used to walk along each day, and that was when my mind got stuck.

She’s been gone almost thirteen years now, but I remember her face, the way she walked, her voice. I can hear it perfectly in my mind, and on that day, it was almost like being able to see her walk along that same road as she had done when she was alive.

I reminded myself that she was gone, but of course, that led me on to remembering when she died. I was twenty-four.

She had collapsed in her house, but luckily, she was by the telephone and called for help. She had a blood clot in her lungs and was taken to hospital. My dad called me up to tell me and inform me that she was probably going to die. Of course, I didn’t waste time in going to see her.

Every day, he would call me to say, your Nan is sick, maybe she will die today and she will be by herself, and each time, I would panic and get there as fast as I could. By Friday, she had been there for five days. I went to the hospital and my father was there with my brother.  I didn’t want to stay with him and have to listen to what he would say after, about her. I don’t know why I gave her a hug and a kiss. I hadn’t done that in a very long time, but I had just wanted to.

The next morning, was the same scenario. A call from my dad to tell me my Nan was going to die alone.  I was going to see her anyway. I was going early because my partner and I had a young baby and we were house hunting.

I knew the moment I walked onto the ward that she was gone. I felt it; like emptiness. The nurse caught me before I got to her bed and ushered me into a side room. I didn’t want to hear the words. My dad sat there with his fake tears and fake grief, getting all the attention and pretending that she had been like a mother to him. He had loved her and  spoke whatever lies he could think of. The kind nurse asked him if he would like to see her and say goodbye. He said yes please, through his sobs and asked me if I was coming. He sent my brother out for a walk, so he didn’t have to deal with it.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see her. My last memory had been me saying goodbye and that was enough, right? He stood at the door to her room. I stood to the side and couldn’t see her. He started to cry again at the sight of her and told me she looked like she was sleeping and smiling.

I agreed to go in, but she didn’t look like he said. She looked dead. Her cheeks had sunk, she was pale, and cruelly, she was still warm as my father carried on his performance of the grieving son in law.

He took her personal possessions from the nursing staff, including her purse, which he emptied and spent the money on my brother. I went home and kept my grief inside because he stole it from me.

The biggest part of this memory is that I remember thinking, what if now she can see the truth. What if she knows what I had done with my father all these years? Now, she would hate me. Now, she would know I am a monster. She would know that everything about me was a lie and that I was some sick human that engaged in sexual contact with my parents.

I realised that this is when I buried everything and I became sick within my mind. This is when my OCD really began to peak because it needed an outlet.

This week has been like opening something I didn’t know I had sealed, and feeling it.

Legacy

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12

Legacy

An odd word really, it conjures up a happy image perhaps when someone says they were left a legacy. The word legacy itself means a gift, or to have something passed down.stethoscope

Yet, for an adult who suffered a form of child abuse, the legacy is far from happy. Often, at least I have found, the legacy I am left with is far worse than the experience itself.

Legacy, like a shadow I cannot lose.

I am sure I am not alone in this, that the gift that was passed to me, haunts me in my every days. Whether it is something as simple as smelling something, or seeing a story on the news that is triggering or a child walking past me that still has his innocent smile. There is always something.

I find because of this I pretty much alienate myself from everyone in every way possible. My family does not know the real me, they see smiles. I do everything; I function as I am meant to. As I said before, I have perfected the happy external image.

I don’t keep friends in my real life because I can’t talk and if I could, they would not understand. Maybe a day I am hugely triggered and I cannot do something that was planned, I have to cancel. I lost my high school friend this way, he got tired of me cancelling plans and perhaps the other way around I would have too. I am at university, but I do not make friends because I don’t fit. People talk to me of course, but I am more comfortable sitting with my head in a book and being lost in a fantasy world, than talking to real people. Yet sometimes I watch them from over my book, the way they are so free to laugh or be sad, to talk or cry. To do whatever it is that friends do. I wish in many ways I had that.

I think I do a good job of driving my online friends away too. I get quiet when I am not feeling good in my mind. Something’s I will say, but too often I feel like a burden, because these things in my head are stuck, but I don’t want to be that friend that people dread, because I never seem to be happy. Who really wants a friend that every time you speak to them, they make you feel depressed with their issues?

I had to go to the doctors this week, for a cough that I have had since October or November time, it got to the point that I can’t sleep, so I gave in and called. Doing that was hard in itself; I don’t like to go to the doctors. Not because I am afraid, but because it is so triggering, weekly my mother would drag me there with various ailments I was meant to have, all because she wanted to see the doctor herself.

According to her, I was ill so much because she was meant to be with the doctor as his wife and so fate, made me ill so that she might see him often and work on being in a relationship with him. She taught me that he was never interested in making me better, but more in entering into sexual relations with her.

This is what I think about when I need to go. When I am sat in the waiting room like, I did as a child and being made to tell her for the umpteenth time, that she looks good, and after, the grilling, I would receive. Did he look at her nicely, did he smile. Do I think he was happy to see her? And my answers dictated how the rest of my day would go. If I made her happy, I was fed, I could watch the television.  My father wouldn’t beat me. So I sat in the doctors waiting room on Monday, probably looking like I was afraid to move.

Then there is the going into the doctor’s office itself, I hate to say how I feel, but I have to, and I have to remove my top so that he can listen to my chest. He put his hand on my shoulder, while he stood behind me and like any doctor, he listened to my breathing. My mind was going haywire because he had hold of shoulder and he was behind me, I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, he said he wanted to try some antibiotics for a week, but perhaps they will have to x-ray. I sheepishly asked for the medication in solution form, because even more thanks to my mother, I cannot get myself to swallow tablets.

The doctor sighed and I know he wasn’t happy, he had that ‘tone’ like I’m being a pain and I couldn’t explain to him why I can’t take tablets, I just had to sit there and receive that look as if I was being difficult on purpose. He did what all doctors seem to do, he tells me, he’ll give me a solution, but because I won’t take tablets, I have to have this specific one that will probably make me vomit.

And there it is, a giant trigger for me, if anyone has read my books, medication that is likely to make me vomit is so huge for me. I took the prescription from him, thanked him for his time, but the prescription was in the trash can on my way out the door and I wondered why I just endured all that trauma.

I get home, and my children ask me what the doctor said, I just told them I have a cough and got medication and then I went to cook them dinner, they are content with my answer. Inside I am shattered from a simple trip to the doctors, that felt like retracing my steps through hell and there’s no one to tell.

The legacy of childhood.