Just a Little Girl Who Survived Child Abuse. My Life Story 4

The new beginning I thought I had was snatched away before it even began. My mother now has a new boyfriend as she is consumed in her work and private life my friends become my source of strength and support without them even knowing. I started to act out not wanting to do my homework or go to school I just wanted to be in my bedroom.

My mother reaching her ‘last straw’ as she called it started to lock me out of the house if I was even 5 minutes late home she would tell my brother to not let me inside  as she couldn’t ‘trust’ me with house keys I had to wait for someone to be home to allow me in.Many times my brother would intentionally not come home until just before my mother leaving me out in the rain and cold for 3 to 4 hours at times in the rain and cold.

What was worse? to sit in the wet and cold with neighbours peeking out at me or in my room where I would sit and cut my wrists, my thighs and my stomach always keeping my suffering hidden I wished to be free like those raindrops falling from the sky like the ocean crushing and swirling from the shore to move and be in peace without fear. My brother knew I was cutting and would comment ‘ try to get the main vein, don’t you know how to kill yourself properly yet? Why dont you just jump from the window next time, etc, etc’ little did he really know that he was pushing me more and more into considering almost all he said.

My mother who had forced counselling sessions on me before due to her divorce and whatever else made me wonder why I was just so alone why no one cared not even to force me to talk to a professional I was so lost.

My mother becomes more and more angry and aggressive to me constantly asking ‘ what happened to her little girl’ telling me she didn’t know who I was anymore. Does she not realise she lost her daughter the day she left me in the care of others? slowly pieces of her got stolen away and she ignored the cries for help and now she was asking me an 11-year-old what happened to the girl I used to be. She didnt really care she just wanted to make me the problem in this mess that was now my life.

At school I got into a fight and was suspended my mother sent my uncle to pick me up. Sitting in the car with him made me feel my home was on the other side of the world I felt sick. Sitting back in my seat leaning against the door as far away from him as I could be I started to write in a book from school, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. My uncle stops and grabs my book tearing the pages out and throwing them out the window grabbing at me and pushing me I punched him in the face as his hand slid up my school skirt. He stopped looking at me I spat at him causing him to shove all his weight onto me with his hands he backs off, starts his mini van converted to a home piece of junk and drives me the rest of the way home.

For the next few months this was my life, a constant struggle to not be alone with him and to be brave enough each time to rebel and show in some new way that he wont attain what he wants from me.

My mum calls my uncle to our house to assemble my new desk, while he assembles piece by piece my mother shouts for me to help him. Smirk on his face he says,’ you can’t get away.’ I sit there across the room from all the pieces of wood and screws avoiding eye contact with him. As he joins one piece to another he asks me to hold them I sit in front of him drawing myself back away from him to look to my side he shifts his shorts so that he exposes himself to me. I try to talk to my mother hoping she walks toward me but she doesn’t even turn around. Moving the screws and bolts toward his shorts on the floor infront of him he asks me to hand him some. I just refused as if I didn’t hear him, he repeats himself then talks to my mother in a light-hearted joking voice that he is known for,’ T wont hand me the nuts and bolts’ My mother aggressively tells me to stop being a brat and help my uncle. Standing up and pretending to not know what he wanted or where they are he says they are right here infront of me. Sitting down feeling once again defeated I just sit there looking to the side. He asks me again as I reach forward a little  his hand grabbed mine and put it up the inside of his shorts I pull my hand back but his grip is so strong I push the parts of my desk that i was holding onto him to break it.

I had managed to get out of almost every other incident he tried to put me into except for one other occasion that was the time that he made me bleed a moment that I havent ever spoke of to anyone not even in text not to a close friend or stranger. Blood on my mothers sofa  she angrily asks me what I was doing when she wasnt at home, unsure of what she was implying I just ignored her and took her beatings and verbal abuse. Christmas time rolls around and my uncle is of course invited to our house with our whole family. As he walks in and tries to come to kiss me and hug me he sees the sofa I was sitting at and winks at me with that disgusting smirk. Filled with rage I spoke words no child my age should have known and stormed out to my friend’s house. hyperventilating and crying her aunty asks me what happened. I told her about my uncle briefly before my mother and new boyfriend come to her home. Yes, this strange man who is now yet another ‘father figure’ to us is more than willing to start telling me off for my appalling behaviour.

My friends aunty trying to ask them to calm down advising my mother to call the police as she was obligated to report child abuse and wasnt willing to allow me to go home unless my mother agreed to report my uncle and allow the police to carry out the next steps.

My mother and her boyfriend ‘S’ literally dragged me home to where everyone was looking at me side ways, mumbling things and I wasnt allowed to go to my room. My great Grandmother was the only one who sat me down on the veranda and said to me,’ I know pet, I know it’s not easy but part of becoming a woman is learning to control what happens to you and if you can’t then you control how you react to it.’ She confided in me some things and comforted me while tears filled my eyes and I stare over our swimming pool I recall what ‘A’ did to me, I have flashes of what ‘D’ did to me and now tears gushing I turn to see everyone around me uncle as the life of the party and that stain still vaguely remaining on the sofa that no one is sitting on. She hugs me and says,’ suck it up you have to wear big girl panties now but when your ready  you let me know and we can fix this.’

I took a deep breath in as she pinched one of my cheeks then wiped my tears. I walked inside, walked straight passed everyone as my uncle invites me to come sit on his knee as he was playing santa I respond with an assertive , ‘F..k off ‘ everyone gasping my mother follows me to my room and slaps me in the face, my great Grandmother gets up to tell her to leave it alone and let me be in my room.

My mother didn’t speak to me for days as she questioned her brother about what my friends aunty had said. She sits me down with her mother upon their own agreement and terms after my uncle confessed to molesting me apparently on 1 occasion. She asks me to give her my details of events that occurred handing me a pen and paper telling me I will have to sign it and if I lie I can go to prison for a long time. Yes, that was my mothers skill at finding out what happened to the child she birthed. She then tells me pushing the paper and pen toward me that if I agree we can deal with this as a family and my grandmother can counsel me as she got her degree in phycology or I can go to the police and face the law, court etc and tear our family apart. Telling me my uncle confessed to her tears gush from my eyes and I look at the paper wondering why is she asking me to write anything ? why aren’t the police already here? this is her job she is paid by profession to act on behalf of children in the Supreme Court  why is she just sitting there with options like shut up and live a secret or get justice the lonely scary way which will ruin our family and your to blame.

As I stood up my mother stops me and says if you don’t talk now I dont want to hear about this again I dont want you acting out or thinking you have an excuse for you poor behaviour. While walking to my room I tell my mother I hate her crying shouting abusive words so profusely I couldn’t even say anything else.

My brother opens his door and says, ‘ this time cutting your wrist make sure you get a vein’ I went to my room with my teddy bear and cried. This was the woman who birthed me, who carried me in her stomach then felt the pains of labour , who fed me and cared for me as a baby. What whent so wrong that she stopped caring about my well-being? that she decided to find me a problem and obstical in her way at every turn instead of her child with a mothers instinct to protect?

Ignoring me for days her solution to this problem is to send me to boarding school 9 hours away from home. A place I had never been before with people who had nothing in common with me again moving to a place that I had to adjust but this time alone. I didn’t believe in new starts anymore every male teacher that smiled at me I felt that he wanted something from me. I felt that everyone who looked at me knew why I was there that they had a plan to do the same to me. Sleepless nights filled my weeks that passed as my fear of sleep grew my insecurities did too. Anytime someone in my dorm wanted to touch my hair or sit next to me I would move away from them to the extent I punched a girl in the face for sitting behind me on my bed.

Boarding school was short-lived as I was sent home 2 times in 1 term upon my return the head mistress asked if I wanted to be there to which I replied no. She filed the papers to send me home telling me if I ever wanted to return she will accept me if I sit in front of her and tell her so but that I need to address what is causing me to be such a way.

I was ecstatic to return home although my mother did not feel the same as she collected me from the train station she wouldn’t talk to me. She had happily moved on with her life a new home and her boyfriend is now living with her she makes a point to allow me to know that I’m the obstical to her happiness and that from now on she wont allow me to be in her way anymore that she is going to focus on herself and not waste any more time and energy on me. She states that she can’t wait for me to be old enough for her to kick me out from home, legally.

the weeks following my mother struggles to find a school to accept me after being advised to leave a number of schools without an official expulsion as each headmistress/ headmaster felt that I was acting out from some form of abuse but wouldn’t speak about it allowing me to know privately that if I was willing to sit with a councillor they would organise it and I would be able to remain at the school. Each time I refused their kind offers, I guess a form of self punishment but in hopes my mother will realise something and do the motherly thing. Stupid me for thinking she would act as a mother as my behaviour becomes more obvious to the public she becomes more enraged as schools and teachers report her to child services asking for inventions to my behaviour.

Starting to feel my life is one of darkness that my existence is just a problem to myself and my family I shut myself out from my mother and try my best at school, I accept being locked out silently, I accept my brothers smart remarks on the school bus about my self harm and his friends taunting me alongside him, I accept my mothers hatred toward me, I accept that this will be my life only a few more short years until I can legally leave home as my mother puts it.

Until another predator, whois free to enter my new bedroom…