[Huni_Heart]

As promised: My story.

Sorry if it's a bit long, please do bear with me!



The abuse started when I was six, but being my uncle’s best friend, he knew me from when I was a baby. He would offer to play the play station with me (which I loved because it was so new back then, and liked the praise I got from him) and built up a friendship with me. He would listen to me (at the time I was being severely bullied at school) and give me advice, trying to help me. I grew to like spending time with him, looked forward to the time we had together, so I could tell him all of the nasty stuff the other kids at school had done to me. For a long time it was like this, and then it started with stroking. It quickly led to touching, then it led on to me touching him, and then rape. I can’t remember much about the first time, I guess because it became the first of many.

Before I start, you should know that out of the three and a half years it happened (every Saturday, like clockwork), my memory is vague. I remember very little of what happened, but the things I do remember, I can only guess that I’ve suppressed it subconsciously, too scared to truly think about it, it’s bad enough when I think about what I remember now.

Sometimes stupid things trigger off a memory. Usually a memory I feel like isn’t mine because I’ve never remembered it before, but it is. His aftershave does this a lot (it’s quite common over here), he always wore a specific one, and even when I smell it now I freeze, 6 years old again. I remember this one time really vividly though, it sticks in my mind as when I realised just what was happening.

I was pinned down on the bed (I think that was how it was usually done) and the TV was on, showing The Simpsons, to mask the noise obviously. I was staring at it, desperately trying to concentrate on what was happening on the show, but couldn’t. I began to cry while I was being squashed, the first time I cried in front of him. My tears flowed down silently (I wasn’t allowed to make a noise- and I still cry quietly to this day) and I don’t know if he noticed, but he didn’t stop. I looked around the room, trying to distract myself. It hurt every time he did anything to me, especially sex. I think it was because he alternated what he did each week. I reached out to the Tottenham calendar, hanging by the bed, making it sway from side to side, but stopped because it reminded me too much of myself at that moment. I look past him, up to the wall, but I could never avoid his eyes. Bright blue piercing eyes, many other girls found attractive, I found them full of anger, control and shame. My shame.

Sometimes I still see that calendar (my uncle kept it because it was signed) and I think of that memory. And I NEVER lay down on my uncles bed, or play the play station in his room anymore, infact, I try not to go in there if possible.

It was then, when I was crying when I realised, that I realised what was happening. I didn’t know what rape was (or sex for that matter), even when I was interviewed for court, but I knew what he was doing wasn’t right, and that it made me feel ashamed, dirty and used. Every time I had to “clean myself up”, I went into the bathroom saw myself in the mirror and burst out crying, horrified and confused at who I saw back. It just didn’t look like me. And all the time, my mum and nan were in the other room, completely unaware.

Every Saturday, when he could, this would happen. He started getting more adventurous, fully undressing me, taking his shirt off, a few times he used whatever else he could find instead of his fingers, until I tried to make excuses not to go. My love for my nan and family made those time very few and far between though, and as much as I wanted to tell them, or anybody, I was told not to. I was told it would upset them, make them cry and that they would be disappointed in me. He never hit, but he controlled me in other ways. Lightly touching me, reminding me of his presence, glaring at me, with that fierce tone in his voice that scared the soul out of me as a child. It all kept me quiet, that and I felt so disgusted by it, I would eventually start to be physically sick on the way to my nan’s house (without even trying to be), I couldn’t imagine of even beginning trying to tell somebody about it. I always feared nobody would understand, that I was the only one, and although I felt like I was being incredibly selfish, I knew that at the time I was right.

He was never caught at my nan’s house. There were a few times that came close, my uncle walking in unexpectedly, my nan catching me on the way to the toilet afterwards. But nobody said anything, he was just too trusted in our family for them to ever think he would do anything like that, nobody knew. Eventually it came out, at school of all places, the second place I hated the most during my childhood. I told one of the popular girls, who I had started to become friends with.

It was too hard for me to keep in, and because he had run away 6 months ago (nobody in his or my family knew where he went- and he left his pregnant wife early pregnancy by herself), I felt like I could say it. I remember walking through the gym hall, and her stopping as I finished my sentence. I had no idea what I was saying at the time, no idea at the implications. She told me to go straight to the teacher and tell them, which I did. I felt embarrassed interrupting her class, and she told me off for doing so. “This better be important Stephanie” she said. “It is” I replied. I took a deep breath and told her what I told my friend. “My uncle’s best friend… he touches me down there” I whispered. More of an explanation was given, and then came on telling my mother, her crying, the physiatrists’ (And I fooled four of them into thinking I was fine with it at the age of 11- how stupid!!), the consideration from the teachers that never liked anybody. It was so weird, but at that age, I liked being told it wasn’t my fault. Never really believed it, but it was still nice to hear it.

A year after I told somebody (A year and a half after he ran away) he was caught by the police. Wanting a conviction as quickly as possible, the evidence was gathered quickly. I was examined (immensely degrading and awkward having trainee doctors staring at you there), and what little evidence was left, was recorded. There was still bruising and damage a year and a half after, but most of it had healed, only implying sex. Because I didn’t what they meant when they asked me if he had had sex with me, I said no, and they presumed harsh foreplay. I was taped so I didn’t have to go to court, for four hours I talked about what he did, in gruesome detail. The tape never recorded, so in an hour, I summarised everything, becoming impatient as children do, and probably messing the whole thing up! He got three years in prison, only serving one and a half of those, so by the time I was 16, on my birthday, he could walk right up to me and say “hi”, and it was perfectly legal.

So for years, I carry the guilt, the shame and the sadness at my childhood being taken away so young, and if I ever met him, I swore to myself that I would kill him.

Little memories that come back to me open the flood doors for a moment and it all comes back. Being in that room, being the most helpless I’ve ever been in my life. I hate feeling like that isolated, frightened child. In that room, just him and me, never able to escape...

When I used to self harm, he was what usually tipped me over the edge. I tried three times to commit suicide because of it, ironically, cutting myself after taking an overdose saved me, and I promised myself never to do it again.

My mother once found my diary of where I wrote all about it and said I was lying, because I never said all of it before. We don’t talk about it anymore.

I’ve had nightmares about it ever since it started, but the flashbacks make it worse, much worse. Sometimes the sound of my own screaming or crying wakes me up. Last night I woke up because I was having a panic attack and couldn’t breathe.

Its quite odd talking about it now. I’ve only scratched the surface, and I don’t think I could ever try to explain what years of that so young did to me… it’s the thing I can’t let go. It walks with me, thinks with me and still continues to hurt me, only those days are lesser in numbers than they once were. I still see those eyes in my nightmares.