Anger

I am 36 and I am now ready to write about my story.

I was 20 when I started to talk about my story. I had just completed a home detox and was on my way to a long term rehab. I decided that this was the time to tell my Mum about being sexually abused by my father.

People ask me why I never told anyone. There is no good time to tell. There is no easy way to say the words. How do you say the words, “my dad made me stroke his penis?” How do you verbalise something which your father skillfully manipulated you to keep secret for so long? How do you discuss the ways in which your father pretended you were his girlfriend?

I was full of rage at him for doing this to me. I was full of rage at my mother and the extended family. He told me that they knew, and that this was what I was here for. I was angry at God, because my father had told me that this is what God had put me on the earth for. I was angry at myself for allowing the abuse to continue. I was angry at myself for being born so defective. I was angry at myself for turning out to be exactly what my father always told me that I was… a slut.

When I went into treatment I had officially been sexually abused by 5 different men; one that knew my father. I had been raped by 12 different men including loosing my virginity to rape. Some of these rapes occurred when I was a sex worker. When I went into treatment and had 2 weeks out of program I was gang raped by an ex boyfriend and several of his family members. Why did I not go to the police? Who would believe a “junky slut”? I thought that these multiple abuses proved what my father had told me. It reaffirmed that men saw something in me that was ugly and defective and ready for the taking. This is why God had put me here. I felt as though no one would ever believe me and that I had no standing in the community to make these claims.

I felt so ugly and defective. Drugs didn’t make me feel high. They made me feel whole, complete and beautiful. For a long time I truly believed that if people really knew how I felt, if they could experience being me for a day, then they would not ask me to stop using drugs. I truly believed that I needed substances to keep me at some level of equlibrium. And you know what, maybe the drugs did save me-for a while. They saved me from committing suicide. But then after a while, they became my long term investment plan for suicide.

Fast forward 16 years and life is much better. I am 11 years clean and sober. I have a criminology degree and am finishing a law degree. I have a couple of diplomas and certificates. I own my own house-however humble it is. I own a car and have a drivers licence. I am now a drug and alcohol counsellor/case worker and try to give back to the community. I am close to all of my family and an important member of my community. And my crowning glory, my gift from the universe, is my 9 year old son. An amazing gorgeous, intelligent, insightful, funny character who loves me unconditionally.

I had heard the old adage that parenting brings out the best and worst in an individual. And this has certainly been true for me. When I became pregnant I found that this was the catalyst for the emergence of new symptoms of my abuse. I had nightmares of my father coming and raping my son. I had nighmares of having to go on long missions to save my child from a group of men that stole him from me. I found that I hated being pregnant. I hated something moving inside of me. I felt violated. I felt like I was being raped all over again. I had no control over my body.

And then I felt guilty. What sort of mother was I? I knew that I loved this baby inside of me. I didn’t use drugs, alcohol and tobacco. I went off my psychiatric medication because I didn’t want to harm my unborn baby. I stayed away from caffeine and ate lots of green leafy vegetables. I played music to my baby and read books out aloud to him. I read every book I could about parenting and being a single parent to a little boy. If someone sprayed bug spray I buried my head into the pillow, trying to resist inhaling the chemicals. There was no doubt I felt an attachment to my unborn child and was extremely protective.

I found that there was next to no one that could relate to my experience. I knew I couldn’t ask anyone. So I scoured the web, parenting books and blogs but couldn’t find anything. I tried to be logical. I knew I was off my medication. I knew that I was stressed. The baby’s father was not around, I was only a couple of months clean and sober and I had a massive trauma history. I reminded myself that I was not a bad person, that I could still be a good parent.

Coming up to the 6 months mark and I had put on 22 kgs. I would go to the hospital check ups and they would list all the evidence they had regarding the harm that I was doing to my baby by eating too much. “Do you know that your son will most likely be obese because you are eating too much? You are 103 kgs. You are going to give your baby diabetes.” This just reaffirmed what a defective mother that I was. My poor son had not even been born yet and he was stuck with me.

My mother and I decided that we would take control of my pregnancy. There was no use trying to explain to the doctors that it was amazing that I wasn’t using any substances-even those prescribed to me. It was no use asking for compassion or pats on the back. It was obvious that no one was interested. I would sound like a victim if I tried to gain any empathy. My mother and I talked for a long time about what my capacity was and what supports I needed. We needed to ask for help from the right people. I needed help. But I couldn’t tell them the whole story. I couldn’t talk about how I felt so uncomfortable in my own body that I fantasised about cutting my skin down the middle, unzipping my skin and stepping out. I didn’t want to go to the psych ward and I didn’t want Child Safety involved.

My mother accompanied me to the hospital to attend an appointment with the lactation expert. We knew that I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed. The thought made me shudder. I knew logically that breastfeeding was not sexual, but I could not handle the thought of a child latched on to my breast. I could not content with the thought that I would be sharing my body with another person and that he would be sucking my breasts. I couldn’t even hug my mother, brother or family. I hated to be touched. And yet I was expected to have a child latched on to my breast whenever he felt the need. “Breast is Best!” posted screamed at me from the hospital walls. Just another reason that I was going to be a shit mother.

We lied to the lactation expert. We said that I needed to go on my medication as soon as I have given birth. This was the truth. But what wasn’t the truth was the fact that you could not breastfeed while on this medication. She said, “maybe you could just breastfeed for 2 weeks so that your baby could get the colustrum and get the best start to life.” I calmly stated, “I understand that colustrum is important to a baby, but so is not throwing him through a glass door. I need my medication. So just let me have my medication and let me bottle feed my baby.” She was kind when she remarked that there was no law against bottle feeding and that I could do as I pleased. My mother and I looked at each other. We had heard the stories, of friends being told that their babies would be obese and stupid if they didn’t breastfeed. My mother asked that something would be written on my file stopping the well meaning midwifes from abusing me. She agreed.

I had my baby and then I started my journey into motherhood. I went back on to my medication and slowly went down from 111kgs to 90kgs. I spent days in the garden with my baby boy and took him for walks and swimming. I found that I was a good parent. I read books on attachment and trauma and found the things that were important. I massaged my baby and gave him lots of eye contact. I chatted to him and I held him. Even when some days I felt my skin crawling because I couldn’t stand the skin to skin touch. I breathed through it. I knew it was personally directed at my son. I knew that this was my abuse. I started to separate the abused part of me from the whole of me. I tried to have empathy and understanding for this part of me that felt so defective.

I still struggle with things. I struggle to let my son go to friend’s houses. I am scared of him being abused. I make sure that he knows the correct name for his body parts and that he knows to talk to me or a trusted adult if anything feels not okay. Sometimes when I am driving home from work I think about my son and I get a mad desire to see him and speed home breaking every traffic rule. I sometimes worry that something has happened to him at school. There is a part of me that believes that something as beautiful as my son will be taken from me as I am not worthy.

I still hover between 80 to 85kgs. Twice I have been under the 80kg mark and I was absolutely debilitated with anxiety. I hated that men looked at me and that they wanted me. I don’t want people to think I am ugly, but I don’t want people to notice me. I haven’t purged in years, but I haven’t broken the binge eating cycle yet. Sometimes I eat until I am anethatised by the feeling of fullness. It is the closest I can get to having a handful of benzodiazepams. I love running and ran until I had to have serious surgery on my knee. I like the pain and I find it is a socially acceptable form of self harm.

I have a good rapport with my clients. I love my job. I take it seriously. I try to be the person that I needed when I was young and lost. I put my heart and soul into the job. Before every interaction with a client I pray to my higher power, “Please God help me to connect with this client. Help me to support them to reach their goals, not mine. Please help me to gain their trust, build a rapport and to pick the right intervention for their issues. Please help me to help them live the lives that they were supposed to lead, not what they were programmed to lead.”

Recently, there has been a string of high profile cases where abuses have been brought to justice. Catholic priests, celebrities and politicians have been charged and found guilty of historic child abuse. I was embarrassed to admit that I felt both jealous and angry. Is my case less worthy because my father is not a celebrity or a religious icon? My mother had asked the police about following through a case and was told that there would be no use. There was no evidence and I was a child when it happened.

Last year, at the end of 2015 I approached a colleague in the sector who works at Bravehearts. I told her my story. She was so kind, caring and beautiful. She told me about a service where I could flag him with police and that they would investigate. She asked me what my motivations were. This was a good question and one that there was not a singular answer to. One motivation was retribution. I wanted him to feel as defective as I had felt, for much of my life. I wanted him to have a criminal record so he could be treated like the scum of the earth that I had been treated like when I was in addiction. A large part of it was protection, protection for other children. I completed research and found that he lived in Laos and travelled to PNG and Africa doing computer software. I found out from my mother that there had been others, both children and adults that he had abused.

I am aware that my abuse has shaped much of my life both challenges and defects. I don’t think that there is any co-incidence that I work as a counsellor and that I have qualifications in criminology, counselling and law. I don’t think that there is a co-incidence that people feel something in me which propels them to confide in me. I don’t think that there is a co-incidence that I worked primarily with youth that had committed child sex offences. For these things I am proud.

But I am still angry. I am still angry that I can’t forget and that this abuse still has an amount of control in my life. I am still angry that he has lived a life of freedom whilst I have been imprisoned by my addiction and PTSD. I am still angry that people knew that he was abusing children and sexually assaulting adults and that they did nothing to protect me. I am still angry that I continue to pick arsehole men for partners or I have long periods of aloneness because I can not trust my choices. I am still angry that my pregnancy was taken away from me. I am still angry that breastfeeding was taken from me. I am angry that my body still feels as though it is not mine.

My son and I always fight over what music to listen to. He loves 70s rock and I love hip hop and gangsta rap. He says, “the music is so angry Mum. Why are you so angry?” And we laugh about it, and switch it over to some Led Zepplin. He is a beautiful pacifist, my son. I am feisty, sassy and angry. And you know what? Thats okay. Anger lets me know that I am worth more and that I do not accept what has happened to me. Many people that have galvanised change and have achieved great things started with a little fire inside of them that burnt brightly. And I have that fire.