Long days

I was always petrified of my father because when he had been drinking he could fly into a rage for no reason what so ever, he was violent and abusive.

He sexually abused me from the age of thirteen to twenty four. I can hear people gasp! Surely at the age of twenty four I should have been able to stand up and say no! But unless you have been so scared of a person you will never understand the hold they have over you. you feel so powerless, which is exactly how they want you to feel.

I had tried to leave home on several occasions only be dragged back with the threat of never seeing my sisters again so as much as I hated myself for giving in I could never cut the ties with my beloved sisters. Head between my legs and confidence as low as it can get I returned, sometimes to face the anger of both my parents. My mother because she was jealous of me and my father because how dare I even consider going against him.

Life was a vicious circle in those days hating myself for staying but too scared to actually leave my sisters alone with parents who seemed unable to care for them.

Being the eldest I did my best to protect them from some of the horror I went through although I couldn’t always stop their hidings I could stop the sexual abuse.

Yes I know you would think my mother would have stopped that but she chose to allow it to go on because it was easier for her in some ways. I know she was jealous of the fact my father did what he did to me and I am sure at times hated me but what she didn’t want to do was take us a walk away. I asked her once why she couldn’t protect us and leave him, she said that with four children it wasn’t easy.

So was it easier to let one of your daughters be abused, and all to be beaten? It was my father who beat and abused me but I sometimes hated my mother more because I always felt it was up to her to stand by us and protect us.

When ever I challenged he on this point she would start to cry which always got me and made me feel sorry for her.

I never forget the time she did leave him and I will never forgive her because she didn’t take us with her. She left for six weeks and during that time my life was even more of a living hell that it had been before.

It started one night when I had been out with my boyfriend, a rare stage in my life because I wasn’t normally allowed to have boyfriends. My father had followed us, again, and made us feel like we were doing something wrong, all we were doing was sitting in his car talking. My dad accused us of all sorts and I was so afraid to go home as I knew I would be in for another beating. As we approached our home my dad was sitting in his car waiting for me, he dragged me inside and told my boyfriend to go. We had a massive argument and he slapped me across the face so hard I thought my teeth would fall out.

I rushed in doors and told mum what had happened, I hated him so much. Mum and dad had a massive row and she walked out, I had no idea where she had gone. I was left to take over her role in every sense of the word, I cleaned house, I cooked, I looked after my sisters and brother.

I felt so abandoned by my mother and so alone, powerless and suicidal. When she finally came back I hated more than ever.

Any way when I was twenty four I met a man and fell totally in love with him and a year later we got married, in private as I knew my dad would never allow it to take place.

To cut a long story short I never told my husband the whole truth about my awful past because I felt dirty, ashamed and guilty.

When we had been married for eighteen years I started my counseling training and plucked up the courage to tell my husband what had happened to me the whole sorry truth.

At this point I was also strong enough to tell my mum I no longer wanted them in my life.

It was the most scary thing I have ever done but also the best, I was finally free of the chains that had held me so tight for so many years, I could breath again and be myself.