Anonymous Abuse Story
Mark 💪
I’ve had a stressful life even when I was barely past infancy, I
realise looking back at my childhood and adolescence years. Starting at
5 I suffered from fits and scared the life out of both my mum and dad,
they were unpredictable and unexplainable for a young child. Only when I was a
young adult did I learn the reason behind them, the problem my body had with
controlling temperature which fixed itself when I was in high school.
This physical problem however
was replaced by a psychological horror, and I knew if it wasn’t for the love of
my family and those close to me, I wouldn’t be able to write this.
Despite the medical problem
being unpredictable, it was less dangerous in the long term than what I now
know was abuse. Since my mum and dad split up when I was about 4, I have had
two stepdads. The first one, I loved but he was not a good person, as I
realised. What father refuses to see his own kid after all? By the time my
second stepdad, the ‘monster’ as my girlfriend calls him, entered the picture,
I knew the first wasn’t good, and so it made me wary of, even dislike my mum’s
new boyfriend.
If I had stayed with this
disdain for my stepdad, maybe the whole situation would have been less painful,
it was because I eventually came around to see him as a father figure that
everything hurt so much more in the aftermath. The first couple years, I was
having difficulty adjusting to this second stepfather, when I was 13, I hated
how strict he could be and how he ‘invaded’ my family. It was when I started to
warm up to him that things started going sour, as I look back to when I was
14-16.
He would run hot and cold on
me, even when I began to see him as a father figure, he would give me the cold
shoulder on occasion. Maybe this was to make me more desperate for his attention,
for me to love him and beg for him to show the same. Sometimes he would be very
affectionate to me, other times we would fall out over the stupidest shit. And
I would always feel like I was breaking in half especially when he expressed
anger towards me. I loved him but was scared of him at the same time. I loved
him as much as I did my biological dad but I was scared he hated me or didn’t
truly like me.
Maybe he played me like a
fiddle, but when I was 15 the ‘mean’ behaviour lessened but the strange behaviour
started. We watched shows together, we would lie in his and Mum’s bed when she
was at work, as she worked nights twice a week, and sometimes three times a
week. I would look forward to those nights, where he wouldn’t express any
hostility towards me but his affection started getting strange. Touching my
waist, my hips, sometimes my chest. I felt some confusion but didn’t think much
too wrong with it, as I was young and barely in tune with my own sexuality. I
had a few crushes in high school and one at the time this started, a similar
dynamic of running hot and cold but in a way related to friendship and dumb
teenage infatuation. Pretend to be my friend one day, outright deny it the next.
I always did dumb stuff to
‘keep’ people as a teenager and maybe it was because of the bastard that called
himself my stepdad. I would put up with toxic friends, blindly follow others,
just to keep them with me as friends. Even as a legal adult after everything
stopped, my first sexual relationship was a mess, sleeping without love because
I wanted them to stay by my side and care for me. It just hurt me over and over
but I was too obsessed with ‘keeping’ people to think about my own self-respect.
Everything as a 15-year-old was
confusing, especially with the strange relationships with my stepdad and friend
going on simultaneously. I should have known it was fucked up, I should have
known he was sick, that’s what I think looking back but I know I shouldn’t have
blamed myself. I let him do these strange things because I was scared to stop
him, what if he got angry at me? What if he stopped loving me? Even though it
confused me, I slowly realised things were weird, he never acted like this when
Mum was there, should he touch me there? I didn’t even know where my vagina was
located at the time, whenever I tried to understand myself better, I would find
the urethra instead and wonder what the big deal with ‘masturbation’ was when I
felt absolutely nothing. Any dream I had about another teenager was either
innocent or anatomically impossible, created from the little I truly understood
about my body and sex. Just the word sex disgusted me, to the point I would use
the word ‘gender’ even when it wasn’t used in a ‘sexy’ context but rather male
and female.
It continued when I was 16,
when my life ‘went to hell’ as I would describe it. I developed an anxiety
disorder, stopped seeing my dad and started taking medication for stomach
problems all within a few months of each other. The medication didn’t work
properly, it made my anxiety worse and I failed my first year of college. I
ended up straight up falling out with my dad and latched onto my stepdad as my
only father figure. The stress was at an all-time high, I was missing my dad
and I was more desperate for my stepdad to love me more than ever, I would be
terrified with falling outs that I would lose my only father figure and
although I started to understand what he was doing to me was wrong, I let it
happen all because I wanted to ‘keep’ him, I didn’t want to be abandoned again.
Whether it stopped when I was
17 or 18, I can’t quite tell, I just remember it was around the time I fell for
a girl for the first time and came out to him and my Mum as bi. It was an
innocent attraction, I didn’t want anything sexual, I just wanted to hug her
and hear her laugh. Part of me just thought, ‘thank god, I can still feel
normal attraction’.
The psychological effects
didn’t start until university, when we were still in contact and he would seem
to never leave me alone. Almost every night I would be messaging a friend on
Messenger and silently beg that he wouldn’t try to start a conversation just to
guilt trip me if it didn’t go his way, the way he made me so desperate for him
to treat me ‘positively’ as a young teenager. He broke up with my mum either
before I went to university or during this first year, I can’t quite recall.
But he would send messages I didn’t realise were dodgy and not appropriate to
send your daughter, biologically related or otherwise. I thought it was a
little weird when I cut myself down there and he offered to kiss it better, but
I just read it as him being silly. Only when Mum and one of my sisters went
through those messages to send as evidence for the police investigation, did I
realise by their reactions how wrong those messages were.
That first sexual relationship
I had in university, I started having the occasional intrusive thought about
the abuse after that was initiated, I’d think about my ‘partner’ just to
remember that situation and feel nausea. Even with my first and current real
romantic relationship I would try to initiate sex just to get those thoughts
off my mind, those horrible images that haunted me and made me feel so
disgusting.
It was only after he hit my Mum
and when my nanna passed away from terminal illness, did I finally mention the
abuse to someone else. I was still unsure what had really happened, if it was
abuse if I let it happen and didn’t try to stop it. It was to my counsellor
when I was attending for grief and anxiety that I finally explained the
situation, where she told me it was wrong and I should get the police involved.
She contacted them and shortly after I told my girlfriend, the investigation
started. I was so scared but it felt a little comforting that the police
officers, and people I didn’t truly know, that they believed me and reassured
me it wasn’t my fault.
It was when they decided to get
in contact with my Mum without explaining the situation, that I finally told
her about what happened. I was so terrified that night but my girlfriend
supported me and I remember that day fondly despite the fear for two reasons. I
finally got it off my chest and told my Mum, and that was the day my girlfriend
told me she loved me.
My mental health spiraled as a
result of the case being opened, and I failed my second year of university
because I was too stressed to take the exams. I still vividly remember the
breakdown when I visited my girlfriend’s mum and stayed over, I was up past 2
crying and grieving the past. That man was a dad to me, how could he do such a
horrible thing? I mourned the stepdad I thought I knew, just for him to
manipulate me like that. Sometimes I still dream of him trying to sneak back
into my life, or occasionally alternative scenarios where I never was subjected
to anything more than familial love.
Things are starting to look up
though as I repeat my second year, my dad got back in touch and Mum explained
everything to him. I’m finally able to have a somewhat functioning normal father-daughter relationship
again. I’ve sought help for myself and finished a short PTSD coping course and
am currently waiting for therapy. It’s still difficult, I still get flashbacks
and feel disgusted with myself, I still sometimes get completely repulsed from
sex because of what happened but I’m able to realise now that trying to get my
mind off sexual abuse with more sex is not the best idea.
I have a loving family and the
best girlfriend ever, all who are amazing people and helping me cope even when
I want to cry and never feel again. Sometimes I would be willing to suffer amnesia
if I never had to suffer with these memories, these feelings of disgust, ever
again. But despite all the pain, I know I’ll eventually get better and I can’t
allow that bastard to control my life. I haven’t seen him or heard from him
since I cut him off because I couldn’t accept the way he treated my mum, and I
knew I wouldn’t get better if I didn’t tell someone about what he did.
The whole thing is still scary,
I still worry I’m going to run into him in my hometown and so going back home
fills me with dread. But what makes all the pain feel worth it is that I know
he’d never be able to hurt my little sister like he hurt me. I feel bad that
she’s now without a dad but I haven’t truly seen her so happy since she and him
lost contact with each other. She doesn’t know what happened of course, she’s
only young, but she knows he did something wrong. With my little sister on my
mind and my girlfriend by my side, I know I’ll be able to make it through this
even though the scars may never fade.
Written by: Anonymous.
The survivor of this asked to
remain anonymous for their own personal reasons and I think that should always
be respected.
I have the upmost respect and admiration for ‘you’ sharing your past trauma in
a hope to help others. I truly believe many will be able to relate with your
story, your emotions and your feelings and I hope they find courage in reading
it.
Wishing
you the best of luck in your 2nd year at university and the
remainder of your journey in battling your past. I am so thankful you have such
a supportive family and partner backing you, and I assure you, WE, the fellow survivors
are behind you as well!
#chasingstarlightwarrior
Thank
you,
No comments:
Post a Comment