Using Your Voice: Ending The Stigma Of Abuse

Finding a space to upload my thoughts was not a reality for me. My story rested inside me for what seemed like forever. Unable to vocalise how I felt inside stung for the longest time.

Writing freed me in a way I never thought was possible. Forty years of hurt and pain poured out. Most of what I have written is the first time I have ever articulated it in any way.

I wrote an open letter to my abuser, my dad. Hurting my mum because she felt I had never spoken to her. It did open up a discussion between us that was a little uncomfortable but needed. It did, however, make me look into the reasons why I speak up sooner.

I was a child.

A small part of me believed it was normal because I had very little reference to say otherwise. He was my dad he told me often that if I loved him I would want him to be happy. I was his special little girl, his favourite. All I wanted was positive attention, affirmations that I was good enough. I would spend a large portion of my life continually seeking this from him and others.

I was the oldest my little brothers were my life I loved my little brothers so much. As I grew up, becoming less compliant, dad would then use threats against them to make me do as he wanted. He would treat one of them as a punching bag all the time.

As youngsters, we would protect each other as much as we could. We hated him. We loved him. We would have done anything for that one shred of attention.

The upshot was this made us hate ourselves.

It was that hate and disgust that made telling anyone impossible. How could anyone understand? It took so much of my mums strength to get us away from him. Telling her felt wrong. She had enough of her crap to deal with from him.

When she finally plucked up the courage to leave him. He kept us for two weeks as a punishment to her. He locked us in the house. We were at his mercy.

Those two weeks were 14 days of sheer terror. We were scared to go to sleep at night, fearful of what he would do. The three of us would huddle together, worried. At night he would come and get me. He began threatening the boys if I refused to go. By the time my mum got us out, we were shadows of our former selves. I remember his words “come to get your kids all they’ve done is a cry for you”

By the time I was a teenager, I was a war raging against the world.

As the only parent, I blamed her. For not protecting me, for not knowing. For not instinctively feeling that something was wrong with me. For not fixing what she never knew had broken. We clashed, fighting all the time. I moved into my flat at 16 the overwhelming need to be away.

My dad came back into our lives at that time. I tried to speak to him about the abuse. Dad gas lit me for a long time until I believed I had imagined it all. Convinced it was my imagination we had a relationship. I would visit him, go for coffee. Then one day when I was 19 I ran into him at the pub, he said ‘don’t call me dad I’m here with my girlfriend’, as she walked over I realised she was my age. Immediately I knew I was right about everything.

My brother was the first to talk about the abuse he had suffered. I used his bravery to approach the subject. I told my mum what happened at lunch one day. She told me I was attention-seeking. That it never happened. Devastated, I thought if convincing my mum was this hard. Imagine how much harder convincing anyone else is. So I shut it off, pushed it down and spent the next 20 odd years denying it, even to me.

Mum and I spoke about it recently. She was unable to remember the conversation. Mum shut down when my brother came forward. Listening to my experience would have broken her she chose not to hear. I could never blame her. She is the best person I know. I love her more than anyone else. She was someone who was in an impossible situation of her own. She couldn't compute that it happened, confused as I still had a relationship with my dad. My brother would not.

My dad also made his hate for my brother and his love for me painfully clear. What I suppose she failed to understand that both damaged us in different ways.

I suppose I could lament about how different my life could have been. If only I had forced the issue with her, told someone else. Pursued therapy forced my dad into a corner got him to admit what he did. None of this will help me move forward now. I am finally taking the steps needed to heal. It is enough for now.

Everyone, going through trauma or abuse. Speaking up does not have to be a giant, skywriting declaration to the world. It is often a step, acknowledging that you are allowed to feel. Feelings can be scary, lean into them. Permitting yourself to feel emotions is vital and the first step in recovery.

I don’t care if 100 people tell you something didn’t happen. If you feel in your gut that something isn’t right speak to someone. If your having weird nightmares your mind is telling you something isn’t right, listen to it. YOU are the most important person. Do whatever you can to protect yourself. If you are writing, well done.

My advice is to speak your truth always. I know this can be hard. You have been gaslit so hard you don’t know which way is up. The more these conversations are normalised, the easier the journey is for others. I have found the more I have spoken my truth the easier it is to say. I have come to terms with the experiences.

I found a lot of people through writing, even if you are not ready to write, read. So many people have had the experiences you have had.

You are not alone.

You are enough.

Your feelings are valid.

Your experiences DO NOT define you as a person.

You are a survivor always.