Story of My Soul (Domestic Violence)

Member Name: FORCHARITY

Product:	Domestic Violence
Date:	11/09/02 (195 review reads)
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I have been having nightmares recently, I had a visit from my dad a few days ago. I feel that writing about it may help exorcise those demons a little bit. I feel that someone reading about it may help them understand the way it feels and how it can happen. I hope that no one who reads this can empathise, although I doubt that will happen.

I should warn you that I went into some fairly graphic details, I couldn't help it once I got started. There also may be a lot of spelling mistakes and typos, but once I wrote it I didn't want to read it again.


Where to start?


Well, how about the beginning? Before I was born.


My mum and dad met at a friend's house before a party. My mum was pregnant and homeless; she had been sleeping on their sofa. She didn't like my dad, she said he was vile and talked total bollocks, she thought he was a c**t.


He took a shine to her though, followed her everywhere, and tried desperately to get her to go out with him. Time after time she told him to f**k off. Then she lost the baby she was carrying and he was there when no one else was. She was on sick leave from work so was living on SSP but was too proud to sign on the dole. She couldn't afford much food, just enough to feed the dog and she would buy enough so that she could eat one egg sandwich a day, then she would spend the rest of the time asleep to fight the hunger pangs away. But there are only 6 eggs in a tray, by Sunday there would be no more food and my dad was there, he offered to take her to his parents for Sunday dinner, she couldn't say no really.


They became a couple. By this time my mum had made up with her family again, they hated him. They said "he's an a***hole, what are you doing with him?" She agreed on the inside, but pride got the better of her. If you tell my mum to do something she will always do the opposite.


They got a house. He
refused to give her any money to buy anything, they had no furniture expect a bed. They sat on orange boxes and cooked on a camping stove. "What f**king more do you want woman" he would say.


Without much money for food she made stew. She makes the best stew, thick and rich, full of vegetables. He rubbed her face in the plate, threw the pot up the wall. Told her to make proper stew, mincemeat and potatoes (to her credit she made it with dog food)


Many years passed, he treated her badly emotionally and physically. He tried to alienate her friends and family, kept her financially dependant. She never took it lightly, never kept her mouth shut when she ought to, always tried to fight back. (She told me once of him holding her by the throat up the kitchen wall and she grabbed every pot and pan on the wall and smacked him in the head with it) Because my mum is strong, hard on the inside and on the outside, if it can happen to her it will happen to anyone. I wonder why she stayed.


I remember him sitting on the armchair eating a big bag of sweets. I was about 3 and sitting on the floor playing with my toys. He unwrapped a sweet and called me over, holding it out. When I went to reach for it he pulled it away and ate it himself. I cried and tried to get one out of the bag and he planted a kick in my stomach and sent me flying across the living room.


We left after that, went to live in a bed-sit. I could never figure out why we went back so I asked once. She told me that I cried for my dad so much and he kept harassing her so much she just gave up the end. I felt so bad about that.


When I was four they got married, I asked her why and she said she was drunk. You can't have been drunk all the time I said, what about the bans and the marriage licence? I was drunk a lot of the time then, she told me. I can understand why.


Then one night they were in the local pub. Me dad had
been working as a labourer on a local building site but he was telling everyone that he was the site engineer. My mum thought this was very funny and told people the truth and he lost his temper, laid into her right there in the middle of the pub. The police were called and he was dragged away, the landlord of the pub offered my mum the use of his caravan in the country and I remember being bundled into a car in the middle of the night being told we were going on holiday.


Three months later she came back to find the flat had been stripped, it was filthy, he had left over a thousand pounds worth of debt behind in her name. She worked of the debt, from six in the morning till six at night in a meat factory, it was hard but she never went back to him.


They had been married 10 months and our solicitor managed to get an annulment for excessive cruelty. My dad tried for custody, when asked why in court he said it was so he could put us into care to spite my mum, he didn't custody, didn't get access either. So we didn't have to see him again.


But I wanted to see my dad; I was adamant and wouldn't give it up. I packed my little case a number of times and went off to live with him (I didn't get very far because I wasn't allowed to cross the road) Eventually she gave in and let me go. He lived with my grandparents whom she loved and trusted so figured we would be okay.


I'm sure for the most part, we were. He would dump us with my grandparents and spend the weekend in the pub. But he had a penchant for something, and when he got the excuse to do it he grabbed it.


I went on holiday with my grandparents, my sister and my dad. We stayed in a chalet and my Nan would sleep in the living area. I got up one morning, my birthday, and wanted to watch the pink panther, my Nan told me off for waking her but I was naughty child and just carried on, my dad got angry. We went to the seafro
nt, my dad told me not to spend all my money in the arcade but my Granddad gave me a pound and told me to go have fun, I did, in the arcade. I won three pounds. I came back and showed everyone and my dad was angry with me for going in the arcade. He said I had to go back to the chalet with him, he had a birthday present for me.


When we got back he pushed me into the bedroom, I asked him what my present was and showed me the three pounds. I didn't know what he meant but then he pushed them into my mouth and made me swallow them. He told me I had been bad, that I had upset my Nan in the morning and I had been naughty in the afternoon, that I had to be punished. He made me take my clothes off and put me over his knee, he was smiling.


After he made me stay in the bedroom, told me not to tell my Nan as I had upset her enough already. That was my ninth birthday.


He did the same thing to me lots of times, each time for longer, each time hurt more, it got worse when he moved out of my grandparents house. Once I had been very clumsy, I kept knocking things over. I thought I could stop him doing it so I stood in front of him and said 'before we start I just want to say I love you' he just laughed and did it anyway.


Then the last time.


My mum had got sky telly, it was very cool. I kept seeing adverts for the Simpson's, it looked really funny and good, and I wanted to watch it. But it was on a Saturday night and I was always at my dad's, so that week I said I didn't want to go with him. He seemed ok, he and my sister went off on their own and I watched the Simpson's.


The next week he picked me up and didn't speak to me, we went straight to the pub. He said only my sister could go sit in the bar with him and he left me in the corridor on my own all night. Much, much later he drove us home we all went to bed, it was seemed very quiet. The next day he didn'
t get up, stayed in bed all day. He was supposed to take us home at four o'clock but he stayed in bed, my mum rang up and I had to answer the phone, she told him to tell him to get us home or she would call the police. He told me to say he was ill and couldn't drive and she accepted it.


After the phone call he called me upstairs, asked me why I hadn't come to see him the week before. I didn't want to say because I wanted to watch the Simpson's so I just said I wanted to stay at home.


He told me to strip, he had a belt, he used the buckle end. He said he was punishing me and I asked him what for. He said you didn't have to do anything wrong to be punished. I still here those words. Afterwards he threw me into the bath and told me to scrub, watched me.


The next day we went home and I didn't say anything. My mum called me into the kitchen and told me that my sister had heard me crying and she couldn't get into the bedroom to see why. She made me show her my back.


I had welts all down my back, my legs, my front and my stomach. I had a bruise on the shape of a perfect handprint on my backside. My mum was angry, I didn't know what I had done wrong to make her so angry. I locked myself in the bathroom.


The next day the teachers called me out of school, they made me sit in a room on my own. My mum came and took me to the police station where I had to take my clothes and let them take pictures of my bruises. They asked me if he had touched me, I said no. They asked me if he had tried to put his willy in me, I said no. But they didn't believe me, I had to see a doctor he made me lie on the bed, he put him hands inside me and I didn't like it, I felt humiliated.


The police asked me all about it, they wanted lots of details. I was embarrassed so I didn't tell them everything, when they asked if he had done it before I said no. They asked me w
hat I was wearing, I couldn't understand why it was important, was it my fault?


I was so confused, I couldn't understand what was happening, I couldn't see my dad again and I honestly didn't know why, my sister was angry at me because she couldn't go either. I couldn't go and see my cousins or my grandparents, I stopped speaking to people.


A few weeks later my granddad died, I felt it was my fault I didn't know what to do. My head was buzzing and I couldn't figure out why. I had done something wrong, I tried to make sense of it, I took it out on my youngest sister. I made her stand at the foot of the bed and tell me she was bad, I hit her and then I was sick. I hope she doesn't remember, I only did it once and she was very young.


I had an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, it gnawed away at me. I didn't know how to get rid if it so I ate. I ate all the time, I would buy can of lilt and bars of chocolate with money that I had taken from my mum's purse and would eat them under the covers of the bed, but I would never get full. I got fat.


Then I started secondary school. I managed to do something that I had never done before, I made friends. It helped me so much, I got over it. I started speaking to people again, I felt normal. Mum let me go and visit my Nan, she let me and my sister see my Dad my as long as we weren't alone, we weren't allowed to sleep over.


For the first time in a long time I was happy. Things have only got better from there.


But there are still scars that you can't see.


I sometimes feel I am trapped inside myself, I cant make my voice heard and I don't know how to. As I get older this feeling lessens but every time I see my Dad I snap back into it for a while.


My relationships are tainted, for the first two years of my current relationship I pushed and pushed and push
ed my boyfriend as far as I could. All of his friends thought I was a complete bitch but he stuck with me, I don't know why. Deep down I know that I wanted to see how far I could go before he would hit me. Happily I know he will never hit me.


I feel isolated. The only people I am comfortable touching me is my boyfriend and my brother. I don't come from a very touchy feely family and when other people go to hug me it puts me on edge, I know its normal for lots of people but I find it difficult to cope with.


But other than that I feel I am fine.


I think my dad picked my mum because she was so vulnerable, he thought he saw someone he could control and manipulate. For the most part he was wrong and although she put up with his abuse she never let him get the better of her. I am very, very proud of my mum.


I often wonder why my dad chose to hurt me and not my sister, I think that he knew I wouldn't say anything. She has always been very loud and I have always been quiet. I had heard somewhere that abusers can look at a child and know which ones will tell and which ones won't. It's a scary thought.


But this is supposed t be an advice section, I don't know what advice I should give.


Well, I could tell you to leave, that he'll never change and he doesn't really love you.


But you already know that, don't you, deep down.


First off, it's never your fault. I know it feels that way. I know that a lot of the time, the reason you put up with it is because you are ashamed. I know that the look of pity in people eyes when they find out is unbearable.

As I come from a very honest family I don't have to hide any secrets. Everything is talked about openly, the way he treated my mum and (less so) what he did to me, even when my parents were together not once did my mum ever say she had walked into a door, she always
said exactly what had happened. So try not to hide secrets, be honest even if you are scared. If he really loves you and really will never do it again he won't mind, will he?


Don't stay for the kids, that's what my mum did and look what happened. If your children grow up in a house of violence what do you think will happen to them? Do you think your boy's will respect women? Do you think your girls will be confident and self assured enough to leave a violent relationship themselves? I know that it doesn't always work like that, I am in a very happy relationship, but don't take the risk.


Don't let him drive your friends and family away, systematically it will happen. They'll get to the point where they just can't talk to you anymore; they'll give up. But remember they're waiting for you, almost certainly.


If you really don't have anywhere to go there are many refuge centres and the police no longer see 'domestics' as something they shouldn't get involved in. There is always help, always. Don't ever forget that.


I think I ought to add that for the most part I had a good upbringing, short of cash but high on love, from the people that count. I have lots of happy memories.


I know it may sound strange but I wouldn't wish to change a single thing. Even the awful stuff because it all makes me, me. If it hadn't happened I might be a different person, and that would be awful.


Take what you get, all the shit, and make it worth it.


[This opinion was donated to the FORCHARITY account by Michaird. To find out more about this initiative visit the FORCHARITY profile page where all will be explained!]

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