I have very few memories of the time before my father started to sexually abuse me at the age of 6. As a result, my whole life has been tainted by the abuse I suffered. At the age of 15, after repeated requests from me for my father to stop abusing me, the abuse ended; its legacy did not. The abuse I suffered has had an immeasurable impact on my life: psychologically, emotionally, physically, and socially. There has been no part of my life that has not been affected.
Before the age of 6 I recall being a happy child, playing with my siblings in our large back garden in Leicester. We moved to London when I was 6 and with the words uttered by my father ‘this is our secret, you mustn’t tell mummy or anyone else’ my whole life changed. I have no memories of being loved by my mother or being hugged by her or turning to her for comfort. My father exploited that desperate need I had for love and affection and manipulated me into a place where I trusted and loved him utterly, he was my idol – I would have done anything for him. Having a secret with him made the small child that I was feel special. But with that came the fear, the huge overwhelming fear about the escalating abuse. My psychological problems began – dissociation, depersonalisation, anxiety, night terrors, despair. And confusion that came from having the only adult in the world that I loved and trusted do things to me that I didn’t understand that I didn’t like, and I knew on some level weren’t right.
As I grew older the abuse continued to escalate, the incidents were so frequent that they became my everyday reality. The burden of secrecy was beginning to take its toll on my mental state – I desperately wanted to tell someone but was terrified of what would happen if I did. I loved my father beyond life itself and couldn’t bear the thought that ‘I’ would be responsible for breaking up the family and him being taken away. My father was often violent towards my older brother – I assumed responsibility for keeping my father ‘sweet’ so my brother would not bear the brunt of his anger. In turn I didn’t want the violence turned on me. I bore the burden, in my mind, of keeping my younger brother safe. I felt I bore sole responsibility for keeping the family together and as ‘happy’ as possible.
The despair became overwhelming and I began to consider suicide from the age of 12. I acted out at school and suffered from crippling social anxiety that meant that by the time I was a 16 or 17 I could barely leave the house. My eating became disordered and I binged in an effort to comfort myself.
The shame started to be all pervasive. I knew that there was something wrong with me, that I was a bad person, because otherwise why would my wonderful father have been abusing me? I have carried this shame with me throughout my adult life. My self-esteem was non-existent throughout my 20s. All my relationships with men have been tainted by this shame and lack of self-esteem. I entered a series of abusive relationships.
Throughout my 20s I struggled to keep everything together, not really knowing what was wrong with me. I had aspired to be a barrister, but my lack of self-esteem meant that I felt that I wasn’t good enough for that. I moved from one job to another searching for something although I didn’t know what.
Life began to completely unravel when my first niece was born. I had spoken to friends about my history of abuse, but I had kept the secret from everyone in my family. But now the prospect that my father may abuse my niece meant that I knew I had to speak out and break the secret. My mental health began to deteriorate. I self-harmed daily by cutting myself with knives, I had such bad panic attacks that at times I ended up in A&E, when I finally visited my GP, I was referred to a psychiatric hospital. I was prescribed anti-depressants for the first time.
When I disclosed the abuse to my mother on my 30th birthday, I had hoped that my father, whom I still loved, would admit what he had done, ask for forgiveness and we could work to move forward with our relationship if he sought professional help. That didn’t happen. My father only admitted that he ‘may have acted inappropriately’ and didn’t apologise, show any remorse, or take any measure of responsibility. He attended one therapy session for 5 minutes and left. My sense of betrayal increased, compounded by my mother standing by him. Over the next two years I approached my father on 2 more occasions to see if he could accept responsibility and show some remorse, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. I cut off any contact with him when I was 32.
My relationship with my older brother had always been strained because of the environment we grew up in, now the rest of my father’s family turned their backs on me. I attempted to continue a relationship with my mother, but her betrayal in standing by my father, meant that this was not sustainable, and I cut off contact with her in 2015. My children do not have a relationship with their maternal grandparents.
I spent my early 30s in therapy, 3 times a week, trying to move beyond the abuse. I had been diagnosed with depression and was on medication. My panic attacks continued. I still tried to move on and eventually married and had two children. My depression returned with a vengeance after the birth of my first child, a daughter. I have been unable to enjoy motherhood to the full as seeing my daughter grow I have always been reminded of what had happened to me – seeing my daughter at the age of 6, so small, at 11, so vulnerable and at 15 so buoyant and full of life, unlike my 15 year old self who was struggling with trying to get the abuse to stop. I have always carried the huge anxiety that something would happen to my daughter.
As my mental health began to deteriorate again when my daughter was 11, the age I was when the abuse was at its worst, my marriage began to fall apart. I went back into therapy and decided to speak to the Truth Project about my abuse experience in an attempt to heal and with the hope that my experience may help others. I still wasn’t ready to go to the police about the abuse but with my mental health deteriorating again and my daughter now turning 15, I began to feel that I wanted to show her that justice is possible.
After reporting the abuse to the police, I began experiencing flashbacks to the abuse, nightmares, dissociation and started cutting again. I felt like I was going insane and contemplated suicide on several occasions and then felt so much guilt as I have two children I would never leave. It was incredibly hard to continue going to work and function as a parent and a wife. I finally saw a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with complex PTSD with depression and anxiety and I began taking a cacophony drugs that I take to this day to keep me on an even keel, these include 2 anti-depressants at the maximum dosage, beta blockers and a Valium type drug. My marriage couldn’t survive the strain and in 2020 we divorced.
This is legacy of the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of my father from the age of 6 to 15. There have been many times in my life when I have felt that a ‘sexual abuse victim’ is all that I am, my childhood was taken away from me and changed me and my personality to the core. I will never know what kind of child and adult I would have been if I had grown up in a loving, safe home without abuse. This was ripped away from me by my father, one of the people I should have been able to trust completely, who saw me as an object for his gratification and totally disregarded me as a person, as a child, as his child.
In October 2021, my father was sentenced to 11 years, 3 months for his abuse of me. I made the decision to waive my right to anonymity and speak out about familial sexual abuse, in particular father-daughter abuse which is thought to occur in 1 in 20 homes in the UK – on your street there are fathers abusing their daughters today.
Childhood sexual abuse thrives in silence and secrecy. By taking away that silence and speaking out, I wanted to disable my father’s power and take my power back. I would like to encourage other childhood abuse survivors to come forward and report their abuse to the police; to break the cycle of shame and raise awareness in society of childhood sexual abuse and that this happens in seemingly ‘nice middle class’ homes. The more survivors who speak up, the more chance we have of bringing an end to the horrific crime of childhood sexual abuse.
