My Story (page 2)
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I don't remember exactly what age I was when my father, Bill, started abusing me. It first happened in a caravan on some land that he owned. He began by asking me some questions about sex, curious to know how much I knew about it. He closed the door, and locked it, to make sure that no one would know, and the first incident occurred... one of many. Afterwards, confusion was the first thing I remember feeling. What the hell did he just do? Then, we went to the shops and he bought me fish and chips. He said something like it was for me being such a good girl. I didn't understand that he had committed a crime, I barely realised he had violated me in any way. I was too young to have set up proper personal boundaries, and he was my father, so I trusted him.

From there, incidents happened every weekend, whenever I'd get taken to his land, and his caravan - and he'd always 'reward' me, with chocolate or a computer game or something similar. If I asked for anything, he would always abuse me first so that I 'earned' it. He called the abuse 'itching'.

Then the incidents happened elsewhere, when I was at home. Sometimes he'd offer me gifts if I let him, and because I was too young to understand, I obliged, and thought there wasn't anything wrong with it. Daddy would never hurt me. I entered puberty and realised that it wasn't normal, that it wasn't what all the dads did to their children and that - I thought - it was far too late to stop it. After all, I'd let it happen, I was to blame. He always enforced that way of thinking, and would tell me regularly that if I told anyone, 'it would incriminate us both' . He also said he might commit suicide, and that I'd never see him again. I began to loathe him. I wanted him to die. One time, he asked me if I would let him penetrate me, and I screamed at him, and he never asked again.

Bill was diagnosed with prostate cancer around that time, and after the operation (which he survived with flying colours, as well as fighting off MRSA) the incidents got worse because he made me do things that he said would help with his 'condition', during his recovery. At school, I had started a relationship with a boy and wanted to see him on the weekends, and Bill used that to get more sexual favours from me. I used to look at my boyfriend across the classroom and think 'if only you knew what was happening to me...'

I was convinced that I would be disowned from my family if I ever told anyone about the abuse. I felt like I was a prostitute, and cheating on my boyfriend. I was very insecure and always thought of other girls as being better than me in every way, because they were 'pure', and I was not. They were whole, and I was fragmented. And I became obsessively needy and clung to my boyfriend, telling myself that I needed to spend as much time as I could with him, because he was my escape. More time with him meant more abuse from Bill, which made me needier still. I was needy enough to allow myself to be abused in the mornings before school, just so that he would get me there on time, to spend a few more minutes with my escape. And when the incidents increased in frequency and severity, I went along with it. My attitude was 'it's already happened a million times, so what difference does it make now?'

When Bill took me and my brother up to see my Mum and second brother (who lived away from me) over the holidays, my life changed forever. He never stayed with us when we were with mum because my parents always argued, so he left us there and went back home. My mum mentioned child abuse in passing in a conversation we were having about something else. Whenever she would steer the conversation elsewhere I'd bring it back to the subject until she asked me 'why are you asking me about this? Your Dad isn't doing anything to you, is he..?'

When I nodded, she was shocked, and left the room without saying a word. I couldn't believe the words had come out of my mouth, and I knew from then that everything was about to change. The next night, she told my brothers, who called the Police. I remember Mum waking me up in the early hours of the morning, and leading me into the living room, where my brothers gave me a hug, held my hand and said nothing. I felt numb. The Police arrived at 5am Christmas day to conduct an initial interview, and a week later I was doing my video interview at the station. Bill was still back at home, oblivious that I'd somehow found the strength to disclose. When I was told that he'd been arrested, I wished that I could have been there when they did it; he would have been having a typical morning, feet up on the sofa, bowl of All-Bran and the Discovery Channel. Next thing he knows, he's got Police officers banging on the door and driving him to the nearest station to interview him, 'anything you do say may be used against you in court' etc, fix up, look sharp, click (goes the tape recorder).

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