Abuse – Part 1 Physical Abuse

Abuse!

I have been toying with whether to write about abuse or not for ages. I talked to my chemo buddy Karen and asked her opinion and she said that it didn’t belong in a blog about cancer.

My blog however is not just about cancer, it’s about life, and I have shared so much of myself in the blog that I know it wouldn’t be complete without it.

Abuse both physical and sexual are only things we share with people very close to us, people we feel safe with. So why put it in the blog? These questions have been troubling me for ages.

The truth of why it’s going in my blog is that I believe that the life experiences we have are what make us the people we are today. You have to choose whether you become a victim or not. You choose your reaction to everything in life and therefore when bad stuff happens, and it does, you have to find strength from it.

If I didn’t address these issues in my blog then it wouldn’t be complete.

If you have ever suffered from abuse in whatever form you will connect with my life experiences, if you haven’t then you choose whether you want to continue reading. But if you continue reading then ask yourself, have I ever bullied or abused anyone? If you have been the abuser you may just learn what damage you have done and change your behaviour accordingly.

I have only used initials in this post for the people concerned but they will know who they are.

I was 14 years old and my childhood had been wonderful. I thought that all men would be as decent as my dad and although I had seen bullying at school I like many others hadn’t stopped it for fear that I would then become bullied too for being brave. Looking back I was a coward to not stand up to bullying but when at school you don’t have the life experiences yet to make those decisions, or is that just an excuse?

I had wonderful schoolmates and we all hung out together. Through these friends I met DY, he was lovely, handsome and funny. We were attracted to each other instantly and when he was interested in me I was of course flattered.

We started dating but without the formal ‘we are a couple’ and great times were had in the gang of school friends from the Buckpool School and Crestwood School. I went to the Crestwood School.

LC lived in Wordsley and her mom and dads’ house had a big conservatory, which we used to sleep in, all girls together enjoying sleepovers. One night JR, SR and DY came to join us. SR went out with MC and they later married, LC went out with JR, but they didn’t end up married. DY came to sleep with me, I didn’t know why they had come that night and I wasn’t prepared for what they had planned either.

Sparing you the details I ended up with him inside me, I remember thinking no no no but I have never been told about empowerment, that you could say no and that you didn’t have to just do whatever anyone wanted to do to you. I do remember the smell of his jacket; cheap leather and fags, the smell made me want to be sick and I can still smell it today when I think of it.

I went to the toilet and felt like my insides were going to fall out. Ashamed and embarrassed I felt dirty but who could I tell? My friend LW at that time was sexually more advanced then me. She used to talk about oral sex which I thought was just disgusting and I would always leave the room when she started talking about it, she was so confident she would maybe think I was being silly, so I said nothing to anyone.

Following that night I didn’t know how I felt, about DY, sex or anything really, just confused and alone as who could I tell.

My mom and dad at the time had joined an American Square Dancing Club and they went out every Thursday night. DY came round my house one Thursday evening and I begged him to leave, I didn’t want my mom and dad to find out that he had been there whilst they were out. He wouldn’t go. We were outside the front of the house and I kept on and on telling him that he had to go but he wouldn’t go. I got more angry and started shouting at him to leave. He hit me in the face. I don’t really remember much else about what happened next, I just recall knowing that I didn’t want to be hit again and that it was over between us.

During the following weeks DY would sneak around the back of my house into the garden and throw stones at the window to wake me up. He wouldn’t leave. He said that if I didn’t agree to go out with him then he would tell my mom and dad what we had done together. I couldn’t face that so I agreed to go out with him again as along as he left our house and me alone.

The second time he hit me it was worse. We (as in the gang of school friends) were round a friend’s house on the Blandford Mere Estate listening to music in the bedroom, I remember listening to the Jam. He came round and in my friends bedroom he started calling me names and kicking me, just tormenting me, bullying me. It got too embarrassing and so LC, MC, SR and JR and I decided to leave. There is a park on this estate and as we walked through the park out of the bushes came DY with a big stick. He ran towards us so we ran away but he caught up with us and swung the stick at me, I turned as it came towards me and he whacked me across the back, I fell to the floor. JR and SR chased him to stop him and us girls just tried to get through the park to get back home to safety. We saw the boys running after DY as he tried to get to me again and again, but they protected me.

The third time he hit me I can’t remember the build up but I was walking through the alleyway behind the church in Wordsley with MC, the church where both my sister and dad are laid to rest. I had a postcard and 50p in my hand. DY had followed us and had remained behind us calling me names, he wouldn’t stop, I had had enough and I remember dropping the 50p and the postcard and trying to land a right-handed punch on him. He was stronger than me and the beating started, he got me onto the floor and repeatedly kicked me in the head. I remember losing consciousness and coming round to him leaning over me and saying “oh my God, what have I done” and them he continued to kick the hell out of me. MC was helpless to stop him. Eventually I got home, blouse torn and covered in dirt. I decided to tell my mom, not all the details but just a little of it. She said not to tell my dad, as he would kill him.

I was scared after that to go out anywhere in case I saw him. Frightened of more beatings and name-calling. He had moved on though and sometime later I heard that he had gone to prison. I was so happy as I was free to walk the streets again.

Years past and I didn’t see him; I had heard that he was out of prison and living in Wolverhampton. Again a long way away so I was safe, or so I thought.

The Kingfisher nightclub had become a regular venue for great nights out with friends, I loved to dance and would spend all of my time on the dance floor, dancing around my handbag with the occasional fag and drink nearby I would spent hours just enjoying the music and dancing freely. One night I was there as normal and I saw him across the floor. I was in the smaller part of the venue called Piranha’s at the time. I froze, oh no what was I going to do, why was he here, would he attack me again? I panicked and headed for the toilets, I would be safe in there.

I eventually came out of the toilets to find him waiting outside for me, he reached out to touch me and I recoiled, as I didn’t ever want him to touch me again.

He just looked at me and said “I’m so sorry for everything I ever did to you.” He turned around and left me standing there completely gobsmacked at his apology and him even being there as I hadn’t seen him in years.

The next day I was shocked to read in the local paper that he killed himself that night.

So there you have it, my first episode or experience of abuse. Physical abuse has bruises or wounds that can be seen but verbal abuse leaves different scars. It affected me in my ability to deal with men being angry or shouting at me. I could never cope with this and I still struggle today.

I remember being at school in a lesson and I wasn’t listening as normal, the male teacher stood over me and shouted, “look at me” over and over again. The angry in me raged but I couldn’t look at him for fear of what he might do to me. I eventually stood up and shouted, “fuck off” at him and ran out of the classroom. My school friends must have thought this was a cool thing to do not knowing the fear I held inside.

I have been bullied at different times throughout my working life and I was never really strong enough to cope with it or fight back. Bullies don’t grow up and change, normally they just get older and continue there bullying behaviour. But sometimes you can change a fearful situation into a positive. When I first started in Kingston, Troy and I had a verbal argument and he whilst shouting “I’ve had a fucking enough of you” threw the store keys at me. Once we had sorted out the issues and calmed down I told him of my early abuse and that I can’t cope when men shout at me. He understood and promised me he would never shout again, and he kept to his word. There are lots of decent men out there too.

My Steve can shout and although he doesn’t shout at me there has been many occasions when he had to shout at the four kids. I remember once him shouting and I hid in the laundry room in the house with three loos in Pedmore. Scared but again just fear from my past haunting me again.

So warts and all there it is but it’s important for you to understand that the confident over bearing, energetic, overpowering, self opinionated woman I became has come from a scared girl who chose not to be a victim and hid the hurt inside.

I was this person, as I didn’t want others see what the fear of abuse had done to me, the mental scars that it leaves you with. If you have suffered abuse some of my story will make sense and bring back your own fears and I’m sorry if this is the case. However it may just make you realise that in either illness or abuse you are not alone and if my story helps just one other person to realise that how they feel or have felt is perfectly normal then I have achieved what this post was meant to achieve.

‘Warts and all’ our life experiences make us who we are. Don’t be a victim, fight back and take control, that’s what they should teach at school. I lesson I had to learn for myself.

Prayer list for tomorrow Rita:

Karen and Frankie. Guy’s son following his operation. My loved ones for strength and peace. People in physical pain who can’t sleep at night and finally all victims of abuse. Thanks Rita xx