Category: Abuse

The first trigger

Okay so I’m ready to tell you about the first and most dominant trigger of all my mental health issues.

My Childhood – The Abuse

I find this very hard to talk about, and apart from the police officers in my interviews and questioning, I don’t think I have ever disclosed the details to any of my family or friends.

I was about 8 years old when it started, it began as a game, like mummy’s and daddy’s. There was a housing estate just a five minutes walk from my family home, where a family friend lived. My mother used to take myself and my brother to her friends house and let us play with the other children that lived on the housing estate. I can still visualise exactly where it was when it first started, the fence that acted as the pretend doorway to our imaginary house, where we would place our fingerprint to gain access. I was still young enough to participate in these imaginary games and find them fun and exciting. He told me that we had to pretend to be married, and do all of the things that real married couples would do. At 8 years old I was too naïve to understand what it is that adult couples in relationships do, but I was about to find out…

The game began outside in the street, anyone could have seen it but out there only a quick peck or a cuddle was displayed which must have seemed normal to any adult should they ask and be told that you were playing a game of that sort. It progressed over the weeks and things started to move indoors and this is where I first learnt about sexual activities. It was a part of the game, it was what couples did. First I was shown what to do, being taught like a child would be, but this wasn’t a classroom and it was no content I needed to learn about so early in my life. After being shown the various things that I could do I was then told I had to keep doing it. I will never forget the explanation or the room surrounding me as I learned of this. “when you keep doing that, eventually it will make my whole body tingle and something will come out, that’s when you know you’ve done a good enough job”. That was my first ever experience of how to please someone in the bedroom and it has never left me. I remember having a session with a councillor at school, shortly after I had spoke up about what had been happening. I was about 10 by this point, I was in my final year of primary education, hadn’t even made it to big school yet. I sat with this lady and we cut out words from magazines and stuck words one side that we thought may make me sad, fearful, things I may struggle with in the future. Words like sex, boyfriend, man, trust…

Nothing could prepare me for how much it would impact my life and it seems that every time I have a breakdown or an anxiety attack I learn even more how it links to this. I read some articles lately about childhood abuse and it mentioned on there that you can go one of two ways from an experience like this. Some people are so fearful that they avoid any sexual contact, any relationships, due to the trauma they have been through. Some people however act in the opposite way, participating in sexual relations perhaps too much. I am afraid I have been one of those. Only now that I am able to reflect on the life I have lived I have realised that I engaged willingly in sexual relations at a very young age, something that I am very ashamed of. I also consented to relations throughout my life that I have actually had no desire for. I believe that I have always acted this way because of that moment I mentioned above. I grew from a child into an adult with it implanted in my growing brain that I had to please men, that I had to make them orgasm, only then would I have done my job properly. I now have my own desires for the product that is produced when an orgasm is reached and I wonder if that is again also linked to that day.

There is far too much to go through with regards to how this abuse has left me feeling. Most commonly I feel worthless, I feel as though everyone is out to get me and that if someone is being nice to me, it is not out of the goodness of their heart. There is always an ulterior motive that my brain wont give up searching for, and it is this that causes me to push away the good people. Because I cant believe they are good, I cant believe anyone would ever love me. I feel as though I am destined to be hurt and that it will always happen to me no matter what. As I write more posts I will link some of my attacks, my fears and my feelings back to what happened to me as a small child.

Sometimes I feel as though its just easier to give up, because things will never get better for me. But its like I have two minds, a true Gemini, and every now and then I get a glimpse of a healthier, happier future and I know that I cant give up on reaching it. I really hope that I can find ways to get better and fight this for myself and for everyone that is close to me.

Until next time.

 

The Journey Begins

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.

I am just a girl, just your ordinary girl as it may seem to the outside world. 21 years old, with the world at my feet and opportunities arising everyday. If I was to choose one comment from others that would best describe me it would be this ‘you’ve got your head screwed on’. The amount of times I have heard that, that must be what many see. Oh, the irony, as each day that passes I feel as though my head gets looser and looser. Or maybe I am making it looser because my head carries so much that I no longer want it on my shoulders. It is too heavy, it suffocates me. Those who judge me by my cover see what I want them to see, they see who I want to be. But those who come far enough into my life to start reading the book, begin to see the real me. There is only so far you can come in to my life before I struggle to hide my feelings from you.

I guess that’s why I am here today, why I am beginning to share my story with the world. Perhaps I am seeking acceptance, people who have been through a similar journey and can relate to how I feel. Perhaps I want to be that acceptance for someone else, who is at the stage where they feel like no-one will understand them. Perhaps I want people to read my story and better understand what it is that a loved one is going through, because it must be hard to understand someone else’s pain if you have never experienced a pain like it. There needs not only be one reason for me starting this page, but I truly hope that it can benefit many people.

Let me begin with the most recent turn of events. The weekend just passed my boyfriend took me to Paris, we stayed in a beautiful hotel where he arranged for champagne and a birthday message to be waiting in the room for me. I have never been treated so well by a man before. It was like one of those moments you see in movies or Instagram posts and think, ‘ I wish someone would do that for me’.  There I was, with something I had wished for so many times prior to this, and I finally had it, right in front of me. But I didn’t appreciate that moment, like I had always dreamed that I would. There was something bigger inside me weighing me down, stopping me from that one special moment that we both deserved to have and both deserved to cherish. It had been building inside me for  a long time, years in fact. But it fluctuates, its like a heart beat, constantly up and down. You can go a short period of time managing it, putting it aside and dealing with it later. Sometimes, you cant manage it at all and you have a break down, no matter where you are, who your with, you just cant physically take what is going on in your head anymore and it all flows out. That’s what happened to me in Paris, I knew for weeks that I was on the verge of a big mental breakdown. I love travelling, I should have been so excited, I should have been in my element, but I was not. I was in such a dark place that even something so great was not enough to lift my mood. He wanted to see my bouncing around like a child, smiling non stop, enjoying everything right there that I had in that moment. I wish I did. I really wish that I had appreciated that time away, and all of the effort that he had made for me but I couldn’t. Things were so bad inside my head that I was suffocating even then.  I had known for weeks now that I needed professional help, but its an easy thing to say that you want it, but going to get it is scary and I put it off for too long.

After this heart-breaking experience, no doubt for the both of us, I reached breaking point. I went to work and I broke down, I knew I had to go home and that it was finally time to make the first step. For the first time ever, I broke down to my parents, one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  Admitting to them how I often don’t want to live anymore, how I feel worthless, how I feel like the whole world is against me. There are hundreds of little contributing  factors to the way I feel, but it all started with childhood abuse. I have now been to the doctor, I have got some time off work to try and recover slightly before resuming normal day to day life. Shortly the process of the referral will kick in, I will be psychologically assessed and I hope that will bring me the help that I need. It may be too late to save my relationship, but there is still time to save my life.

Until next time.