Now Wednesday, the after effects of being 'triggered' three days running are not easy, but I will persist in getting on with life.
Just trying to have what most people would call a healthy sexual relationship is so hard for me, I find myself being taken back there where the pain is so unbearable that I can't function normally.
How can a man of 40 odd years old find it pleasurable to have sex with a child? What is it about children that are so facinating to paedophiles? They generally are adult men, some of whom are in healthy normal relationships with adult women, so why do they get the need and desire to seduce a child? what could they possibly acheive by it? I mean it can't be exciting to see a child cry out in pain everytime they come near, it can't possibly be sexually exciting to see a childs naked body.. so why!! I don't think I will ever understand that one.
All I do know is that the child will have a lifetime of fear, terror and nightmares because of what happened. It will affect every aspect of their lives including their own children if they have any. I know with myself it meant that I was over- protective with mine, I wouldn't let them out of my sight when they where younger, even now at 17 and 23 I worry everytime they are away from home. With my daughter I always vowed that if anyone ever hurt her the way I was hurt I would not hesitate to take action against them. I know non abused parents worry about their children as well, but most abuse survivors are worriers to the extent that they become paranoid about safety. When My main abuser was released from prison back in 1996 I received a telephone call from the Child Protection section of the police, he had been picked up for being drunk and disorderly and had told the officers that he was coming after me to clear his name, he claimed he could prove that I had lied in court? I was given a special phone number to call should he turn up, as my daughter was 14yr old at the time I had to warn her, she was and still is a spitting image of me when I was younger, he could easily recognise her if he saw her.. I had to show her pictures of him and tell her that if she saw him she had to go to the nearest house and call the police immediately... how many other parents have to go through this with their children? not that many I guess...
So although most people think that once the perpetrators of Abuse are locked up the victim can move on its not that easy because the memories are always there in the back of your head.. the slightest thing can bring them forward, like a sound, a smell, a touch even a TV programme... we can never get away from it.. As it turns out he didn't come to my house, we moved soon after receiving the call to a new area so that he couldn't find us.. but now many years later I have returned to my hometown, where it all happened. It wasnt an easy choice to make but I have two sisters living here and wanted to be near to them as I got older, I wanted the normal relationship that sisters have, something I'd lost when I ran away at 16yr old to get away from him..
I had spent many a lonely night after running away in a new place where I knew no one and no one knew me! I felt that it showed I had been abused, but of course I know now that it didn't, no one knew unless I told them and I wasn't going to do that, I wanted to be normal! My happiness was short lived however after I moved into a small flat on my own in South London.. I'd been living there about a year and had met my husband to be, the wedding was just weeks away.. sitting in my room one night I received a call from my fiance, we chatted about the wedding arrangements and such and then said goodnight, I went to go back to my room (the phone was out in the communal hallway) when this neighbour stood in front of me and blocked my way.. I was terrified.. all sort of emotions came up and for the first time in a long time I was scared, very scared. Thankfully another neighbour arrived home and said hello to me, I managed to pass this man and head to my room. In about 10 minutes or so I heard the phone ring again, then a knock at my door, thinking it was my fiance on the phone I went to answer the door, but there stood the neighbour who had blocked my way before! he forced himself into my room pushing me aside like I was nothing................
Will try to write more about that another day!