Tuesday Morning and today as I prepare to go and help my sister once again, I remember the conversations we had last week.. talking about things that we both know now is true and not a mixed up dream or nightmare that we didn't beleive.

But today will be different, today another of my sisters is coming with me... this sister however can not talk about our childhood without crying even today, she finds it very hard to even think about... she is the oldest of us all and no doubt for her, she saw so much happen that she had to block it out for her own protection... but now in her later years she still can't talk about it!. Her childhood was very different to mine in that when our parents split up she was left to live with dad, an alcoholic out on the booze everynight.. at 8yr old that must have been very hard for her to understand.. I can remember seeing her in school one day limping around and when we asked her what was wrong she said she had hurt her ankle..what we didn't know at the time was that she had in fact broken it and it was a good week later before that was discovered... so she walked around on a broken ankle all that time, she must have been in agony and our father didn't notice!.. she was the first one to join mum in England once she was settled and no doubt the first to meet Don as well... I dread to think what happened in those months when she was there without us... maybe there is something that she can't accept? maybe he did things to her that she just can't admit to yet? One day hopefully she will be able to talk to the rest of us and tell us what she can.. maybe somehow we can help her come to terms with it all? I hope so!!

So today my sisters and I will no doubt only do small talk, we won't talk about the past at all it will be all about the here and now! which in a way is a good thing for me because I don't want to start associating visists to my other sister with hard conversations..

I wish somedays that I could just meet that man again.. ask him outright why he felt the need to use and abuse us all the way he did? why did he feel the need to rape young children? what satisfaction could he possibly have got from it? when someone is crying during sex its kind of obvious to even the most inexperienced person that something is wrong, that the act is wrong? So why did he carry on regardless? What satisfaction did he get from humiliating us all in front of other people? by removing our underwear to hit us with his belt/cane/slipper or whatever he was using, not only punishing us but humiliating us as well... I don't think I will ever understand that one, other than to think that he was and is pure evil itself!

I now run with the help of a very good friend an on line support group for Abuse Survivors and some of the stories that I have heard would make most people cringe, but these are factual stories of things that really did happen to these people as they grew up... It amazes me just how many people suffered the same kind of thing that I suffered, by talking to these people and telling my story it helps me to come to terms with it, I'll never understand but I hope one day to be able to make others realise the damage done that is long term, that lasts a lifetime, that can cause some survivors to commit suicide because they can no longer live with the pain and memories of what they endured..
My own sister attempted suicide many times over the years, thankfully she was not successful.. but its very hard to accept that the actions of one person can do this to another! many survivors also self harm, cutting themselves with knives, razor blades and such in the beleif that somehow it will ease the pain, it temporarily eases the thoughts because they think about the cut they have made but the abusive memories are still there as things heal up! my sisters arms are covered in scars from her self harming something she will live with for the rest of her life, she now knows that it didnt take away the pain of the abuse it just disguised it for a while until she was ready to deal with it.. like many others she is trying to accept that she can't change the past but she can make sure it doesn't happen again in the future.. I wish them all luck in their healing and hope one day that I myself will be able to put it all behind me and live my life as it should be lived, with love and care in it, knowing that the person I care about and love wouldn't hurt me in any way at all.. it sounds amazing to me and I long for that day!!