A few years ago, well about 4yrs or so, after my marriage had fallen apart, I'd moved away from London back to where I used to live (and where I grew up as a child) on the South Coast, things started happening when I went to bed at night... I started to dream vivid dreams about my childhood, at first I didn't realise what was happening to me I just used to wake up in the middle of the night crying, sweating and often very distressed.. This seemed to start happening more often and before very long it was a daily occurence. I didn't know back then, but from what I know now, I was having flashbacks about my childhood abuse and it was also causing the nightmares?

I decided to buy myself a computor for the first time and go on line, to find out what all the fuss was about! and boy did I find out? now I'm hooked...lol.. but it was also one of the best things I could have done for myself back then, a friend showed me how to go on line and meet people, how to join groups and get support .. I've not looked back since then.

Through being on line I built myself a support network that has never let me down, unlike other people in my life, these strangers knew how I was feeling, they understood me like no one had ever understood before, they had also experienced Abuse in their lives and I found that at last I could talk to people about what had happened to me as a child.

Everything started to come back, at the age of 46years I was suddenly remembering all the things that had happened to me in detail, I found it so hard to talk about, and still do to some extent, but found that I had a knack for writing it out in poetry! I was encouraged to write down how I felt, what I wanted to do and how I thought I could do it. At last for the first time in life I had someone who beleived in me! Quite early on I was writing poems, not doing anything with them, just storing them in a folder and keeping them away in a drawer. Suddenly someone asked to see a few of them so I posted them in a group, the response I had from others was amazing, they asked if I was inside their heads, I understood how they felt because I felt it as well? One of my early poems was called 'FIGHTING BACK' which was what I beleived I was now doing.. Its this one..

'FIGHTING BACK'

I hate you for doing that to me,

You made me feel, I could never be free.

My Childhood years forever gone,

Whatever did I do so wrong?

You tortured, Put me through every emotion,

I don't beleive you had no notion.

All those things you said and did,

Couldn't you see, I was just a kid?

You beat me and my siblings, black and blue,

We never knew what we could do.

Sometimes we were happy, but most were sad,

But like most children, never really bad.

Now mum she knew you were strict,

She watched you Beat us, with those sticks.

But! She was feeble, weak not strong,

Deep down she must have known it was wrong?

I ran away, just as soon as I could,

Tried to make me return, but I never would.

I kept that secret for sixteen years,

Hid deep inside, behind all my tears.

Then I met someone really nice,

Soon he asked me to become his wife.

At last I thought someone, who cared for me,

True love at last was meant to be.

I discussed this one today with my therapist and she said that from what she knows now, what I beleived was love was most likely not, that man was so like my step father in so many ways, with his controlling attitude etc that I had allowed the circle of Abuse to continue, I didn't see it that way though and she explained that as I was still so young at the time and just recently out of the abusive home that I wouldn't have! She opened my eyes today at how easy it is to get into an abusive relationship once you have been abused, because its familiar territory you are drawn to it, beleiving it to be the right thing... when it isn't really right at all! It is very hard for any Survivor of this sort of thing to see what is good and what is bad.. because we become conditioned to accepting the behaviour thinking its normal!

In another poem that we discussed entitled 'confusion' I explained how confused I was about my marriage break up, yet again the words ' AM I REALLY THAT BAD'? these had been used in a poem about my first step father? so I suddenly saw the similarities.. they were staring me in the face for the first time .. years after my marriage ended I realised that my husband was so much like my step father in how I was treated by him, and when the going got tough after my car accident, he got going and walked out! shows what sort of man he was eh! and how much he didn't care at all for me! So I am much better off now without him in my life at all..

Then we came to the hardest two poems in my book, called 'NUMBER TWO' and 'Raped' which was very difficult to read.. thankfully my therapist understood this and read the second one to herself quietly.. But I did manage to read the first of them, which is about my second step-father, when we went away on holiday after my mother had died! I awoke the day before we were due to return home to England to find him in my bed doing things to me that he should not have done, his excuse was 'he missed my Mum' ! What the hell???

So that gave him the right to Abuse me? I have since then confronted him over the telephone about what happened and he denied it naturally, he cried and told me he was dying, so I told him to 'hurry up and die then'... a little callous I hear you say? But I really don't care.. when I get flashbacks about him all I can remember is my back or my chest itching like crazy and pain.. so much pain!! It makes me feel sick to my stomach that anyone can do this to someone else and then try to deny it happened, try to make out that I am lying, why would I lie? does he seriously beleive I want these memories and feelings, these nightmares and flashbacks? If I could be without them that would be amazing, but its my life these days as I try to deal with it all bit by bit.. I have been asked today to try and keep a diary of the nightmares and flashbakcs to see if we can work out what is triggering them to happen, so I'm going to try it and see if we can work out a pattern, maybe then they will lessen and not have such an effect on me.. However most of the flashbacks tend to be about the stranger who RAPED me just before I got married, we intend to try and work out why this one seems to play on my mind more than the rest as it was only one incident! whereby the rest was from people who I should have been able to trust, but who broke my trust in the worst possible way imaginable...

I get flashbacks about that rape far to often, where I see his face above me and feel the pain as he forced me to do what he wanted, my therapist beleives it may be because of the violence used, this man hit me many times during the assault whereby my step fathers didn't really.. yes they hurt me but they didn't hit me when raping me? Does that make any sense to anyone? because it makes no sense to me at all right now! but I need to work out for myself why this one incident plays on my mind so much, why I can't seem to let it go, is it because I didn't report it? I didn't tell anyone at the time? and now its to late? as I can't even remember his name? even though we lived in the same building for almost two years?? I can't write anymore tonight.. its just to painful.. maybe another day! maybe??