Will I ever be ‘Normal’?

This is a bit of a pointless question, rhetorical really, we all know there’s no way I’ll ever be a ‘normal’ person.

We are all shaped by our experiences; it influences us more than we care to admit and I’ve been shaped by countless dangerous, abusive and extreme circumstances they have such an impact on me as a person that even though it may have been decades ago it has stayed with me.

I suffer from CPTSD – Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – and like it’s famous sister PTSD one of the symptoms is flashbacks.

To truly understand what a flashback feels like – though everyone’s experience is different – for me; it’s like falling and drowning at the same time into utter darkness then my gut tightens, I shake, I start to hear crying and screaming and my limbs feel like lead. I try to speak but I can’t breathe and I’m taken to a time in my life where I felt my life was at risk – I see it all over again. It really feels as if you have to go through it all over again.

When you have CPTSD these flashbacks can be of many incidents as it’s usually linked to sustained periods of abuse as well as multiple types of abuse, whereas PTSD can be caused by one isolated incident.

When I was 11 I was nearly kidnapped – not the first or the last time this would nearly happen. I was raised in the countryside and was overly trusting so when a guy with a minibus(van) said he was a provisional bus service for the local council I believed him and happily took trips with him into the local town with my brother.

He was very inquisitive he asked me lots of questions about who I was, what my life was like and I answered all of his questions

Then one time we were supposed to both be picked up at the same place at the same time but my brother wasn’t there so I travelled with him alone. I didn’t feel uncomfortable straight away but while driving he asked if I wanted to sit in the front seat I said yes and he told me to climb through – this was my first warning I thought it was odd that a bus driver would allow a child to climb through while driving I knew it was illegal; both my parents had allowed us to do that while driving and had both been pulled over!

So I climb through and sit there and we start talking soon I notice he keeps touching my leg and that turned into rubbing – this was my second warning, he was touching me and I knew it was sexual.

Then he said “How old are you, again?” I told him I was 11 He replied (and I quote) “Really cause it’s my daughters 12th birthday today and she’s having a sleepover, would you like to come?” I said I had to get home and he started telling the most perfect 12th birthday I could think of – tents in the living room, karaoke, a midnight feast – just the kind of party I would love.

I knew it was too good to be true and I knew I was in trouble. I started watching the road waiting for the turning to my village to come but my gut told me he wasn’t going to take it he tried to persuade me that it’d be fine and that I could call my mum from his house and he’d explain and she’d be fine with it all I could think was “I bet she wouldn’t” – even my mother who is probably a good contender for ‘The Most Neglectful Parent Award” would definitely NOT be okay with it!

I tried every excuse, I told him I had homework and he said “But you’re home educated, you’re so smart you don’t need to worry about that,” I told him my mother would be worried and he said “She’s a single mother with four kids I don’t think she’s mind!” I realised he’d paid a lot of attention to our previous conversations and this only fuelled my fear.

As the turning came up I noticed he did not slow down he was acting like he didn’t see it but I knew it was deliberate – this was my final warning – as the turning passed us by my heart sank into despair but as soon as it did my brain turned on and a calm steady voice told me to take off my seatbelt and unlock the door without him noticing so I started to pretended that he’d convinced me and he relaxed a little so as not to notice.

I thought of just jumping out but I looked out the window and it didn’t seem like an option – we were going too fast for me to just jump out. Remember it was the countryside and short of livestock and the occasional train crossing there was not much traffic.

Luck however did strike me – there were two or three cars in front of us and then a large hay-truck started backing onto the road we came to an almost complete stop.

I slid my arm to the handle and BOLTED I ran to the verge and through a hedge across a field and into a wooded area I sat down on a tree stump and my brain said “Stay where you are, stay still, be quiet”.

I stayed on the tree stump for nearly two hours then I got up walked out of the woods and started walking back home, alone.

When I got home I told my mother what had happened and she seemed almost excited like I’d had a fun adventure, she said she would report him to the local authorities but like a true contender for “The Most Neglectful Parent Award” she did not.

It was not an adventure. It was yet another experience of total fear and hopelessness, I felt so vulnerable and alone I was totally at his mercy. I was only 11 and yet again I had to save myself from yet another adult who was crossing some dangerous boundaries.

I have lived these moments over and over again I relived all the thoughts that passed through my mind like; “He’s going to rape me.” “Why isn’t anyone here to help me?” “What do I do?” “Why is it always me?”

I’m constantly reminded how hurt I was that my mother didn’t do anything – didn’t even get a hug!

I’m constantly reminded of a time when nobody was there, that no one helped me where I would’ve loved nothing more than to be rescued and how worthless I must be for no one to even try.

It’s as fresh in my memory as the day it happened – this and much, much more swims around my head all day every day giving me real life examples of why I’m not a normal person.

I can’t just ‘forget about it’. It won’t let me move on. It just keeps attacking me.

It makes me act strangely; to this day I don’t like sitting in the front seat, I avoid being alone in cars with male drivers, I keep one hand of the door handle and the other on the buckle.

This is second nature to me and it makes up part of who I am. I’ve had to save myself so often that it doesn’t even occur to me to ask for help, I’m so used to having to fight alone.

I try to move on, I try to have every day as it comes and want to have a more prosperous future but I’m so used to being attacked I’m stuck in a defensive mindset just waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

I suppose what I mean by the question is not “will I be ‘normal’?” It’s “Will I ever be accepted for who I am now by society in general?” and perhaps even more pertinent “Can I accept who I am?”

From my experiences thus far I fear the answer is “Probably not”.

Sunday Special

I write a piece every week but I’ve decided that on Sunday I’m going to give a voice to someone other than myself a fellow survivor with a story to tell.

Today is shout out to a close friend of mine whose compassionate actions deserve recognition.

What SHOULD you do?

Most of us come into contact with people acting unreasonably in public in some way at some time in our lives, when this unreasonable behaviour is towards a child it never ceases to surprise me how little people are willing to do to help protect that child I’ve heard all the excuses – “There not my kid” “It’s not my business” “Maybe they’ve been acting up and the parent has just snapped” (like that makes it ok!)

And recently I was speaking with a friend who said to me “What should you do then?” and that’s a really good question most of us don’t see how our involvement can help or what that involvement should be.

Be assured that getting involved directly is very rarely a constructive, productive way to help usually the best way to help is to “Observe and Report” take a step back and take notes, as many details as you can, when, where, for how long, descriptive details that can help authorities track the incident. I told my friend this and recently she put it into use!

My friend was in public and she watched a father abuse his toddler, slapping him and kicking the back of his legs – the way she handled this situation was just perfect!

She first observed – she noticed that the man was with a group of adults so did not approach which would have been incredibly dangerous and may have caused the situation to escalate putting herself in danger and potentially further endangering the child. She watched from a safe distance and quietly followed these people trying to obtain better information to give the police. She took note of the street and descriptive details of the people involved. She saw them go into an address and noted it.
She then called the police giving all the details she had noted during this time plus the address they all went in to. She formally reported it to the correct authority – that child was in immediate danger and while you can call social services the lack of funding and large case load can mean they cannot get involved as quickly as is needed. When you have an immediate concern for someone’s safety always call the police.
Most importantly she took the time needed to do the right thing, she could’ve easily been disapproving and gone back to her day, shrugged it off as “someone else’s job” and “not my business” but she showed a level of compassion and concern towards a vulnerable person in need of a good Samaritan. She took the time needed to do as much as she could to help that 3/4 year old child. She treated that child like her own, the way you would want someone to protect your child/grandchild/niece/nephew.

What’s great is that not that long ago I was sat with this friend who asked me what she should do when she sees child abuse in public and she LISTENED.

We had been exchanging some public abuse situations that we had seen and been involved in and she was stating she didn’t feel comfortable confronting people. It’s so rarely a good idea to directly confront someone it can escalate the situation to a point where more violence occurs it can even cause more abuse towards the child later when you can’t do anything.

You need to assess the situation take the time, the date, the exact location, the physical description of those involved, if you can do so safely take a photo or a video, try NOT to get noticed so you can freely observe these situations and get as many details as possible.

You can do this, you can change your attitude, learn how to help and you can make this world a safer place for all – you could even save someone’s life.

The Emotional Equivalent of Cardboard

When I was young my mother told me never to listen to emotions as they were irrational and illogical. My mother believed that getting upset didn’t help so it was always better to keep your cool than to have an emotional episode.

My mum would mock our emotional behaviour, if we reacted in any way that showed emotion she would throw a tantrum and say “This is all I saw when you said/did that”

I remember this time my father was beating my siblings and me, I was 7 and he’d punched me in the face a few times (I had been the last one he’d beaten) all my siblings were crying – but I was unable, I knew it would help if I cried as he would usually stop hitting us when we were sobbing, but I just couldn’t cry – I felt completely numb, mentally, emotionally and physically and I remember thinking “I need to cry” so tried to fake it, I licked my fingers and rubbed them on my face in the hopes that it looked like tears I hid my face and made whining noises and it seemed to work.

I was 7 years old, I had a broken nose, I had been thrown around like a rag doll and made to watch the violence my siblings had to endure yet I was totally incapable of crying about it. All I could here was my mother’s voice in my head saying “How would crying about it help?” “How does getting upset fix this problem?”

You know why he beat us? Because one of the curtains fell down in one of the bedrooms and he blamed us – it fell because it wasn’t nailed into the wall but stuck to the wall with Poly Filler. Afterwards we were sent to our room and told that if we tried to come out he’d kill us – we were kept there for 2 days without food, water or use of a bathroom in almost total silence except from a few whispers. We were just too scared to talk (my sister protected me she rationed us a cup of water and emptied a draw for us to use as a toilet, which we then would throw out the window she was very practical for 9/10 years old) I’ve never discussed this with my siblings as adults – we just avoid the subject and pretend it wasn’t that bad because we’re conditioned that way.

To this day I can’t express my emotions verbally, the only physical expression I make is when I cut myself or overdose these are the only ways I can express myself,. Because after being silent for so long you forget you have a voice and when you do realise, like I have, that you do have a voice you don’t know how to use it.

It’s why I write this because I can express myself in the written word far better than in any other context. This may be a good thing in some ways but it’s hard to apply it in real life, it’s not easy to have to write a strongly worded letter to some total stranger who upset you, or stop in mid conversation to write down what you actually mean and don’t even get me started on the shit show that is any kind of therapy!

I’ve never lost my temper, I’ve never screamed at anyone, I’ve never even had a heated argument in the few decades I’ve been alive I’ve never done anything that could seen as aggressive or violent I am always calm and rational even in the face of terror I can’t lose control. I would dearly love to scream and yell and make a fuss but I don’t know how.

My mother would mock any expression of emotions and my father would beat you for them and so it was for my entire childhood, even some of my adulthood.

I’m scared of confrontation I worry that bringing up any kind of grievance to someone might result in violence which brings me to an important message – with me and people like me, you won’t know you’ve hurt us, we’ll swallow it and most likely deal with it in an dangerous way, even if you directly asked we’d be so scared we couldn’t tell you.

I’m not saying you have to walk on eggshells around everyone but this would be a better world for all of us if everyone thought about the impact that their words and actions have on people. I wish people would take a leaf out of my book and at the end of every day think “Did I do the right thing today?”

Sleep! Part 1

I cannot remember a time I slept well, but it has become especially worse over the last decade (12 years in fact) I haven’t slept the night through since I was a teenager – I once had a friend who said I was such a light sleeper that “A fly could fart in your bedroom and wake you up” but now my sleep is interrupted with nightmares, flashbacks and a near constant state of anxiety, you can’t properly rest when your stressed and I have never not been stressed.

As a child I was on the alert all the time, I never knew when the abuse would hit so I would sit quietly and wait trying to mentally prepare for whatever may come my way, it’s like being in a perpetual state of paralysing fear, you’ll never know who or what it will be.

My anxiety was at it’s worst with my father, as a child when he was around I couldn’t sleep I was so scared that every night I would be sick, I remember once at 8 years old being sick in the toilet and my father was naked, rubbing my back he said “Is it because of me?” I knew if I said yes I’d be beaten, I was smart enough to say “No”. It had been the middle of the night and even though I was ill and tired I was never off guard.

Thing is when you’re used to being attacked on all sides all the time it’s hard to tell when your safe, as an adult I have really struggled with this.

I remember getting my first job and making a mistake someone pointed it out and all I could think was “Oh my god he’s going to hit me” like a typo would make my superiors fly into a rage and attack me!

Most people have heard of ”Fight of Flight’ where in response to danger you either fight back or run away but it’s different for survivors of abuse, especially child abuse because whether you fight back or not it rarely has an impact on the abuse – you learn again and again how utterly powerless you are and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Sleep is supposed to be a time of rest and it’s when any normal human is at their most vulnerable and I know that which is why I can’t sleep.

Now no one is attacking me I should feel safe, but I don’t, because I’ve never been safe before and I’m having to convince my mind that no one will hurt me, that it’s not some long elaborate trick meant to hurt me, this is all new to me.

I cannot let go mentally and my mind races with awful memories all day every day so how I can get anything done is a total mystery to me, I’m exhausted I’m too tired to have the mental fortitude needed to start healing my mind, there are 1000’s of hours of sleep I haven’t had and being forced into ‘constant threat mode’ all the time gives me total blackouts, where time doesn’t exist once I went to bed and woke up 3 days later with pierced ears! I have no memory of doing it, no memory of what happened in that 3 days, basically I’m short-circuiting all over the place.

This total lack of sleep means my brain doesn’t work as well as it should, I’ve learnt to adapt in many ways, I can go an entire week without a wink of sleep and still manage to get by, but sleep is important you need sleep to heal the mind to give your conscious self time off without it your brain can’t work as clearly and your mental health suffers, there aren’t many people with mental health problems who sleep well, remember that as I’m so tired I may forget it!

Featured

An introduction to ‘Nothing’ and ‘No One’

As a survivor of physical, sexual, mental and emotional child abuse I’m used to being manipulated into silence but I never expected that when I left I would yet again be required by society to keep the silence.

It’s a social rule – it’s impolite or incorrect to express something so abnormal, so unusual – the embarrassment you get when you share ‘too much’ so you keep quiet, the more you do this the more it becomes second nature to hide away the ugly things people don’t want to see.

When you are entirely made up of ugly things it envelops you, you become invisible I don’t mean a type of magical invisibility, it’s not a superpower it’s like you don’t exist in anyone’s thoughts, you’ve tried so hard and so long to make yourself socially acceptable, erasing things that people don’t want to see that you disappear, what’s left is barely a shell of a person, practically hollow, emotionless, thoughtless.

I am one of millions of invisible survivors whose life is too ‘upsetting’, too ‘horrific’ too much to be allowed to openly explain or own.

The likelihood is there is someone you know like this, it may even be you, a bit like an extra on a movie set, it’s like a person-shaped nothing, practically unnoticeable to society in every way.

When you go through abuse a lot of time and attention is paid to not telling others about it, most of it was literally “Don’t tell so-and-so I did such-and-such” but there’s also gas-lighting, manipulation and grooming where your lead to believe that it’s your decision, that you chose to do it;

I remember at 10 years old a 16/17 year old boy asking me if I wanted to have sex with him, he told me it would be fun and it would “prove I was more mature” so I said yes, he raped me behind a caravan in a car park in the middle of the night – for more than a decade I didn’t believe I was raped by him (on that occasion) because I said “Yes” it took months of a very patient therapist to explain to me that I was conned into it and that complying isn’t the same thing as consent, and to say the very least a 10 year old can’t consent to sex.

This one incident out of thousands and thousands is consuming me, pulsing through my veins and screaming through ever pore of my body, yet I remain silent for fear that you hearing it, merely reading it will cause you distress, I was always told I would be “spreading the misery” so I fell into silence for so long I’ve forgotten how to speak it, to express it verbally, burying my trauma made me a No One so incapable I have Nothing to offer I have no use and no purpose – my very existence is questionable.

Yet like most invisible people I don’t want to be invisible, I’m not looking for anything more than acknowledgement of who I am, I want the freedom to be able to speak openly without fear of giving ‘too much information’ and making people uncomfortable.

More than this I want to be understood I didn’t have a normal childhood and that affects me now as an adult so I’m going to try my best to help you understand me, I hope you learn some of the things I learned through my life and if you can get me you can get all of us and then maybe we can all use this understanding to help ourselves and others.

Maybe one day I won’t be no one and nothing, but something and someone.

If you follow me on this there will be moments that will sicken you, distress you and may stay with you, if so I want you to know I’m not trying to upset you, it’s part of a reality I live every day and moving on is so hard. So be warned this may not be pretty but I will do my best to be informative more than shocking.