NC for obvious reasons. Some background- My mum was abusive and manipulative, we lived in utter squalor. I had 3 sisters and 2 brothers. I was the oldest, then my sister 3 years younger, then the two boys, then the two other girls. At age 11 I was very luckily fostered by my great aunt and uncle and since then have been given a very good upbringing. My sister closest in age to me was put into care around a year later. All the other children remain to this day with my mum.
Because of the type of childhood I experienced, I had some help from CAHMS but only a few sessions and they never asked me direct questions. My counselling was only a few months after I’d been removed from my mum, it was all very fresh so I felt really overwhelmed speaking about it, I remember getting into my great aunts car at the end of a session and just feeling exhausted from crying. I remember thinking at the time what’s done is done, there’s no changing it and talking about it wasn’t making me feel any better so I refused to go anymore. And that was the last bit of ‘help’ that I got.
Since then, I feel like I’ve moved on and I’ve forgotten a lot of what happened to us. My sister has really struggled ever since, and over a decade later she can remember pretty much everything in great detail. This creates a rocky relationship between us because she’ll talk about something to me, and I will start to retrieve these memories that I have lost, and panic sets in. So I try to keep contact with her to a minimum.
I have some memories that I haven’t been able to forget. All from when I was 3 and 4 years old. I know a lot of what I remember is real because I’ve asked others and got them confirmed. For example I remember taking a little round piece of foam / filter from an old Nokia phone and asking my mum what it was. She told me you smell it. When I smelt it, she pinned me down and forced it up my nose. Then she took me to a&e to get it removed and I remember her telling me I could play with the toys in A&E but only if I told the doctor I put it up my nose. My great aunt says she can remember me being taken to a&e and having it removed and that she thought it was weird at the time because I’d never done anything like that before or after.
I’ve never told anyone this next memory because I’ll be so embarrassed if I find out there’s a reasonable explanation, but since having my child (who is now a toddler) I’m starting to remember it more and more.
I used to go to my great aunts some weekends throughout the abuse. It was my safe place and I loved it. But my mum used it to threaten me with. She told me before I went one time, that if she calls to ask me a question I must say yes or she will tell my aunt I need to go home early. That call came, my aunt asked me if my ‘downstairs’ was stinging. I was so confused it took me a while to answer but I went with Yes like mum said. The next day mum took me to the doctors and I was made to lie down on the table while he inserted something similar to tweezers into my vagina and pulled something out.
I definitely remember the tweezers, taking my trousers and pants off, being told to put my feet like a frogs. It was definitely my childhood GP’s building I was in but I don’t remember the doctor or anything else. I don’t remember what my mum said to the GP.
I’m getting this particular memory a lot more often over the past few months and it makes me feel so confused and uneasy. Most of my other stand out memories are more violent, not like this.
I don’t know what, if anything, to do. But typing it all out has helped a lot so if you’ve read this far, thank you