There's a lot of background but I don't want to delve so far into it. I'd be here all day but I will warn you it'll be a long one.
When she was 9 her dad and I split up. He disappeared. Sent her a birthday card on her 10th birthday then wasn't seen again until she was almost 13. I now know he was in prison but I wasn't aware then. Just thought he'd done his usual thing of running out on commitment when he suited.
Just before her 13th birthday he wrote her a card and put his number in it. I allowed her to phone. Biggest mistake of my life. She freely admits she was manipulated and thought he'd be better. One day she left, upped and went. I called the police. The police found her with him but advised as he was her father and she was safe they couldn't do anything and advised me to ring social services, who were worse than useless and advise I contacted a solicitor (which I did, but by the time anything was in motion she was home) My daughter frequently stopped contacting me and would every so often tell me she hated me. That hurt. Another time she arranged to meet me and with 3 other kids and a full time job I made the time to travel 75 miles by train to see her (I don't resent this, I would've done it a thousand times had she asked) She didn't show. I now know her dad at
Last minute refused to give her money for the bus then took her mobile so she could not call. I won't go into it but 6 months later she was on my doorstep with a single bag to her name having been physically assaulted by her grandmother (his mother) and sexually assaulted by another family member both of which happened on her fathers watch. He even refused to call the police for her and she had to scream and threaten to run to a neighbours house and tell them.
Then came the very very hard process of trying to rebuild my baby girl.
She was cutting herself, disappearing from school and as often happens fell in with the wrong crowd. I was ringing everybody I could begging for referrals. I finally got her to CAHMS once and the doctor laughed at her and said the following
She didn't want to die because she'd failed to kill her self 10 days before but hadn't tried again.
She wasn't depressed because she could make jokes.
Woefully inedequate and not something I'd expect someone slightly informed about MH to say let alone a psychiatrist who allegedly had a doctorate (GCSE psychology students could've done better)
My daughter stormed off and then had what I can only describe as a screaming meltdown outside. I'd promised her I would get her help and then a health professional said those things to her. She spiralled even further out of control. She would be gone for weeks at a time. Things settled down for a few months - she still wasn't attending school properly but had 75% ish attendance (trust me that was an improvement) but if she walked out of school due to it being too much she'd come home. At least I knew she was safe then.
Court was a horrific experience for her and I regret advising her to testify. She was ripped apart by her rapists representation - the cross examining she was going to undergo was underexaggerated (dressed up as "just a few questions via video link") and she was not allowed her own legal representation. She was told the crown prosecutors would look after her. Yet after being made to watch a 70 minute video (her original interview) she was aggressively called a liar and told she was promiscuous. I was in the court room though not testifying and I wanted to rip the defendant and his representation into pieces but I sat there holding back tears wondering how the hell I was going to explain that yet again she was being lied to by those she trusted and let down. Nobody told me my daughter was going to be called a slut for wearing pyjamas in her own home. Nobody told her either. And it showed.
Unsurprisingly her rapist walked free. Only receiving a suspended sentence (and that was based on the fact that he was a family member, nobody disputed what happened, they just disputed if it was consensual).
The downward spiral started again. By the time her 15th birthday rolled around she had been missing for 13 days.
I couldn't get her to stay home. No punishments worked. She didn't care about her phone. I threatened to take her TV and she lobbed it out of the window while screeching that she didn't fucking care about anything and just wanted to drop dead. The same day
I tried to phone an ambulance for her when she ran into the bathroom and locked herself in there. I heard her moving the bathroom cabinet and shelf in front of the door. I feared the worst and I knew she'd be cutting but I didn't know how bad. By the time they got there and kicked the door in she had long gone - climbed onto the porch and gone. I didn't think to keep an eye out the front.
4 months after her birthday, with her being back and forth. She packed her bags and left. She wouldn't tell me where or with whom. I called the police. After 20 days of searching for her in our city, her fathers city, every city in between and another city she had a friend in the police advised they could no longer dedicate the time to search for her and that she would probably never be coming home.
I cried on a nice coppers arm as he said to me "love, she'll be 16 soon. Then we won't be able to bring her home no matter where she is. As a father I've got to say that the best thing you can do is to leave her be".
So that's what I did. Knowing that it was fruitless to keep chasing. The police never found her unless she wanted to be found and soon I could do nothing anyway.
Those 10 months or so that I didn't see her broke my heart and every time there was a knock on the door I thought that it was going to be a policeman saying they'd found her body. I genuinely thought she was either addicted to drugs or about to drop under a train at any given moment. That knock never did come but one day it was my daughter. She came in and we talked for a few hours about everything. I asked her to come home but she refused. Then told me that she couldn't go back to being a child. She couldn't function as a child. She couldn't go back to what her life was before and for her own sake she had to leave it behind.
But we agreed to keep in touch and tentatively rebuilt our relationship.
She initially lived in shared accomodation, then a small flat type thing (converted 2 floor house with a shared front door) then went to Australia on a working holiday visa at 18. Shes just secured her 2nd working holiday so will be there for at least another year She's now due to turn 19 and has met someone there and is considering a partner visa but I don't know what she'll decide, just yet. We're still close and speak at least 3-4 times a week. Sometimes daily if she's got a bit of time off and I'm up early.
The thing is, is I mourn the life she would've had 
maybe it would've been better, I don't know.
I moved out at 16 (very different circumstances) and I really hoped that she would be home for a lot longer, to avoid the stresses of adult life. But I know it's not what she wanted. It still upsets me though she never got her GCSEs. She never got the NVQ she wanted and it's not likely in the near future she'll have the career she wanted. (She is in hospitality and catering now, but wanted to go into medicine and I firmly believe she could've done it.)
I'm proud of her for how she's turned her life around. I'm proud she has a partner, an income, a lovely house it's better than mine ffs 
I'm so, so proud of her. More than anything after everything and being let down by services and the courts she is still standing and happy and that's the main thing.
But I still feel like I'm mourning the loss of her childhood. It was too soon, it's not fair and today I just want to have a right old whinge about it.
Am I being unreasonable?
I don't have anybody I feel I can talk to about it