Dear my lovely little sister
You know I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t really want to rake up the past. Too much has happened, too painful. But, our dad will die and you will probably think that I am a heartless bitch for not being too bothered about it. I can’t bear that you would think that of me, so I want to tell you my story. You can choose whether to read this or not, but at least I will feel as thought I have explained it to you, my sister.
My first memory of you is of the night you were born. I was really young and really scared, mum was in labour, dad no where to be seen. I had to get help. At that moment, I guess I started to look after myself.
Second memory is of a HUGE row, aged 5. You were a baby, not moving around yet. There was shouting and screaming, mum shouted at me to “Grab your sister and get in the car”. I did, I picked you up out of your cot – you were asleep – and packed us a carrier bag of clothes (who knew I could be so resourceful so young?). I wrapped you in a blanket of sorts and went out to the car, sitting in the back, holding you. I waited, I can remember the shouting, I can remember you crying. Mum ran out, dad threw a brick through the windscreen.
That time was pretty horrid for me, school was OK, but something happened that still to this day, upsets me deeply. We had babysitters called J and S, I don’t know whether you remember. The long and short of it is that J raped me. He took me into the bathroom and told me what he was doing was safe, good, make me a grown up. All that grooming stuff. He used a piece of pink toilet tissue to clean himself afterwards. He encouraged his brother S to also use me. S did some more minor abuse, kissing, touching, etc. I was probably 8 or 9. This happened more than once.
They involved others, including Uncle T and our neighbor.
I had a hickey on my neck. Our family friends were there when it was found and I remember mum grabbing me and taking me to them, asking them “Is it what we think?” I didn’t know what it was, I said something about scraping my neck, I genuinely didn’t know what they were even talking about. I don’t think any of them did anything about it.
All of this before I was 11, before I was my DC's age.
So, this terrible stuff plus a childhood filled with dad getting pissed, violent and horrible led me to feel totally worthless. I used to try to look after you a lot.
When I was 16/17 I took a major overdose, more than 100 tablets. I wanted and meant to die. I felt so low, so totally worthless, so deeply isolated and alone. I just wanted all the noise and roar going on in my head to stop. It didn’t. I almost did die, so very close.
I tried to kill myself since, at least once more seriously, resulting in a 3 month stay in a psychiatric unit. It didn’t help much. I don’t think dad came to visit me more than once or twice.
This resulted in me telling mum a very small part of this story and we have only skirted around this. I asked her not to see her brother, she still does. I asked her not to mention him, she said “But you two are close in age.”
So today everywhere I turn there are stories of historic sexual abuse, on every radio station, in every newspaper. I can’t get away from it. I have thought through options and know I won’t do anything about it. I won’t take them to court (even though I know where they are on facebook) because it will destroy me, my career, my stability and my family. I won’t tell mum because it will destroy her, she is still so fragile, which she acknowledges and it will cause untold damage. I won’t put my family, my wonderful DH, and DC’s through any form of pain or damage, just because it might give me some form of justice. I would hurt more from seeing them damaged.
So I can’t forgive either of our parents for not looking after me as a child, for letting this happen to me and for not taking action. Yes, there are probably reasons. But I know for sure, if anyone touched or hurt either of my DC’s, I would do something, I would protect my child, I would keep them safe. I would not let that person walk free.
DH knows all of this and there’s not a single day that I don’t count my blessings to not have died, to have got on with my life and to have kept my children safe. I had a lot of therapy since DH and I met at the beginning and this helped a lot. The thing that has helped most of all is having my own, precious, happy, safe family. My anchor.
The only thing I ask is that you don’t share this with mum. I don’t want to destroy her. I can’t do that. I would rather be silent.
Anyway, that’s it. I am not a heartless bitch. I simply can’t forgive either of them.
Your big sister x