Ohhh my goodness, where do I start...
I don't feel that I've ever had a 'life' that hasn't been plagued by pain, trouble and one thing after another to be honest.
Mother and father separated when I was a baby, father disappeared for a few years with no contact etc... My mother managed fairly well with help from my amazing Grandparents. However, I was 'palmed off' to them more times than I felt was necessary so that my mother could work and more frequently, enjoy a social life (she was very young when she had me)
I am very grateful for the unconditional love, attention and everything that my Grandparents gave me.
They were absolutely my saving grace: they made so many sacrifices, they gave me everything.
At approx 9 or so years my biological father came back into my life. I started to have contract with him and his new partner approx every month or so for a while.
It was only a couple of years after that he separated from the partner and contact was just me and him.
That is when it started. I was around 12 years old, maybe younger when he first raped me.
It continued for approximately 5 years or thereabouts and because of fear I never told anyone.
At 17 I met my first long term boyfriend. He was well brought up, a true gentleman with morals. He was patient and loving, he didn't put any pressure on me, we were intimate when I was ready, never before. He taught me what it really meant to be consentually intimate in a loving relationship, to trust, to love.
He was the second person I told. I couldn't tell my Grandparents, they were old school, religious, trusting people. If they had known that i had been hurt in the worst way possible it would have killed them.
I couldn't tell my mother because I felt that she was there for me and she had a dreadful temper. I had no-one to turn to that I could trust.
So I told the boyfriend and he was so supportive, we ended up being together over 8 years altogether
It is a long time since those days where I gradually learned to trust again, but I sort of even now miss him even though I've had many long and short term relationships since we separated.
Since we separated all those years ago I've since told my mother and a couple of other people and I've made a formal report to the police which has resulted in my biological father being charged (I can't be specific for obvious reasons)
It's been a hideous, stressful 10 or more years, it feels like it's never, ever going to end. I don't feel like thr trauma and pain is ever going to be behind me and I don't know how much more I can take.