About Me, My Family and My Life - The Background

by Elaine Riley
(Lancashire, UK)

Well, here goes! I've been holding back from writing this for some time, despite REALLY WANTING and NEEDING to do it... Writing is a very cathartic experience. If done correctly, it can challenge you, force you to open your eyes and ears to new experiences, force you to open your soul. That's what it's like for me! It's about putting in heart and soul - facing up to reality! I guess deep down inside we ALL know the truth about ourselves, good or bad. But it can take others to help us to reveal and explore that truth, to make sense of it... Life is a journey... And journeys are often better shared...

Like I said, I NEEDED to write this, as it's about things that, I guess, lie at the very heart of the abuse I experienced as a child. And to write about it means having to face it... having to recognise, and to "own" those experiences. It also means having to assimilate them, making them truly a part of me. To do that with YOUR help, is far better than to do it alone. After all, here, I can receive the insight and wisdom of many who know...

I've told a little of my story previously, but I'll start by "fleshing things out". My parents are Catholics, and that's an important fact. They are from HUGE families, my mother one of seven, my father one of nine. My mother is the eldest girl in her family, and my father the youngest boy. These, too, are significant facts. My parents' families were not well off. My parents have experienced much trauma, and abuse as children. My dad was a wartime evacuee, and he lost his father aged only 15. Dad migrated to Lancashire from Essex, working on the Fairgrounds. My mum was taken out of school aged 15 to care for a brood of younger siblings (an unpaid nanny, so to speak). Her mother was often ill, and the family lived on charity from the Church. Her younger sister got pregnant at 14 or 15.

I've told you these things about my parents, as I believe they're somehow important. Somehow, they formed the "bedrock", the "backbone" of my upbringing, and of the abuse that went on in my family.

I am the elder child, and have a younger brother. Being Catholics, my parents were disappointed by this. They firmly believe that "boys are better than girls", and that God is somehow bestowing a punishment if the firstborn is not a boy. I think this has something to do with the fact that, as Catholics, my parents believed that boys could "look after themselves", whereas girls had to be "protected, kept safe and chaste". In my household, you can translate "protection" to mean "smothering and surveillance".

We lived in a tacky seaside resort in the North of England, famous for sex and smut. A place of high unemployment, and low morality. It's main stock-in-trade is tourism, mostly "stag and hen parties" coming to visit the many bars and clubs, to gamble at the casinos and amusement arcades, to buy "kiss me quick" hats and fake breasts, to get drunk and fight on the streets. This is it on pretty much any evening of the week, and definitely at weekend. "Home" is full of sex shops and lap-dancing clubs. By the way, it is also notorious for its close associations with the BNP (British Nationalist Party), and intolerant attitude towards ethnic minorities.

Now, I've deliberately anonymised the name of where I live, but let me tell you, there are many places like this the world over. Many towns and cities have a sordid side. Go to the suburbs; the ghettos; anywhere, and you'll see the TRUTH, the hard grit of life as it really is for so many. Not the glamorised, sanitised glass skyscrapers, prestige shopping arcades and tree-lined parks of many city centres; but suburban semi-detached, Council estates, high-rise flats, unemployment, vandalism and dirt. This had an effect on my upbringing. Living in a place like this made my Catholic parents all the more determined to police their little girl's behaviour.

My mum has mental health problems, Bi-Polar Disorder, to be precise. She has had this in all probability since before I was born. Her illness was not talked about, it was a family secret, shared initially by my mum and dad. As a child, I was aware that something was wrong... that my family was not like others. From the age of about eight onwards, I would give my mum her tablets whenever I made her a coffee, placing them in the saucer for her. She called them "HRT". I'm pretty sure now that they were Anti-psychotic medication. But at the time, I did not know of any formal diagnosis, and none was told me by my parents. I think my parents thought they could keep mum's illness secret. That this would somehow help the situation! But they seemed ignorant of the fact that their own children might be aware; that they might notice that things were amiss, and suspect. Family secrets are NOT good! They divide and damage, causing pressure and upset...

It was a recent occurrence that got me thinking this. I live now with a long term partner of 14 years. I don't miss living with my parents. But mum had a relapse. She became very unwell, and, just as in the past, it fell to me to sort things out. It was just a chance happening, but I phoned my mum one Saturday morning, and the woman that answered the phone was ranting, screaming and crying. Knowing something was wrong, I drove to my parents' house. My mum had locked and bolted both doors, and pulled all the curtains shut. I was forced to communicate via the letter-box, and when I opened this, I could hear that mum had turned all the electrics on in the house - the T.V., radio, washer, dryer, stereo, food mixer... I could still hear her laughing and crying hysterically. After about 45 minutes of communicating via the letter-box, mum let me in. I rang the emergency G.P. and sat with this hysterical, shouting woman until my dad returned late that evening. Dad had, as was often the case, been working away that day. He played things down, failing completely to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation. It appeared that mum had not taken her tablets for a while, having been told by the G.P. (at an appointment which was one of many my dad did not attend) that her medication was to be changed. She had apparently got "the wrong end of the stick" and convinced herself to go "cold turkey". It would appear that my parents had not thought through the consequences, and that neither was aware what might happen if mum was not medicated. Her symptoms, by the time I arrived, were at full strength; mum was ranting and raving, believing someone was going to "get at her", and that she had to barricade the house. She could not speak coherently, her words were rapid and stumbling, and she fumbled to make sense of herself. Dad was merely dismissive.

The incident had repercussions for a long while afterwards. I was angry towards my father, whom I have never viewed as reliable or emotionally supportive. We argued, and then again ceased speaking. Mum, knowing I was a trained Social Worker, sought out every opportunity she could to pester me about her symptoms, and possible treatment, while still trying to bypass appointments with the G.P. and Psychiatrist. This was something she had done to me for years, ever since I had reached "double figures", using me as counsellor and confidante, telling me things that only her Psychiatrist, or a trained professional ought to have heard. I have had always to deal with a relationship where I felt that I was the parent, and my parents the children. My mother has told me much of her younger sister's pregnancy at 14/15. Of the fact that her sister was forced to marry the father, and ran away from home threatening suicide. Of the repercussions for mum and her siblings, growing up with a niece they thought was a sister. All about her illness, symptoms, rows with my dad. I was a "counsellor" aged 12, and through no choice of my own. I was told that I was an unplanned pregnancy, and ruined mum's career prospects. I was told that she had Postnatal depression, and that I stayed with relatives until I was 3 (sort of "fostered", but informally). Did I really need to hear all this, with no way of dealing with it?

I hope this sets the scene, as this is important. Parents bring with them lots of different life experiences, some of which may combine to form a propensity to abuse. As a Social Worker in Forensic services, I worked in this way, piecing together people's backgrounds, to see how they got to where they are now... It's called the "Bio Psycho Social Model", and it may be significant...