Child Abuse Story From Caylin

by Caylin
(London, England)

I'm really worried about this. I haven't been through anything serious, but my childhood really affected who I am today. According to my family, there's nothing that happened that should make me upset, but then my friends say that nothing like it has happened to them. I don't want everyone to think I'm complaining, I'm just trying to say what happened.

As a young child, my dad walked out on us numerous times and I often didn't see him for months at a time. When he was around, he was usually drunk and smoking weed, and I only saw him a bit on the weekends when he wasn't hung over. He'd take us to the pub. My mom and he would argue and scream and throw things, starting when he got up on Saturday. I hated weekends. Me and my little brother and sister would cry together on the stairs. I told them everything would be ok, and all I wanted was for them not to feel the pain I felt.

My mom has a liver disease, and is often unwell, in hospital, etc. She also has borderline personality disorder. I always felt I had to look after everyone, including her. I remember being 4 years old and having to get blankets and juice up to her when she was sick, and my 1-year-old sister was screaming downstairs. I didn't know where my dad was. He would occasionally slap me on the face. He said I was doing something bad, but all I remember was yelling at him to stop yelling at my mom and arguing. He never hit my brother or sister.

I never wanted to do anything wrong. Mostly because if I say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, or sometimes don't say or do anything, I never know how my mom will react. She's completely unpredictable. She can make fun of me, yell at me about how much I'm like my dad, she constantly invalidates me, occasionally she'll pretend to understand me but the next day will use what I've told her against me and laugh at it, read through my emails and diary, criticise me, judge me...that list can go on. She also throws at me a lot how she gave up a full scholarship for her PhD to have me.

As a child, I felt safe and comforted with my grandparents. But growing up I watched my grandpa die of Alzheimer's, my grandma die of CJD (Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease) and my other grandma die of cancer. Aside from his wife, I was the last person my grandpa ever recognised. My other grandpa probably doesn't know my name and sends me birthday cards with the wrong age on them. Occasionally he'll see us, ask us how our studies are, and give us some money. Then we won't see him or hear from him again. We're only there so he can say he has grandchildren. It makes him happy if he can see us for 10 hours every 2 years and we say 'hi grandpa' and that's all he has to do with us. My parents also divorced, and I actually saw my dad more than I did before. I liked seeing him, but he was usually drunk, so I had to be even more in charge of my brother and sister. And when we'd go on holiday, we'd get back at the hotel at 2 in the morning, with him stumbling into cars and me carrying my 3-year-old brother and trying to support my 8-year-old sister and get the keys out of my dad's pocket to get us in. This was all before I was 13.

Since I was 11, I had avoidant personality disorder, OCD, self injury, anxiety disorders, panic attacks...I don't know how I managed to hide it. Well, I think my mom knew but didn't wanna have to do anything about it. I just read books and looked after my brother and sister.

After my mom met her boyfriend, I liked him at first. He made me feel good. Special. But after a while, all I got from him was constantly being made fun of, teased, mocked...for everything...how I stand, how my hair is, what I wear, how I talk. And sometimes he'll make me feel good about the same things he makes fun of me for. I get so confused.

We moved house to a new town when he moved in with us. I didn't want to move. I'd finally managed to feel safe at the school I was at, and I hated having to start over. I also hated our new 'stepdad' living with us, because suddenly I was just a child in the house and had no control over anything. Even something as simple as what my siblings could eat, which I used to be in charge of. My OCD got worse and I developed an eating disorder. This really made things worse. I am constantly yelled at by my stepdad because I 'need to be yelled at', followed around, threatened to be beaten and stripped if I don't eat or do anything wrong. And he searches my arms for scratches all the times, pulling my sleeves up way high, which I hate. He used to lift up my t-shirt and touch my chest until I spoke to the child protection officer at school (they came to me cos I told a teacher I didn't wanna go home). Now I hate being home and I am so scared all the time.

I got to visit my aunt and uncle a few months ago. That's when I realised I might not be being treated right. They were so nice to me. They made me feel like someone. They would hug me for no reason and rub my back and stroke my head. And they would do stuff like bring dinner to me. They had to tell me to sit on the chair and wait for my uncle to bring me dinner, because I was so scared thinking about how I would never do that at home for fear of being made to feel awful, that I started crying. As the week went by I started hyperventilating and shaking every time I thought about going back. The night before I was meant to fly back, I tried to commit suicide by slitting my wrists. I couldn't do it properly, because I didn't really want to do that to my uncle and aunt, but they found me passed out in the morning.

My stepdad's parents used to be nice to me. Now they tell me they don't want to see me again. And that I should be grateful to their son for taking on my mom and her 3 kids. They love my brother and sister.

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