Child Abuse Story From Liz

by Liz
(Dunedin, New Zealand)

I am a survivor and proud of it! My father believed in hitting first, and if you were still up to it when he had finished, asking questions. He was so violent towards my brother and I that his own mother, our grandmother, wouldn't come and visit us. Thinking about it now as a 48-year-old woman, I cannot believe that my grandmother thought by staying away it would make any difference. Being hit with a belt, buckle end of course, was horrendous but because it happened so often, you become desensitized to it...it becomes the norm and you just accept it.

We were never shown any affection by either of our parents, only brutality! Then when I was 7 or 8, not one but two teachers sexually molested me in my school. There was no way that I could have told anyone about this because I just felt so worthless already. I just knew deep down that no one would take me seriously.

When I was 11 or so, my brother also decided that he would molest me. I can distinctly remember it like it was yesterday, him getting into my bed whilst my parents were out and trying to insert this giant pencil into me and telling me that it wasn't as big as him so it wouldn't hurt. After he had finished with me, he made me smoke with him so I couldn't tell on him because he would just say I had been smoking and that would divert everything back on to me.

Then if that wasn't enough, when I was 13 I had a very serious operation and was in hospital in plaster for nearly 6 months. For the better part of that time I was abused by a male nurse on night shift, and also by the father of one of my parents’ friends...he must have been well into his sixties at the time. My feelings of self-worth were completely destroyed by this.

Then when I was released from hospital, I was sent to recuperate at a friend’s farm. There, I was abused not only by the father, but by the eldest son as well. All I could think was, why me? I began to believe that it must have been something that I was doing to cause this to happen time and time again.

The beatings stopped from my father once I reached High School, and the sexual abuse stopped for a few years as well. But when I left school and took a job, it started up again...one of the older men who worked there would lay in wait for me when I went to the bathroom, and he would touch me, etc. Was I never going to escape this?

Having been abused for so many years by so many people I didn't have any trust left in me. I was in a really bad marriage. I ended up being beaten once again until one day, and it was literally one day, something snapped inside of me. I just knew that enough was enough. I gathered all my strength and left my marriage. I think one of the main reasons was that I didn't want my daughter to grow up the same way as I had. I was deeply scarred emotionally and physically, but I had a duty to protect my own flesh and blood as I hadn't been protected.

It took as very long time and an awful lot of soul searching to realise that I wasn't responsible for any of the things that happened to me. I was a child and should have been protected by these people, not abused by them.

There is no excuse in the world for child abuse, even though the abusers will always be able to validate what they are doing is right. I have never disclosed the true extent of my abuse before to anyone, but reading other peoples experiences gave me the courage to put it down on paper, which I have found to be quite a cleansing exercise. As I enter middle age, I am at last at peace with myself and what happened to me, and with the help of my husband, I now feel worthwhile as a person. I hope by sharing my story on here I might be able to give a little hope to other survivors.

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