Moving to Year Eight

by Hayley
(Birmingham)

I have managed to get to a computer quite easily now, as I am working a night shift on agency.

Thankfully year eight passed with no real problems at school. What a shame the same can't be said for home. My brother continued to harass me about my body, or for sexual acts, that I knew were disgusting and wrong. The acts he expected me to carry out were getting worse and worse, but irregardless of how much I protested, I had no way out other than to do what he wanted me to do. It was about this time that I had begun to accepts it as a necessary evil, so would ask him if he wanted to do anything. It was great when he didn't, but at the time it left me confused and angry. The constant criticisms about my body were as bad as being almost forced to carry out the acts that he made me do. School holidays became more traumatic than school itself, where I was still being bullied by kids.

I was left totally alone as my parents seemed to see him as the golden boy, and I felt I couldn't talk to them as he made sure I was too scared. I had also started to wet the bed again, and Christmas that year was made worse as my mother ranted and screamed at me for doing it yet again. It was at about this time that there was some stale blood in my pyjama bottoms. I had been pretty good at hiding the problem, with a bit of help from my brother, then again he had so much to gain from doing this. School holidays were particularly bad as the risk of getting caught out was greater. This time it happened and I was left feeling dirtier than I ever thought possible. It was the ususal tune of how bone idle I was and dirty, and how I was just causing more work for my mum. I had given up trying to hide the fact, as one night I had been found out. My brother must have said something as completely out of the blue my mum stormed upstairs and nearly caught me trying to hide the tell tale and rather embarrassing evidence. I was accused of messing myself because of the blood, so I was terrified to say anything when my body really did start to develop later on in my life.

My father sort of understood, but I merely stood still silent and alone. My mother screaming at me from upstairs did nothing to help me, and the threats that she would rub my nose in it made me feel worse every time. Suddenly, something changed, I was still wetting in the summer of that year, and one day while attending a weekly music workshop, my father went up to my room and looked in my bed. My sheets were a mess, and I had kept the pain hidden until then. I was expecting a real rollocking, but it didn't come. Instead he spoke to me calmly, gently and kindly, so I was able to say a bit about the bed wetting. The horrors of what was behind it all stayed locked away. That night my mother came up to my room, and a few more changes were made. No more screaming matches, or threats, but help and encouragement. My bed and pyjama bottoms were checked in a morning, and every time I had had a dry night, I was praised. I finally had the belief that I was better than "that" and felt massiveey better about myself. It was one less weapon for my brother to use against me, but he still found a way to hurt me.

I don't have much more I can think of right now, it is rather an unsociable hour in the morning after all!

I'll be back though, soon. I'm not sure when