Year six and the pain continues (the rest of it)

by Hayley
(Birmingham)

Despite my plans to finish this off on Tuesday, things sort of conspired against that plan.

I left off other than desparate to get home after a long late shift, and having logged the start of a long term illness. I was often left home alone when I was off school at the ages of 10-11. If one of my parents had stayed with me they would have been sacked from their jobs. Thankfully they had very understanding bosses who allowed them to phone me to see how I was. There was only one instance where I suffered any form of abuse from my mother. This was verbal when I went down with bronchitis. I had been in a girl Guides play, and felt somewhat terrible. At one point I very nearly passed out but my mother was blissfully unaware as she talked to the leader. The next day I had music club at another school and I felt really bad. The teacher at the middle school made the phonecall, and when my mother arrived, it was obvious that she was not happy with her plans having to be changed. I can't remember exactly what happened, other than getting yelled at from along way away. Thankfully she managed to get me into the doctors pretty quick so I was put on medication there and then. Even more thankfully she changed completely and made sure I got home and to bed safely. Needless to say I was feeling rather sorry for myself. I was ten years old at this time.

The year went on with me off school for one thing or another, she could so easily have got fed up with me, but at least she didn't and always made sure I was safe. Somedays I would get up, cry all through breakfast and be praised just for eating a small amount. It certainly affected my progress in my education, but with a determined form teacher, I kept slogging away and progressed onto year seven. It had been a strange year all in all. I got some really good marks, and I even got bullied. Even there the problem wasn't spotted straight away until I actually said something. The first time I was late home and had a right earfuol. The second day I had a bit more grief, but then my mom realised that there was a serious problem. I had by this time been diagnosed with asthma, something else to make me different from the other kids. It was bad enough trying to hide the pain of the abuse, not such an easy thing to do when I was peeing myself at an age where every other kid was dry. By Wednesday, my mom had gone from being angry with me for being late and my clothes wet from squash, to getting on my back to tell the teachers. Having made me promise to report the bullying, I felt happier. Even with a Merit Award for a somewhat admittedly mediocre piece of work, I still dreaded going home. As feared, it happened, I tried everything I had talked about doing but they still got me. It was the tears and asthma attack that pushed us all over the edge. the next day, it happened again and I went straight back to school. By friday it was all over. My brother hadn't abused me too much, but I suppose he hadn't had that much opportunity to do so. He made up for it by insisting on watching me gete undressed at night or dressed in the morning on weekends or school holidays. I had not developed any breasts at that time, or any other signs of puberty, so he had plenty to tease me about. I was incredibly relieved when my body started to change, at least it stopped the taunts, even if it didn't stop the abuse.

I had better go now. I'm feeling terrible and am about to fall asleep at the computer. Depending on how I am feeling I will try and get back on the computer sometime to add more.

cheerio, until next time