When I was a little girl, before my parents separation and my father leaving home, I would have a repetitive dream. There was a witch living under my bed who had a hole that she would pull me through and force me to be her slave. I would have to cook and clean for her and she would punish me at every opportunity, sometimes that punishment would be sexual. The dream was shameful to me and I never spoke about it but it lived in my being as this disturbing secret.
When I uncovered the memories of my father’s molestation of me, in my mid-twenties, the dream came back to me and suddenly made sense; how my young psyche had been processing what was happening to me in reality, in my dream world.
Having uncovered these events, I emailed my father saying that I had some memories that had been revealed to me and I would like to talk to him about them. I didn’t imply what they would be about and having, in the process of discovering them, also been able to reach forgiveness, my energy was quite clean and open. He didn’t reply but, unbeknownst to me, rang around many members of my family saying I was accusing him of sexual abuse and how crazy I was. None of my family mentioned that to me, it came out months later due to the suicide of my half sister. It was an interesting reaction.
Eventually we spoke and he gave me an implicit confession ‘My mother played with my balls and there’s nothing wrong with that!’ Tendrils of abuse…. From her to him to me….
That was 17 years ago and nearly ten years since he died. And still my family have never spoken to me about it. I know they would prefer to think I am the crazy one, that it didn’t really happen and even if it did, best forgotten.
But as I lay in bed last night, I became observant of my natural sleep position and suddenly realised that I sleep in a formation of protection. Tendrils of abuse. And I came to thinking about all the impacts that experience has made across so many lives.
I know now that some of the childhood fantasy play I created with my friends was a result of this abuse, more ways for my little being to try and make it normal. I know that it hyper sexualised me so that, unconsciously, I attracted wounded male attention, far too young and inappropriately, not least from more of my mother’s partners. I know that it has affected the way I view intimacy with my husband. I know it has made me extra protective of my children. I know that it has made me wiser and more compassionate. I know that the tendrils reach out and affect people in all sorts of ways.
Which is why, after all these years, I feel the need to name it. Secrets like this only hurt. They hurt those who have to hold them; those who’ve been affected by them; those who need to hear their stories aren’t the only ones.
My father was a deeply wounded man, arising from a deeply wounded upbringing and I want to be part of healing those wounds by not holding them shamefully in me. I completely forgive him and my grandmother and whoever came before because they were the traumatised child that couldn’t find their way home. But I also won’t carry their secrets any more.
My experience becomes my strength to carry forward, as I shed the layers and weight of abuse; I am finding my way home.
First published on social media on 27th September 2022
