Amy's Story
Smile for the tears
I try to tell myself that it didn't happen, that i wasn't there so it couldn't have been me, and at times i can actually get myself to belive that.
But the truth is i was there and it was me, i've just never been ready to accept that, accepting it means it's real and i don't want it to be.
I turned 16 last month. It felt good to be getting older, it made me feel like i had more control over my life. But i only had to stand next to "him" before i started to shrink back into myself, feeling my kness knock and my stomach drop.
It's not right, that a person can make you feel like that.
Alot of people make me feel like that. Their presence and spoken words are enough to make me want to sleep and never wake.
Everyone says that "sticks and stone may brake my bones but names will never hurt me" but the truth is, is that words can be more hurtful than anything else, and they stick with you all your life. And alot of times place a large dent in your confidence of the person you are, or was.
I guess it is easier to heal a wound than a broken mind. I feel like i have lost mine, although i know that is no true, but every single day of my life i and 'haunted' by the things people have done and said. And to make the dreams, and memeories subside drugs were the path i 'chose'.Alot of stuff happened, of which i regret whilst taking drugs, and i remember somethings, but then really only remember flashing lights and the touch of people to me.
Which of most i do not appreciate.
I'm fustrated by the fact that i can not longer think stright or clearly, everything is just a mess. I find great difficulty in showing or expressing emotions. I feel numb then i feel everything.
I found that laughing came easily, probably due to recently i am constantly stoned, but after laughing i usually find myself in tears ( when alone ) and i can't describe what it's like to jump from one emotion to another and not know how you feel, and then its easier to just switch off and i guess "smoke the days and nights away"
I feel like i am alive, but thats all.
I think it all started with the girl across the street. I don't want to name her, because she still is the girl accross the street.
We don't talk anymore, if we cross the street at the same time, we just look the other way or change direction. We stoped talking when i was about 10, i don't remeber why. I just remember.
We were friends from toddlers, I remember her house had fluffy clouds on the walls and dream catchers, everywhere, "Save the trees" stickers all over the windows.
Her Mum was this "hippy"- peace to the world- save the trees- kinda girl,she would wear these colourfull clothes and head beads, she was cool though.
It started with the touching in the bath, i didn't understand what she was doing and i dont think she did either. This went on for a long time, i don't think it ever bothered me as i dind't really understand what she was doing.
Her and her cousin would draw all over me and say i was the devil, then he and she would lock me in rooms with them and do things that when i think about now is really wrong for kids of 5 and 7 to know that much about sex.But Alex would soon fill me in!
Alex started with 'touching' too.
Alex is my cousin, he's coming up eighteen soon. I've been calculating his life expectancy, it seems pretty good, but i'm not sure wether i want to do something about that.
I got a Mickey Mouse Dr's Set off my Dad. I remember the bright red needle/pen thing, but without grosing you out, it wasn't used for its purpose.
Alex was amazing at finding 'instruments' he could 'use' on me, and they always seemed to have sharp edges!!
I'm not very good at talking about sex or anything that surrounds it, so im going to leave out most of the stuff he did. I think this is why i find Alex so hard to talk about, because most of the things that happened between me and Alex were sexual, and it makes me more than uncomfortable.
Stuff like this went on, along with me touching him for a quite a while.
I think you could say i was about 8-9 when Alex first forced me to have sex, this went on till i was 12. With his older friends and relitiaves, along with oral sex at any place at anytime, and parties, which his Mum ( My Aunt ) seemed to have so many off were prefect opportunities for him to 'play' with me.
Although i was never willing to participate, and i was punished for it.
I don't know what hurts me more, the sex part, or the gameshe would play
It bothers me that now when we are together at family 'outings' he is Mr. Wonderful, and i'm the...i dont even know what i am. I don't even feel like a person, i dont feel like i deserve anything good, and i don't know how i got to feeling that.
I guess because his house was/is so big and the music was so loud, no one noticed. Or just chose not to. But it doesn't excuse all the other times.
The kids would be sent out of the dinning room where the adults where during partys so they could smoke pot etc.
I remember Bob Dylan being played at one time, whilst he was unbuttoning my clothes, i didn't fight him this time, i didn't run, i didn't cry and i didn't say anything. I remember trying my hardest to listen to the music, to drown out his words.
I feel that my mum chose not to notice, it seem impossible for her not to have. But i think my step-father was the cause of this.
Since i could remember he would beat my Mum and on occasions me.
He broke her arms, fingers, cheeck bones, nose, and her back. He set the house on fire with me inside it, it was all over the news.
I would constantly be woken by screams and shouting, then come down stairs to see the house turned upside down, cause he had trashed everything, and blood all up the walls, mostly from my Mums face.
He got sent to Jail and to a Mental place, i remember visiting him there, but mum always got him out and brought him home, treated him like he was royalty. And i was forgot about once more.
When i turned 13, i was raped ( i hate that word ) by a man, down some back lane who happened to be a junkie, and now i fear what i may have, but would rather not know.
It turns out that he has also at time been my dealer for my drugs, and how i hate seeing him, touching him, beeing near him, but it is of my own choice.
I tend to try and see other people before him, but he knows sometimes i am desperate and he takes advantage of it.
I'm not sure why i am so affected by all of this, i know it's not that big of a deal but i just know that it makes the days long and the nights longer. And it's their faces i see before i sleep at night and as i wake each morning.
It the nightmares, sweating ,shaking waking up with scrathes where i have clawed at myself in my dream to try and get away.
Its not being able to be touched, by friends, family and boyfriends. It makes it incrediably difficult to have a relationship with somone without touching each other.
My last boyfriend didn't appreciate my reaction to him during sex. I don't know what happened, but i wanted him to stop and he wouldn't, and i freaked and hit him. I felt so stupid.
Since then i haven't been coping so well due to stuff i have done, and i don't think telling anyone, not even here would earn me any respect.
So i'll finish with a Thank You. XxX
Lottie's Story
seven years ago I was raped. He was a footballer and I didn't think anyone would believe me so I've never told anyone. Two weeks later I was the victim of an attempted rape by a model agent I worked for! I told the police about this after two years because I found out it had happened to other people and I knew I would be believed. His trial in crown court was only last year, but eventually he got 8 years in prison. A year after the attempted rape I thought I'd fallen in love until by boyfriend started spitting on me, calling me names and hitting me!! So as you can tell it's not been the best 7 years of my life. I often suffer from depression and anxiety and wonder how much of this is because of whats happened. On a lighter note, I got very few qualifications at school but after all this happened I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't just a dumb blonde. Two years after the rape I started university and I now have a degree and postgraduate degree and I am a qualified lecturer. So my message is that maybe sometimes good can come of these things and although we all have our dark days, there IS light at the end of the tunnel. All my love and best wishes to anyone who has been through this.
-Lottie
Anonymous' Story
well.... it was all in one night
-Anonymous
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