Unpublished post

A while ago I was watching some American talk show, and the peppy host was interviewing a mother and her child. They’d been in a terrible car crash, and, despite being injured herself, this mother had somehow managed to rescue her child by lifting the entire car off him and dragging him out. She tore all her muscles doing it, but she didn’t let herself feel the pain until her baby was safe. Then, and only then, she collapsed. She said something that really struck me: He’s more important than me. Any mother would do the same.

Huh. I thought. Any mother? Really?

The other day I saw one of Mum’s old friends. Ran into him in a pub. A pub I haven’t been to in years. A pub I’ve never liked. He was exactly the same, just greyer. The same dried patches of spit at the corners of his mouth. Hands still shaking and nicotine stained. Fewer teeth. He knew Marc too. They all knew Marc.

I was with people I loved, people who cared about me, but as soon as I saw this man, the old fear swept in and I had to run away, chased by my own childhood, poking and prodding at me.

For the first time I have someone who needs me (yes, I’m hearing Stevie Wonder too). I thought that if I made my place in the world, if I was loved and valued, everything would be all right, and yet The Bad Thing isn’t going away. It’s coming back with more force. Maybe that’s what happens? Maybe your mind waits until you’re safe to process all the unsafe memories?

So, *trigger warning*: This post is about abuse. I need to write this, but not at the expense of your comfort. Please, please don’t read further if it might in any way harm your own recovery.

OK, here goes.

My mum had a boyfriend. We moved in with him when I was eight, and for a few years nothing bad happened. To me, anyway. Then it started.

He’d come into the bathroom when I was in the shower, sit on the toilet, just ‘having a chat’, but he’d stay until the water ran cold, and he knew I couldn’t stand it any more, and I’d have to get out. Then he’d hand me a towel. That was all. Later I had to ‘pay’ for the towel by kissing his cheek. Sometimes I had to let him dry me. I’d be about eleven then. Mum once told him not to be so affectionate with me. That’s what she said, ‘affectionate’.

I hate writing this. I hate it.

Mum didn’t know. No. No, I’m being honest, I have to be honest. Perhaps she did know? I think, on some level, she had to, because her attitude towards me changed. I stopped being her child and became her competition. She seemed jealous of me. She borrowed my clothes, somehow managing to squeeze herself into my twelve-year-old’s jeans and tops, as if this was some twisted love triangle, and we were fighting over this man – this balding man, with his cigarettes and pot belly and coke habit.

Then she stopped buying me clothes altogether. Maybe it was her way of punishing me for what was happening? I don’t know, but soon only my school uniform still fitted me. One day Marc came back with a bag full of clothes – I don’t know where he got them from – but they were teenagers’ clothes, kind of slutty – crop tops with slogans on them. Tight jeans. I remember Mum trying to make a joke out of it – ‘You never get me anything nice!’. She tried to normalise it. ‘Let’s have a fashion show – Jen, model your new clothes for us.’ And she made me put on every outfit, in every permutation. I didn’t want to wear this stuff, but I had no choice, I didn’t have anything else to wear. People stared at me in the street, and girls said nasty things. Once, on non-uniform day, I was kerb-crawled by a man, all the way home from school. That was scary, but I didn’t want to tell Mum in case, somehow, she blamed me.

I want to say I’m remembering all this now, but it’s not true. I’m re-remembering it. I’m letting myself think about it.

There’s other things, but I don’t want to write them down. Maybe some time, but not now.

When you’ve experienced abuse, it’s very difficult to understand safety, permanence, comfort. When you’ve experienced abuse, it colours everything, alters your perceptions. To this day I can’t, hand on heart, say I feel safe.

But I will say this – I’m going to try, as hard as I can, to recover. And that means putting down my burdens, letting myself be looked after, pampered. Babied? Maybe. But there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what I deserve.

Anyway. Apologies for the self-indulgence. And, as ever, take care of yourselves!

Jay XOXO