Twas the Night Before Christmas

Wishing everyone everywhere ...

A VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS

AND A BRIGHT AND WONDERFUL NEW YEAR!

WITH LOVE

You touched my heart

You touched my soul

Giving me beauty

Making me whole.

With you I feel

No sense of shame

Just a desperate need

To belong again.

You gave me knowledge

You offered me dreams

Showing me more

Of what Love means

To take into the future

A way to cope

A vision of Truth

A ray of Hope.

Copyright: Janine Harrington

A FRAGMENTED SELF

In the wake of the Jimmy Saville abuse, with victims/survivors having the courage to come forward and speak, often for the first time in their lives, about something done to them as a child, it re-awakens the demons within me. 

Alongside their questions come my own:

• Why did it happen?
• What did I do to deserve it?
• I must be bad!
• The badness will show on the outside and change relationships in life now
• There is still the Child part of me wanting so much to be believed
• There is still the Child in me hurting like crazy, screaming for release
• I need closure
• I 'came out' through my teen years in behaviour: eating disorders, self-harm, panic attacks, just as I 'came out' and tried to put into words years and years before as a child of four, five, six .... that the Specialist at the hospital was 'hurting me'. The response was the same: inertia.  Nothing changed. No-one came to support the damaged child. The abuse went on for a further 3 years.
• The nightmares return
• I feel alone

You have to have been there to truly understand. You have to have lived the experience of child sexual abuse to know the pain.  It doesn't go away. 

When something breaks on the news such as the Jimmy Saville abuse, it re-opens the wound which festers and bleeds, drawing you back down the tunnel of the past.

I shared my secret pain ... first as a book, then in therapy and by telling my parents forty years on, finally by starting LIFELINE to discover I wasn't alone ... and as an Abuse Consultant some time on, by standing on a platform in front of an audience of professionals telling it the way it is, opening myself as a way of helping professionals understand the needs of victims/survivors everywhere.

And yet telling in whatever way that happens doesn't make the pain go away.

There are still everyday things that trigger the same feelings I had way back then - trauma, panic, a sense that I'm still actually living it and will need to see my abuser again; nightmares, flashbacks, lack of confidence, low self esteem, acute depression, and the feeling I'm just not worth anything because somehow I let it happen.

It's like living a fragmented self in two completely different worlds.

What do I need in response?

Compassion. A listener. Someone who is simply going to hold me close, keep me safe, make me feel special in the right kind of way.

The world can seem an awfully dark place when you feel so abandoned, rejected, alone.

The world can feel unsafe when still, you have the feeling that person betrayed your trust and still retains Control. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

'You should do this', 'you should do that' .... doesn't come into it.

With Control comes a mindset that slips so easily into place even without you being aware of it. You jump when he says jump. You do whatever it takes to survive. The longer abuse continues, the deeper you are entrenched in that mindset making it harder and harder to break and be free.

I went to the police. I made a statement. Not as a child ... but as an adult ... and only about ten years ago. The urge to do this was driving me wild. I needed to do this ... for me; to somehow shift the Guilt and Control and take back what was mine. But I couldn't change what happened. They listened. For weeks I had CID coming round to my home taking statements, questioning, asking me what happened, its effects. I even drew the house where it happened and described it as if it were still happening to the Child that was. They visited his home as it had been years ago ... it was just the same as I remembered, a mirror image of my drawing inside and out. They went to the school. But without another person who had been abused by the same person coming forward, it can go no further. They arrested him, yes. But what did I actually want from him, they asked? I wanted him simply to say it happened ... to admit he was guilty. But to do so would mean he would go to jail and never come out. Was I supposed to feel sorry for him? It remains as an open case in a police file ... waiting ... waiting ... waiting. Meanwhile, the abuser might well die. And what then? The questions are the same. As with Jimmy Saville's victims, given my abuser was well known, well respected, a giver to charities, it changes nothing for the Child now Adult and the confusion of feelings she carries moment to moment, from one day to the next.

More and more of Jimmy Saville's victims/survivors are coming forward.

I wish them well. It would be good to see justice prevail, and others involved brought to justice also.

Victims/Survivors are doing so much more than 'coming out'. With immense courage they are connecting with the outside world by telling it the way it is ... creating an awareness of how even someone so well known, so well loved for his work in charities, can do these awful things and create a lifetime of misery, depression, despair.

The first victim/survivor to come forward to break the secret of Jimmy Saville's abuse paved the way, opening the door for others to do the same. The NSPCC say that their calls have doubled since the disclosures, involving a whole range of different abuses done by different perpetrators. There is also the NAPAC (The National Association of People Abused in Childhood) who offer support. The floodgates are open. It is going to take a very long time for this particular news item to die down. And people who never had this experience meanwhile are learning all about it from those experiences shared.

But when all is said and done, there will remain the victims/survivors locked into their private grief and trauma, putting on a public face, suffering still in silence.

I am a survivor of child sexual abuse.

Please ... remember us.

Remember we are still seeking the peace of knowing we have taken back control of our life, needing that special someone to simply hold us close and to break through all our barriers to the very core of the Child to let her/him know they are truly accepted and love ... just the way we are.

SPECIALNESS

Those who abuse and taunt and bully and seek to control others always target the most vulnerable, because they can't fight back. They watch, they learn, they are inifinitely patient.

The girl who is last to leave the playground when school is done. The boy who is left outside the group, a loner. Someone desperate or in need because of some other crisis going on in their life ... who needs help and understanding and support ... and in the guise of love comes abuse and hurt and betrayal.

It was in this way in the past that 'special' became a dirty word, a word which meant abuse. Specialness abuse creeps in insiduously, so silent, almost like a whisper, you don't recognise it until it is too late and already a part of your everyday life.

It is only today, over the past two years, in the first loving relationship I have ever been in without ties or control or double-meanings, that I have learned finally to trust, and to give freely, knowing in return there will be no pain, no abuse, no betrayal.

And suddenly feeling 'Special' is something very magic, very pure, very innocent, and what comes with it are so many many 'Firsts' ... a first loving kiss meant, a first bouquet of flowers on Valentine's Day, a first meal out sitting opposite someone who pulls back the chair for you, holds your coat, opens doors, lets you have your own choice from the menu. All the simple little things probably other people take for granted. But for me ... the heavens open ... the sun pours through ... and the rays are warm and sweet and vibrant, pulsing with new energy and hope, filled with such absolute joy and heightened awareness that I long for the next 'First' to come and grab me and make me feel all of this over again.

I can't be the only person who feels this way.

In the after-shock of abuse, there are good tmes, positive times, times when suddenly, the past falls away like a bad dream, and in its place there is something beautiful created for today.

Thank you, Tony, for making this day come for me xxx

THE PIT

I feel so small, so stupid,

I can't switch off the pain;

Images of fear reach out

To take control again.

Hands begin to tremble,

Mind becomes a blur;

Dizzy, sick, disabled,

I cannot find the cure.

Everything around me

Is a shadow from the past;

A tightened knot of feeling

Which will not let me pass.

It threatens to control me,

Take over my today;

Reaching to tomorrow

And back through yesterday ...

The house that was my prison,

The tree where I was raped;

The tea poured down my throat,

The gas tap by the grate.

And behind it all that shadow

Of my abuser of the past,

The man who raped and beat me

Built these images to last.

Copyright: Janine Harrington

AFTERMATH

Who has the right to abuse any which way it comes ... mentally, emotionally, physically, sexually ... or a combination of all?

I was a good girl, used to obedience and obeying the rules. Did that make me easy to control? I was born disabled, my questions rarely answered? Did that make it easy to create secrets between us? I was brought up to believe people are essentially good. Did I expect too much?

Abuse is a betrayal of trust.

Abuse is a crime ... and a life sentence for the victim.

Over last weekend I read in The Daily Mail about the young girl who considered her life over, a victim of childhood abuse. She refused to eat as the only way to take control of any aspect of her life. She wanted to die. Born of two loving parents, they backed her request because they had seen how desperate, how helpless she had become in the avalance of memories and pain that attacked her everyday life. And yet ... did she really want to die? Isn't it really that she wanted to stop the pain and get on with her life ... to be the person she was always meant to be? Because she was starving herself to death, the matter went before a judge. They judge said she had only one life ... and it should be lived ... and ordered that she be drip-fed against her wishes and those of her parents.

Do you mirror that image of pain living in the aftermath of abuse?

Can you understand from a personal point of view how that must feel?

I survived!

I am proud finally of that fact.

And yet, daily, it becomes a battle trying to overcome haunting memories of the past ... and the pain that was given in a betrayal of trust, by someone who knew it was wrong, who was using and abusing us for his own gain.

BEGINNINGS

 She is special. He knows it from the first moment of their meeting … special because he knows her need, the emptiness he can fill. As she enters his class, he begins grooming her for what is to come.

     She’s a good girl, used to obedience and rules.

     An empty desk in front of his own, his eyes watch her fumble for the right books, pressing his lips together, nodding approval. He sits beside her, placing a guiding hand over hers, gliding it slowly down her knee. It remains there … skin on bare skin. It’s wrong. He shouldn’t do this. But she's sitting at the front of a class. How can she do anything without it causing a scene?

     As if she's passed the first test, he offers a reassuring pat and moves away. Moments later he stands behind, hands hovering across her shoulders, protective, possessive even, parenting the child.

     ‘Any time you want to use this room, that’s fine. You have my permission. Lock the door behind you to ensure privacy. Break times and lunch you can come here and practice. No-one will interfere. And I hear you’re not taking part in PE, swimming or Games … would you like me to put a word, allow you to use the room during those times too?’

     He wasn’t so much asking as clarifying the way it would be. In turn, she learns what pleases him, earns words of praise, depending on his approval as an addict does a fix.

     Sixteen days after her first day at the school he talks with her parents:

     ‘I’d like to offer your daughter private music lessons at my home ...’

     No choice. No discussion. A faite accompli …

     It’s a trap … a trap which snaps shut … becomes everyday routine.

     Up the hill, crossing the road at the corner, walking to the gate, the couple of steps up to the green enamelled front door with the polished knocker. Why does it have to be green? What’s that about? Why the gnawing dread in the pit of her stomach kicking in? She doesn't remember, and it settles like a hard lump of iron, putting her on edge. It is the kind of area that feels safe. Detached houses. Suburbia at its best. Yet behind the door of number 6 is a secret no-one knows or could even imagine.

     ‘Come in. You know the way ...’

She gazes at the little girl clutching her mother’s skirts … his daughter, his wife … and she wonders … Usually there is silence. Sometimes a piano plays. Finally, a young girl with plaits slides out, a shadow joining the night. They catch one another’s eye as she turns at the front door to gaze with a tear stained face behind her.

     A hand beckons. His figure stands in the doorway. Hands hover around my shoulders, holding, pressing her to him, slowly drawing off her coat. Hot breath on her neck. Hands fondle, stroking hair. An urgency, a need emanates from him. His tweed jacket tickles her nose as he pushes her face into it just after she sees familiar beads of sweat break out above his upper lip. She's seen them before, in the classroom, not knowing what it means. But always, fondling, handling, touching follows after.

     The cushioned seat in front of the piano is long enough to sit three or four bottoms never mind one. Or is that the idea? She plays practised pieces. Scales follow. He sits beside her, strokes an arm, pats a knee, guiding fingers across the keys. Then abruptly, he stands, moving behind to massage shoulders, moulding, making her his own.

     A knock at the door. His wife and little girl, hands clutching mother’s skirts. No word spoken. A tray pushes onto the low coffee table in front of the sofa … and she is gone.

     Fingers trace flower shapes on the sofa, just as a child she traced tiles in the bathroom in the house on the hill not knowing if they were going to hospital or school. He is sitting watching … unnerving. He reaches for a hand. Nervously, she goes for the teapot, begins to pour. It’s surreal. A Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. When tea fills small china cups, too hot to drink, again, he takes a hand, holding it, pushing it across his lap to unzip his trousers.

     He pushes her head roughly into his tweed jacket, smothering, choking, sickening, so she cannot see where he guides her hand ... please God, let me go. Please God, let me die ... But God isn’t ready to take her just yet.

     Only once did she ever jerk free:

     “Can’t we just do the scales? Can’t I just play this piece … and go home?”

The plaintive pleas of a frightened child release into the silence. He lets her go. With a deep frown creasing his forehead, he opens the door to her cage, setting her free to go home.

     Next day at school his door is locked. School bullies do their worst. She sits in lesson time in the toilet, taking off tights, throwing them over the rail, standing on a stool, tying one leg around her throat ... so deeply traumatised and unhappy, so unhinged by everything that happens she still can't quite grasp or understand.

 

     For three years I endured in silence the music teacher’s humiliating games both at home and at school.

(Extract from my book BETRAYED, published by FeedARead.com, 2012)