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.