When Annie was five years old, she thought the abuse was ‘just part of life’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Annie was sexually abused over five years by her mother’s partner, Steve.
She told staff at school and was accused of attention seeking, and her mother was angry that her relationship was affected.
Annie explains that she and her mother did not live with Steve, but he often stayed at their house.
He began sexually abusing her when she was about five years old. It seemed to her it happened whenever her mother was out of the way. She says he was adamant that she shouldn’t tell anyone, and she adds ‘I felt very alone … I just thought that it was part of life’.
During the time she was at primary school she says that the abuse ‘was always in the back of my head … my life was all over the place’.
Annie recalls that when she was 12 and had moved to secondary school, she attended an assembly on the theme of abuse. She burst into tears and was taken to one side by a teacher.
She did not have a good relationship with this female teacher, however Annie told her about the abuse and the police were called.
The teacher sat in on the interview with two police officers. Annie found it very difficult explaining how she had been touched, especially as she felt the teacher did not believe her and ‘everyone looked at me as if I was wasting their time’.
She does not know if the police interviewed Steve, but Annie’s mother told the police that her daughter was lying and at that point, Annie says she ‘gave up’.
Afterwards, Annie was not given any help or support, and she had no contact with social services. No action was taken and she remembers feeling that no one was interested in listening to her.
For a while, Annie was sent to live with her father but this arrangement broke down. She returned to her mother who had separated from Steve, and blamed Annie for this. She told Annie ‘I thought I’d found the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with and you’ve ruined it’.
After some time, her mother reconciled with Steve. Annie’s behaviour at school deteriorated and she was excluded and sent to a pupil referral unit. Here, she developed good relationships with the teachers and achieved some GCSEs.
However, the abuse had many negative effects on her life. She says she lost her virginity when she was 12 but ‘thought this was just normal … I‘d already been exposed to things like porn so I just sort of knew what it was and what to do’. She got involved in relationships that were controlling and damaging to her and made ‘bad choices’.
She has suffered with depression and tried to take her own life. After one suicide attempt she was admitted to a psychiatric ward where she was subjected to sexually advances by male patients.
Annie has had a mixed experience with mental health support; she says some counselling has been helpful, but other services have been poor.
Annie says she thinks about the abuse all the time and suffers from nightmares. She says ‘I just hate everything and everyone. Everything makes me tired’.