Cristina told adults she was being abused - ‘I wanted them to sort it out but it backfired’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Cristina tried to tell two different teachers that she was being sexually abused by her father.
And one of her relatives recently apologised to her for knowing that she was being abused, but not acting.
Cristina’s father sexually abused her for several years. She remembers that it ‘wasn’t nice’ and she didn’t like it, but she thought it was ‘normal’. When she reached the age of about 10 or 11, she realised it was wrong. She challenged her father, and he stopped abusing her.
But, she comments, she still had to live with him every day.
She remembers talking to a teacher when she was at primary school and starting to describe what she did at home, but the teacher ‘shooed’ her away and told her ‘don’t be so stupid’.
Shortly after she started secondary school, Cristina told some school friends about the abuse. One of them repeated what she had said to a teacher, but the teacher dismissed it and took no action.
Cristina’s school mates started bullying her after her disclosure, and from then on she found it hard to have female friends. This was partly because of the way they treated her, but also because they made it clear they did not want to go to her house in case her father was there.
She says that she buried her memories of the abuse for many years. When she was a teenager, she moved out of the family home and settled in another part of the country. She never told her mother what her father had done.
Cristina explains that she decided to share her experience with the Truth Project after a family member recently admitted they knew Cristina had been sexually abused as a child, but did nothing for fear of upsetting the family.
She says this admission ‘made me mad’, but adds that part of her was relieved that she could now talk about it.
She says she did not want help at first. ‘It’s a pride thing, that you think you are strong and say to yourself “I can handle this”’, she says. But she began to get panic attacks. She describes it ‘as if a box had opened and I couldn’t get it back in’.
She went to see the doctor, who helped her with her anxiety, and she is having counselling.
Cristina would like safeguarding training to be mandatory for everyone who comes into contact with children so that they know what to do if they hear a child talk about abuse.
She also emphasises the importance of listening to children, and educating them about sexual abuse and reporting, because for a long time she did not realise there was anything wrong with what her father was doing to her.
Cristina says she came to the Truth Project because of the lack of help she had, despite telling others she was being abused.
She concludes ‘I don’t want it to define my life or for me to be a victim … but I’m angry that nothing was done and I was not listened to’.