Di-Anne feels strongly that improvements are needed in mental health services for abuse survivors
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Di-Anne’s childhood experiences of abuse and trauma have left her with lasting mental health issues.
She feels that many professionals have no understanding of the effects of abuse.
Di-Anne’s father was an alcoholic and a very violent man. She describes how the whole family lived in fear of him.
One abiding memory of her childhood is hugging her younger sisters in their bedroom, as they listened to their mother or one of their brothers being beaten or tortured.
Di-Anne was sexually abused by her father and she says he did the same to her younger sisters. She told her grandmother, who merely commented she was ‘not surprised’.
She attended Sunday school, and some time later she told the vicar what her father was doing, but he dismissed her, saying she was ‘just trying to get back’ at her father.
In her late teens, Di-Anne reported the abuse to the police. They took her report seriously and arranged a medical examination. Her father was charged and convicted and received a short prison sentence, but Di-Anne was not kept informed about the prosecution.
Di-Anne’s life has been very affected by the sexual abuse she suffered from her father and by the extreme physical abuse of her brothers. She has severe mental health issues and has frequently had suicidal thoughts.
She has been treated for mental illness at various stages of her life but feels that the abuse she suffered has never been properly addressed. When she tried to talk to one doctor about it, he said ‘Pull yourself together’.
Di-Anne strongly believes that mental health services should be better resourced and nurses and doctors need to learn to listen to their patients more. She does not feel she ever met a mental health professional who fully understood the effect of child sexual abuse.
Di-Anne describes her life as having been ‘a very hard journey’ but she adds that her difficult experiences have given her a deep degree of empathy for people in pain.
She finds comfort in her ‘wonderful children’ and her religious faith. She says this has allowed her to forgive, which she finds hugely empowering.