Dorian is conflicted about being abused. She feels the abuser was the only one who was kind to her
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
When Dorian was still a toddler she was abandoned by her parents and placed in care with a foster family.
She describes ‘horrendous and conflicting’ memories of this time. Her foster mother abused her physically and emotionally. The foster father sexually abused her but she finds it hard to blame or hate him, because she feels he showed her love.
The foster family had a daughter of their own who was roughly the same age as her. They also fostered more children.
Dorian relates how horrible the foster mother was to her, treating her like a servant while the family daughter ‘could do no wrong’. Dorian would often be shut in the cellar and she was regularly physically and emotionally abused. She says she never felt welcomed by the family and their relatives largely ignored her at birthdays and Christmas.
The foster father began to abuse Dorian when she was about five years old. The abuse continued on an almost daily basis until she started her periods. He usually waited until the house was empty, but he would also visit Dorian while she was in the bed she shared with her foster sister.
For a while her foster father’s own father came to stay and this man would try and put his penis in her hands. Dorian suspects her foster father had been abused himself.
Dorian says the foster mother was also horrible to her husband. Although he sexually abused her, Dorian retains affection for her foster father. She thinks he genuinely loved her, despite his behaviour.
Luckily, Dorian says, she was bright and was offered a place at a prestigious grammar school where she could board. She still had to return home during holidays but was able to keep away from her foster family as much as possible. She thinks that in many ways being in school saved her life.
She says her only problem with the schooling was that children’s services were responsible for her funding so they took her shopping for clothes and uniforms, even when she was in her late teens. She remembers feeling mortified every time they paid for her clothing with vouchers.
Dorian has serious concerns about the suitability of her foster parents. She says they seemed driven by the money they received rather than a genuine desire to care for others.
She adds that on the odd occasion that social workers called to check on her, they always rang first so the foster parents ensured the house was immaculate. She was warned if she spoke against them she’d be returned to the care services and end up somewhere far worse.
The foster family’s house was very small and overcrowded with all the foster children, but she does not remember anyone from children’s services looking at the sleeping arrangements.
Dorian’s childhood experiences have had a lasting effect on her. She suffers issues with intimacy and this has affected her marriages. She describes feeling ‘brittle inside’ and feels that the abuse has affected her child’s life too.
In later life, she went for counselling but says she found it difficult that the therapist put the blame for the abuse on her foster father. She says that despite what he did, he was the only one person who ever showed her affection.
Dorian feels he tried to protect her from the foster mother and that he genuinely cared for her. She still struggles to reconcile the two sides of the issue, and she feels that abusers need help too.
She would like to see thorough background checks on foster carers, and thinks that in some cases it is better for children to remain in care. She says social workers should not ring before they visit but should carry out spot checks to get a truer picture.
Dorian has put a lot of effort into trying to trace her real parents. She has discovered a large wider family but not the mother and father who abandoned her as a baby.