Emmer says ‘I can’t allow the damage done by my parents to go into my future’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Emmer’s mum and dad told her she wasn’t wanted, and her stepfather sexually abused her.
She is determined to protect her children and bring them up differently.
When she was very young, Emmer’s mother left home. Her father said he didn’t want her because she wasn’t a boy, and he sent her to live with her grandparents. She says she had ‘a lovely life’ with them and the large extended family.
But when she was about five, her mother and her new husband, Horace, took her to live with them. ‘I didn’t want to leave and I didn’t understand why I had to go’ she says.
Soon after she moved, Emmer’s stepfather began to sexually abuse her. It began with him touching her and masturbating. She is certain her mother knew because she walked in on several occasions, and walked out again. ‘There was no way she could have not seen’ says Emmer.
She once tried to talk to her mother about the abuse, but her mother said she was lying.
Emmer thinks her mother turned a blind eye to the abuse because she had a reasonably secure life with Horace. She adds that her mother was not caring towards her, and often beat her.
If her mother was angry with her, sometimes she would go into Emmer’s school and beat her. Some of the teachers saw this, but never intervened. Emmer once told a teacher what was happening at home but was accused of lying. She says the teachers were scared of her mother.
Horace sexually abused Emmer several times a week. The abuse escalated to rape. He threatened Emmer and told her she would go to prison for lying if she told anyone about the abuse. She hardly saw her grandparents any more.
When Emmer was 10 or 11 years old, her mother left home. Alone with Horace, Emmer suffered even worse sexual and physical abuse. One day, after he had raped and beaten her, she went to school with bruises and her friend told her not to go home. Her friend’s mother called the police.
Emmer was allocated a social worker, but she did not feel supported by her. She says the social worker didn’t listen to her account of how Horace was abusing her, and tried to make her go home.
She was placed in a children’s home when she was 12, then put into foster care, but returned to the home a year later. She says the staff were nice, but when she told them about the abuse she had suffered ‘they didn’t seem to have a clue about how to manage the disclosure’.
On one occasion Emmer was told she had a visitor, and when she went to her room found Horace sitting there. She says she ‘went berserk’ and smashed a window. She couldn’t believe staff had let him into her room. ‘I just wanted to destroy everything because he was there … my own little space that had been safe and clean before.’
Emmer was punished for her outburst. Eventually she was fostered again and after Emmer told her foster mother about the abuse by Horace, her foster mother contacted the police. She says the police were quite sensitive towards her. ‘At last, I was believed.’
Horace was convicted and received a lengthy prison sentence.
Emmer has had an eating disorder which began when she was being abused. She says she thought if she looked different the abuse might stop. She suffers with low self-esteem and in the past has made bad choices with relationships. She has issues with trust, particularly of anyone in authority.
Emmer believes that children should be taught about abuse in schools and says ‘it’s better to be given graphic information than to have to go through the experience’. She says good training is essential, so that children don’t feel disbelieved or deterred from speaking out.
She has had counselling which helped her leave an abusive marriage. She is now in a healthy relationship, and is open and honest with her children when she talks to them about abuse.
Emmer has a good job that she loves. She does not have contact with most of her birth family but has a close relationship with her foster mother.