Erika says ‘I do not believe I will ever recover from this loss’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Erika’s father was killed in the Second World War when she was a small child, and her mother then had a relationship with a serviceman from overseas.
Erika’s stepfather sexually abused her over 10 years. This abuse, her mother’s coldness towards her and her treatment by professionals has caused Erika a lifetime of mental anguish.
When her father died, Erika already had one brother, and her mother had two more children with her stepfather. Sometimes he brought fellow servicemen into the house, and she remembers feeling that ‘all eyes’ were on her.
Her stepfather began sexually abusing her when she was six years old. He used to climb into the bed that she shared with her half sister and touch her genitals. She says she knew this was wrong, but he threatened to harm her if she told anyone.
Erika remembers her mother saying the family should be grateful to have him around, and this compounded the feeling that she could not talk to her mother about the abuse.
The stepfather stopped sexually abusing Erika when she was about 10, but assaulted her again when she was in her mid teens. She screamed when this happened and later heard her stepfather denying it to her mother.
One of Erika’s many painful memories of her childhood and teenage years is of her mother taking her half siblings away on visits to relatives and holidays. She was left behind at the mercy of her stepfather, and he took full advantage of this, abusing and threatening her.
She says ‘Life was ugly and terrible’.
She used to plead with her older brother not to leave her alone with their stepfather, and she thinks he believed her because he did try to protect her. Her other sibling denied that their father was doing anything wrong, and said that Erika was mentally ill. However, she says, all four children were scared of him.
She also remembers her mother being called to her school, because she was truanting and not achieving academically, despite being known as intelligent. There was talk of her seeing a psychologist, but she was terrified of being taken from her mother so she did not want this.
Erika says that at one stage her mother became suspicious of the attention her stepfather was giving to her and she used this as an excuse to throw Erika out of the family home.
When Erika was away from her home she had time to process everything that had happened to her. She had a boyfriend but when he ended the relationship it hit Erika hard.
She went to her GP who referred her to mental health services, but her treatments and experiences were not helpful.
Erika has since focused on education and gained a degree. She married and had a child, but feels that that is the only good thing to come out of the relationship. She has now remarried and her husband is very supportive and sensitive.
She feels her romantic relationships have been affected negatively due to her vulnerability. She has nightmares and feels her stepfather’s presence is still ‘creeping around’ in her psyche. She is terrified of hospitals and institutions because of her past experience.
Erika considers that women become very isolated by not being able to talk about child sexual abuse, as it is such a taboo subject. She says ‘This needs to be addressed. Even if you feel able to talk about the experience amongst other survivors it is still hard because you wonder why this happened to you ... you feel tainted, you feel sullied.’