Julius says talking about the abuse he suffered as a child has helped him get to a ‘good place’
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
As an adult, Julius understood that he was very troubled.
When he was in his late 20s he engaged in counselling and was able to understand how being sexually abused as a child has affected him.
Along with his sisters, Julius was fostered, then adopted as a young child. His birth parents were both sex workers and his father was a violent man.
The fostering and adoption began as an informal arrangement with another couple who knew his parents, but social services became involved and approved it. Julius now believes that his adoptive father targeted them as a vulnerable family.
Julius’s new home was no less chaotic than his family home. His adoptive father had been to prison several times and he was physically and emotionally abusive to the children. He also sexually abused Julius – Julius thinks he was under five years old when this began.
Julius remembers his adoptive father taking him to public toilets in the city centre. He remembers sitting on the toilet in a cubicle, then going to another cubicle where his adoptive father was with a man, and the door slamming on him.
He also remembers being in the outside toilet at home with his adoptive father, who made Julius touch his erect penis.
Julius was expelled from primary school for showing sexualised behaviour towards another boy. His adoptive parents were called in to speak with teachers and social workers were also involved, but it does not seem that anyone tried to work out the reason for his behaviour.
He says ‘I remember being sat with a social worker, but she was more concerned about the threat from my birth mother … to be fair they may have put my issues down to what happened with them’.
When Julius was 11, his adoptive father left home. He says that he continued to be troubled and disruptive at school, and he left with no qualifications. By the time he was 16, he was abusing drugs and alcohol. He adds ‘I fell into sex work, but had no clue why I was doing it’.
He suffered with flashbacks and nightmares. He says ‘It was like something was trying to get out’. He had multiple sexual partners. ‘None of it made me feel good. It was utterly destructive ... I couldn’t form an emotional bond with anyone.’
Julius tried to talk to a few people about being abused as a child. ‘Not wanting to believe people because it’s too difficult to hear is a running theme’, he says. But he adds that when he spoke to his sister ‘She was the first person who didn’t brush it off. She said she wasn’t surprised … that our stepfather had tried it on with everyone’.
He began having counselling in his late 20s and says this has helped him realise the reasons for things that he has done and felt. ‘I have picked through it all … I now understand it.’
Julius has tried to access his social care records but has been told that none can be found. He questions how he could have been placed with his adoptive parents and displayed the behaviour he did, with no one questioning the reasons.
Julius thinks that society should do more to understand children who are badly behaved and that social workers should be alert for signs of abuse and act on them. He thinks that counselling should be available and easy to access for everyone, regardless of their income.