Natasha says ‘Abusers can be anybody. Mine was a babysitter and a man I called uncle’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Nathasha’s father was an alcoholic and during her childhood and adolescence she was concerned for her mother.
When her mother went on her weekly night out, the older girls who babysat for Natasha sexually abused her. A few years later, an older male neighbour did the same. Natasha did not tell her mother until many years later.
Natasha says her mum would go out one evening a week leaving her in the care of two older local girls. These girls started calling telephone sex lines from Natasha’s house and they pinned the younger girl down on the bed and fondled her vagina and breasts.
This abuse occurred about three or four times, when Natasha was eight or nine years old. It ended because her mum noticed her phone bills had increased and she stopped asking the girls to babysit. Natasha did not tell anyone at the time what had happened.
She says that for many years she put it to the back of her mind, and told herself it was not a problem as the older girls had never taken her clothes off.
When Natasha was a young teenager she was groomed and sexually abused by the husband of her mum’s friend, Mr A. Sometimes her mother would leave Natasha in his care when the two women went out.
Her mum’s friend was well known and liked in the community, and Natasha says she felt safe and relaxed in their home. She remembers that Mr A was always very friendly, making her tea and asking about her day and how things were in her life.
Mr A continued paying Natasha attention and began giving her cigarettes. She was in her early teens when this began, and over the following 18 months, his behaviour escalated. He began to talk to her about sex and ask her if she had a boyfriend.
He would shower when Natasha was there and walk through the house naked. He asked Natasha to put cream on his leg and then moved so her hand went towards his penis. He then began to masturbate in front of Natasha.
Throughout this abuse, he continued making Natasha cups of tea, giving her cigarettes and taking an interest in her life. As his behaviour became more extreme Natasha says she felt more and more uncomfortable and would make excuses not to visit their home.
During her later teenage years the impact of her experiences of abuse began to show. She would bite her nails very short and she blamed herself for the abuse while simultaneously telling herself that it ‘was not so bad’ and that she was ‘making a big deal of nothing’.
She recalls ‘I was always seen as naughty growing up ... but looking back at my life I wasn’t naughty. Actually I was probably trying to get somebody to understand or recognise what I was going through and did not know how to vocally speak about that’.
As an adult Natasha started to have panic attacks. If people approached her without her knowing it would evoke memories and trigger extreme reactions. Her mental health began to suffer.
Natasha had still not told her mother about the sexual abuse she suffered – she says she felt because of her alcoholic father, her mother ‘had been through enough’ and she ‘did not want to hurt her’.
However, in later years Natasha decided to tell her mum about the abuse in a letter. As she wrote her account, she realised it was probably the first time she had acknowledged the sexual abuse to herself.
Through her work she began to understand how she had been affected by her experiences. She decided to seek support and says she had different experiences of counselling. She recalls one counsellor commenting that the babysitters who abused her were not much older than her and may have ‘fancied her’.
This stopped Natasha from wanting to go on talking about the abuse and made her question again if she had been sexually abused.
However, Natasha says she has received counselling that has been positive for her. She found her journey to the Truth Project ‘nerve-racking’ because it brought up many feelings she had as a child. But, she says, because of her counselling she knows why this happened and how to manage it.
She enjoys a full life helping through her work other vulnerable children. At times she has experienced anxiety about other people caring for her children and says she is very vigilant about this. However, she adds, when she is not working she has fun with her family.
Natasha would like to see more ‘creativity’ in therapy sessions. For example, she suggests they could be carried out while going for a walk, because children are likely to be more comfortable disclosing when they feel relaxed and have no direct eye contact.