Valerie says ‘I realise now that I was a traumatised child but nobody asked me what was wrong’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Valerie’s parents had a troubled relationship, and her father sexually abused her.
She feels that signs she had been abused could have been picked up by social services and teachers.
Valerie describes an unsettled family life when she was growing up. Her parents had problems with employment and they frequently moved house.
She says her mother loved her and her siblings, but she had an affair and this led to more instability. Her father was sometimes violent and he drank too much, although she adds, this ‘made him soppy’.
She thinks she was about five when he began sexually abusing her. She remembers it happened ‘numerous times in various rooms in the house’. He touched her, made her perform oral sex, and raped her.
The abuse went on for about three years. Valerie’s father often said the abuse was ‘her fault’ and that she had made him do it. She did not tell anyone about the abuse. She says ‘I was terrified of being “found out”. I would have thrown myself under a bus before I let anyone know about it’.
She describes the bizarre manner in which he ended the abuse ‘like he was ending a love affair with a grown woman … he asked if we could go back to being father and daughter again’.
Social services were involved with the family, but Valerie remembers that their main concern always seemed to be that she was attending school.
When she was a teenager, Valerie’s parents divorced and she lived with her mother. She started a new school, and an incident on a school trip triggered a strong reaction in her. A teacher groped her knee on the bus.
She began to experience anxiety, stress and tension. She says she was ‘always on edge and snappy’.
She self-harmed, and often cried at school, but this was ignored or overlooked by teachers.
One day when Valerie was 14 years old, she heard a radio programme about sexual abuse and says that something in her brain ‘clicked’. She recalls ‘I realised that they were talking about the thing that had happened to me … it had a name’.
Some time after this, she told her best friend about the abuse. She still suffered with anxiety and used to make herself sick. She took an overdose, and ran away from home more than once during her teenage years, but her mother showed very little concern and never asked her what was wrong.
Valerie says she has lived through some ‘tough times’ as a result of the abuse she suffered. As well as having mental health issues, she has used alcohol to try to make herself feel better.
However, she says she has now ‘found a different path’ and she finds solace in nature, exercise and being around animals.