Mental Health Stories

I was set up for a lifetime of abuse at the age of four, when my parents failed to address the sexual assault I suffered properly. Unable to deal with it, they took their anger out on me and forbid the mention of the subject. I grew up feeling as though it were all my fault, and that I "asked for it". As an adult, I dealt with similar attitudes because my experiences kept leading me to the wrong men. These men would abuse me and disrespect me, then tell me it was my fault, and I'd "asked for it". They never explained to me how I'd done so.

My last husband kept telling me that the bizarre abuse he was putting me through could never be proven and that no one would ever believe me. He also told me I might as well put up with it, as no one else would ever want me. Not being believed had been a running theme in my life, and to a great degree it still is.

My experience

When I was only about four years old, I was sexually assaulted for the first time, with penetration. The son of one of my mother’s friends got to me. My family did not react well, and it was never, ever spoken of. My recurring nightmares were either ignored or responded to angrily, and I learned to keep them to myself. As I was growing up, I was made to believe that it was somehow my fault. I escaped being molested in hospital by a nurse because another nurse was suspicious and rescued me. I escaped being gang-raped at 16 by tricking the men and running. I hid and watched them going up and down the street looking for me. This affected the way I viewed men and the way I viewed myself. I was verbally, emotionally and physically abused by my family. My husbands abused me verbally, sexually, emotionally, physically and financially. They were controlling, with the second one actually being a psychopath who tried to kill me. Still, I didn’t consider that it was all that bad. Much of it still seemed fairly normal to me, cemented by the common experiences of the women around me.

When I divorced my second husband, his behaviour escalated to the point that my children and I had to be hidden away in a series of refuges. Just as we were finally moved to a town where I believed we would be safe, the local authority decided that they didn’t want to accept the duty. They refused to acknowledge the domestic violence that we had experienced because the law granted us the right to live anywhere under those circumstances, and they wanted us out. Disobeying the law and court orders, they exposed us by finding my ex and telling him where we were so that he could help them to get rid of us. What followed was probably far worse than anything he’d done to us by himself. The social workers, the guardian and the local authority colluded together toward a common goal….not taking the duty. They helped him to destroy us so that they wouldn’t have to house us, and the ignorance of the judge about what constituted abuse, as well as her refusal to acknowledge the evidence because she hated my religion and wanted my children taken out of that environment, resulted in irreparable damage to each of us. My children suffer emotional damage, and one of them self-harms, and has been in psychiatric hospital several times. The children were taken illegally and shipped back to the country where their father lived, in spite of all the evidence given by police, as well as others, because of the ignorance and bias of the judge and the determination of the local authority not to have to take the duty. I was left behind here, suffering severely from PTSD, which was now made worse by these actions.

I was also let down by RISE, who showed absolutely no interest in me whatsoever, and gave no support. Another woman who was suffering a very similar case was put in contact with me, and because RISE wouldn’t support her, I did. It was difficult. Eventually, after fighting for a few years, I was given medication that helped me to be able to at least sleep. The nightmares, flashbacks and constant spinning in my brain were unbearable. Finally, I received 25 rather intense CBT sessions administered by a consultant clinical psychologist whose specialty was PTSD, and that helped me to become more “normal”. I’ll never be cured, but at least the symptoms are more manageable. I now work with social workers and mental health professionals who want to try to prevent these things happening to other families, and who want the agonising waiting times such as I went through to be greatly reduced. However, they’re fighting an uphill battle. There needs to be more education for judges and social workers, but there also needs to be more done to enforce proper attendance to the laws and policies that are already in place. That seems to be the hard part. There are so many people in these professions who do want to do the right thing, but can’t seem to find the way or the time. There seem to be more cases than people to handle them, and this is only going to get worse. There are also sometimes problems with the attitudes of some of the people involved, such as was the case for those dealing with me. If they don’t want to be bothered, the best thing they can do for us is to ignore us. If they want us out of the way because they already have too many, the worst thing that they can do is sell us back to our perpetrators so that we’re destroyed. I’m still here, and my care, housing, education and support has cost the state far more than the support we were legally entitled to would have. The laws and policies that would have protected us were in place, but people in positions of trust and authority were allowed to ignore them.

Written by Sarah Brown, blogger of Mindless Matters