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A couple of days ago, I was writing to The Mentor. I write about what I am feeling, what I have discovered, what I have talked about with people, what I have read. He sends it back with comments and thoughts and links and things for me to think about or where to go next. It’s a dialogue.
It’s a dialogue with a man I have never met, who lives thousands of miles away, or maybe around the corner, who I have told more secrets to than anyone else in my entire life. I have shared my innermost thoughts and feelings, described bad things that have happened to me, discussed how my brain and body behave and react. If you had told me three weeks ago I would be doing this, I would have thought you deranged. The most a group of close friends know is the fact it happened and the who, where and when. I don’t do this, and it takes some adjusting to. Just the fact that someone else knows what I know causes me to panic at regular intervals. The knowledge that I posted an outline of my story and over two hundred people have read it can make me feel physically sick if I dwell on it for too long.
Maybe decades of keeping a secret and locking it down creates an aversion to speaking about it. Maybe it’s the early warning system that was beaten into me — the message that if I uttered a word, worse would follow. Whatever it is, it’s psychological carnage, and it doesn’t allow me to share easily. In the end, I have to rely on a logical little mantra of absolute truths to calm me and stop me hitting panic buttons.
I have a thing about being honest. I’ve been lied to, deceived, manipulated enough for several lifetimes. So my aim with this process was to apply the principle of honesty to everything — anything I feel or think about anything to do with any of my abuse. Not to shy away from harsh truths, or to diminish my own behaviour for the sake of discomfort or embarrassment. Writing to The Mentor like that means examining my soul a bit, facing things bluntly. Sometimes, in the middle of that kind of thinking, something forgotten surfaces.
Quite some time ago now, I made statements to the police about my abuse and an investigation happened. As part of that process, I hired a specialist law firm to look into suing the school — and just to have legal representation, in case it was needed. The first thing they did was gather together every scrap of paperwork they could find: facts, timelines, information about me, about the abuser, about the school. Some of that paperwork included my entire medical records from birth to present day. Huge files of social worker reports covering from my birth to about nineteen years old.
When I was born, my mother died twelve weeks later, and I was placed into a series of foster homes for a couple of years. Social workers were involved from the beginning of my life. I don’t have a single memory of those first two years.
The paperwork had just sat in a cupboard for decades. I had never read it. I assumed if there had been anything important in it, my lawyers would have raised it with me. But of course, the lawyers were looking for facts, things that helped their mission. For me, there were different things.
A few days ago, after years of ignoring them, I had a look. Everything was filed in date order, so my childhood was laid out like a map. All the discussions of my childhood, the things I have been re-living and speaking about, suddenly slotted into a framework. Names of people and places. Addresses. Dates when things happened. Suddenly things weren’t vague or blurry anymore — they could be focused a little. I didn’t have to say ‘around about this age’. I could tell you the day, the month, and the year.
The papers also gave me comments, asides, footnotes on my life. At least half a dozen people commenting on my father, telling social workers he had beaten me for some misdemeanour, sending me to my room. People sticking up for me, defending me, fighting for me. There was a letter detailing another occasion my abuser had attempted to take me away from the children’s home (blocked by an unconvinced member of staff) and requesting that the headmaster of my boarding school could vouch for him — or not.
At one point, a social worker — a lovely man who really took care of me — took me home after I had run away. His comment in his report was that with parents like mine, he was not surprised I was disturbed. He also noted that I had a mordant sense of humour — sarcastic and acerbic, apparently. I’m ok with that. I’m calling that my first review.
All of it added texture and colour to the storyline, and helped me to feel that, unknown to me, there were people asking the right questions. I imagine at the time I wasn’t providing any answers. If I had been asked or questioned, I would have been silent for fear of repercussions.
The next morning I was woken once again by horrific dreams. I sat at my desk looking at the pile of papers I had been working through the day before, pondering how ironic it was that they had just been sitting there all this time.
It’s too early to tell if this will have any lasting impact. I know it has helped me. I know it has been a positive thing. I know that today feels better than yesterday, just a little bit.
a blog less ordinary 