My Journal

Crawling in my skin,
These wounds they will not heal,
Fear is all I feel,
Confusing what is real
I hate him for what he did to me.
Ever since I was a child I could tell I didn't fit in. I was different from the rest. I knew things, things, that only adults should know. I had grown up too fast.
Each and every day I thought I would wake up and it would have just been a nightmare. Not real. The truth is I still haven't woken up.
I'm still living and breathing the nightmare.
I'd like to take this opportunity, as there are certain people that I want to thank, the angels in my life.
Firstly, my mum and nan, I love you both more than you'll ever know,I'm just so sorry that I'll never make you proud of me. If you ever read this mum maybe you'll know why I do what I do.
Nick, you've been here for so long, and picked up the pieces so many times, yet I don't think I've every thanked you. Thank you XxX. I know you understand me, I just hope that this will explain why. I love and respect you so much. You'll always be my soulmate.

I can tell that this, is going to be the most jumbled set of words ever written. But you see the thing is, I really need to write them down, because if I don't I think I will honestly go insane.
I've never felt normal. Ever. But one night as I sat and surfed the web I found some sites dedicated to Sexual Abuse, and the survivors. As I read through the pages I began to feel different. I began to realise that I wasn't alone. I'm not so niave as to think sexual abuse hasn't happened to others, don't get me wrong, but what I didn't realise was that the abuse you suffered so long ago leaves you open to attacks from others. They can see the wounds and seem always ready to re-open them.
This, I hope, will begin to make more sense as I continue to write.
I tend to write as I remember, in a flashback style. If I'm honest it hurts to much to actually sit there and think about it in a chronological order.

Journal Of The Numb - Part One

I'm sitting here, and it's dark. I'm scared, but of what?
I don't know
I'm in my room, theres nobody else here, but I'm so scared. When I close my eyes I can hear him breathing, I can feel his hands holding me close to him. I can feel his hands under my top, touching my tummy. He moves them all over. I can feel his hard skin.
He said he loved me.
I want to stop him, but I can't.
I wanted to tell someone, but I couldn't.
I can still feel him. Getting rougher as he puts his hand into my knickers. Touching me where I don't want to be touched.
He wants me to touch him now.
He tells me I'm "Daddy's little angel", "Daddys little girl"
I loved you.
His fingers were big and it hurt, I turned my face away so he couldn't see me cry. He just made it hurt more if he saw my tears. Told me that he never wanted to see me cry again, it made him upset.
He'd sit me on his lap, ask if I was ready? Turning my head away, I'd nod, say yes.
He hurt me so much.
I want to cry - I couldn't. I still can't. Even now.
I'm scared that if I close my eyes he's going to do it again.
I don't want to hurt anymore.
I just want to cry.

Monique Louise Chloe Richards
Born 26th August 1983 - Died 10th August 1995
Go away!!…You tried to take the best of me
I grew up in a broken family, if that’s what you want to call it. I was more of an accident really, wasn’t planned. But nine months later I arrived into their lives.
From a very early age I learnt all about sex and the ways and means of life. It started when he’d come into my room, after my mother had left for work. He’d wake me up by touching my breasts and thighs, letting his fingers slip up into my nickers. Telling me how pretty I was, how grown up I looked. It never stopped there. I wish it did.
He would often insist on helping me bathe and dress myself. This went on for many years, it soon crossed the boundaries into normality, until one day, when my mother had left for work, he crept into my bedroom. As I laid there, trying to hide beneath the sheets, he climbed into bed with me. He started to slowly remove my pyjama bottoms, and then my thin nickers. Everything was now ready for him. Ready for him to force his way into my small body, filling me not only with pain, but with fear. Why was my daddy doing this to me, why was he hurting me like this? It was at that moment that he took my virginity from me. He also took my spirit.
When he was done he slid off of me and then kissed my forehead. Told me that it was our special secret and not to tell anyone. Even if I did try to tell anyone they wouldn’t believe me, they’d think that I was bad. And I wouldn’t be daddy’s special girl anymore. He walked away and left me crying. This night replayed for many years. Too many years

Looking back the “attacks” from my father always came during dark times. Be them night or day time. They were just dark in the fact that my mother wasn’t there.
I had learnt for a very early age to sense his approach . I did whatever I could to hide from him, keep him from finding me, touching me. I hid in wardrobes, under beds and in the wine cellar. He nearly always found me, though it did put him off for a short while.
I can admit that these were very dark times in my life. I remember the dark rooms, the shadowed sneaky hands on my body and the darkness that filled me slowly until it swallowed all the light I ever had.
There were times that he would ask me to “show off” – just for him. This was usually in the middle of the night, he’d come in, turn the bright lights on make me stand in the middle of the room, just so he could watch me do whatever he told me too. One time, he had some friends over for a rather upper class game of cards. After a few games I can only assume that he and a friend were losing, or losing interest and wanted something a little more entertaining to do. They found their way into my bedroom where they decided to tuck me in and read me a bedtime story so that I could get back to sleep, how thoughtful, after all it was only them that had burst into my room switched on the lights and woke me up. Both of them found their way into my body. The only tucking I felt was that of their fingers deep inside of my body, and the only bedtime stories I heard were, “You’d better not tell anyone.” I never questioned them, and I never did tell. This was my life, I didn’t know any other way.
Sometimes the “attacks” would come in the form of affection, a hug for doing the washing up, or perhaps doing well at school. Nine times out of ten the hug would turn into a forced kiss and a quick grope. Sometimes I would be punished. I’d then be called into my parents bedroom to talk about whatever I had done wrong. Things like not brushing my hair, or helping enough around the house, or for being fat and ugly and needing to learn a lesson. I would never know the approach, but the end result was much the same.
Night times were, and still are the hardest. You see that would be when he would “come after me”. Sounds like the Boogey Man doesn’t it? To be honest, I would have gladly taken on him any day of the week. My daddy is the stuff real nightmares are made of. Sat here writing all of this now I can remember the fear of his shadow coming towards me. And a deeper, more hurtful fear that filled me when I’d see an erection on his naked body, shadowed by the dark room. I always knew what was going to happen, what was coming. Sometimes it would come in the form of a lengthy examination, probing me. If that happened, I’d always be made to kiss him, then kiss his erection, and before I was allowed to sink away into my world of darkness I would be forced to allow him to come in my mouth. How could I do this? Like I said, I learnt from an early age not to fight it, he’d only make it worse.
The first violent rape I remember was when I was six. I’d gone to bed really early as my parents were having a party. Because of this it was best that I slept on the far side of the house, in the loft bedroom. You see it was the one that was farthest away from the partyroom, the noise could hardly be heard. The room was dark, darker than mine, the moon wasn’t shining through the window. In the middle of the night I awoke to the feeling of him climbing roughly into my bed. I was scared, I knew what he wanted to do. But this time was different. He never spoke a single word, not a sound, nothing. This was neither punishment or affection. He just touch me, moving all over my body, roughly pushing his fingers deep inside me. Then as he began to move, and I thought that yet another night was over, he grabbed my wrists and twisted me onto my front, pushing my face hard into the mattress. With one hand over my mouth and another pulling my legs apart I felt him rip into my body, deeper than he ever had before, I began to cry. For the second time the pain had taken over, no amount of counting corners of reciting the alphabet backwards was going to keep my concentration this time. I could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks. As he got harder, so did my sobs.
I still don’t know to this very day why I did it, but as I could feel his body building to spasm I muttered the words “Please daddy stop! Please daddy it hurts” I just couldn’t help it, the pain was excruciating. The man who was supposed to protect me was hurting me more than it is possible to imagine. The only effect that it had on him was to make it more forceful, painful. Though I’m sure it never, it seemed to last for hours. Even after I was left alone in that dark room I could still sense him there, I could smell him on me. A combination of drink, smoke and sweat. I wanted to die. I was so young yet I wanted my life to end.
The next day felt strange, even now I can’t think of the right words to describe it. I knew that I didn’t want to go downstairs for breakfast. I went straight to the shower instead. I can remember feeling dirty, feeling used and hurt. Wanting to wash away myself, the bad girl that had made her daddy do this to her. I looked down and saw a combination of dried white stuff and thick smeared blood all over my thighs. This terrified me all over again.
All the rapes after that just seem to blur. That was a normal way of life for me. Bar the ones I detail here everything else merged, fragments drift in and out but nothing stands out, maybe because I don’t want it to. But I know that no matter what I do, that night will never leave me. It was the night that I realised my daddy didn’t really love me. And to be honest, that hurt me more than anything physically. Maybe that’s the reason I cried. I just wanted to me loved, held and protected. Not kissed and touched. Just loved by my daddy.
The Final rape is like the first, a milestone. I was thirteen years old, fifteen days to my fourteenth birthday. By this time my parents were divorced. I only had to see him at the weekends and holidays. Although my mum has never said that she knows what he did to me. I think there is a part of her that does. And I think that’s the part that makes her hate me. She’d always ask if I was sure that I wanted to see him. She knew I never, but I was still, even then, scared of making him angry. That Sunday she’d told me to stay at home. If only I’d listened.
We did the usual father daughter “thing”, he picked me up, we walked around the park. From the outside looking in I’m sure that it looked fine. But inside the situation was just so wrong. I was now at the age where, when he took me out, he’d ask me questions like, have you had any boyfriends yet? Have you let them touch you? I’d just sit, staring at the floor shaking my head. It was almost like he wanted to see if he’d given me a thirst for sex. After the park and the endless questions we went into a pizza restaurant. People stared at us. I didn’t, at the time, understand why. I do now. At fourteen I was very tall, and very well developed, I looked a lot older than I really was. Looking back I can see I’d lost all my innocence. I looked like an adult. They probably assumed that I was a young lover, and to a certain extent, I was.
After lunch we went to the cinema, sat near the back and in the middle. I don’t remember what film we saw, but I do remember the tight ball forming in my stomach when we had initially gone in there to find no more than two people sat at the front. The ball of fear grew and sank lower and lower. As we sat there I could feel his hand on my thigh. The numbness began to creep over me. I just sat there staring at the screen, desperately wanting to just watch and listen. Only I couldn’t hear the words or see the movements, everything was him. I felt the sharp stab as his fingers entered me. My whole body was screaming, silent screams. After he had made me touch him I thought he’d stop. After all this was different, there were people here, not even he would chance it, surely? He did. I think that my lack of emotion during the previous events had angered him. He grabbed me, pulling me both towards him and downwards towards the floor. I thought he wanted me to kiss him there, but instead he covered my mouth with his sweaty hand. He pushed me all the way down onto the cold dirty floor. I felt his crushing weight pushing my body down all the way on to the hard floor beneath. As he entered me I just stared up at the tiles on the ceiling. I started to count them. Row by row. I could feel his hand tightening around my mouth whilst the other was roughly pulling at my top. Ten, twenty, thirty…the counting and staring persisted. As I felt his lips kiss my breasts I wanted to vomit, I lost count. Needed to start all over again. As his body began to spasm, and that horrible warm liquid started to seep into my body, he bit down really hard on my nipple. We stayed until the credits began to roll at the end. As we stood to leave, he turned to me in a casual manner and asked “did you enjoy that hunny?” I never answered.
As I said earlier I learnt about sex from an early age, I wasn’t stupid. My periods had started years earlier. I knew I could be pregnant. Sitting in that surgery and looking into a face of utter disgust as she handed me a prescription just made me feel dirty. She thought I was a cheap little slut. She never said it, never needed to, her face said everything. As I left the doctors I sat on a wall and cried. All I wanted was to be normal, I wanted to be just like my friends, liking the things that they did. But I couldn’t, I’d gone past all that. I’d lost my childhood.
That was the last time that I let him do it to me. In fact it was the last time that I actually saw him. He still sends me birthday cards asking for me to contact him. Why? Who knows maybe to see if the little girl he forced to be a woman so young can still do all the things he taught me to do. I know in his mind I’ll always be a little girl. And in my mind he’ll always be the daddy that I wanted to love me, but never did.
After that day and that decision I hoped that everything would just click into place and happiness would just come flooding back into my life. It didn’t. I couldn’t sleep at nights. When I closed my eyes I could see his face, hear his breath. If I moved and felt the covers brush my leg in my mind it was his hands on me. To this very day I’ve not regained a steady sleeping pattern. I’m scared to sleep, because if I do I dream, and I can’t cope with that.
As time went past I felt strange, lost in a way. He wasn’t in my life any more and he wasn’t hurting me. So I started doing it myself. I deserve to be hurt, I was dirty, bad. He’d told me often enough so it has to be true. That’s when the self harm started. The worst time was two years after the final rape had happened. I sat in the school toilets with a pair of blunt scissors that I’d sneaked from a classroom. I listened to the sounds of the taps dripping, footsteps and voices in the corridor, ever looking down at the blades. I slowly rolled my sleeves up and held the scissors to my wrists. As I forced the blade to slice through my the soft flesh I sat and watched the blood drop, it was strange, almost like a dream. I felt so relaxed. began to drift slowly. My eyes felt so heavy and for the first time I wasn’t afraid to close them. For the first time in years I felt happy. A Teacher found me. Took me to the sister. I was stitched up. My mother never really asked or seemed to care why I had done what I had. In fact no one cared. It was put down to either attention seeking or GCSE stress. If only they really understood just how much I wanted to die that day.
At first, when it became regular, it was just hitting, punching or biting myself. People just thought I was clumsy. Then I discovered sharp objects. Slices and cuts are far harder to justify, especially on a regular basis. I hid them, cut my thighs, tops of my arms, anywhere that was hidden from public view. At first it was just a substitute. I couldn’t function without pain. But as time went on it became a release. Watching the blade slice into my flesh, seeing the dark red blood drip, then feeling that shot of pain somehow managed to ease the pain that ate at me constantly inside. It was like a transition, seeing the blood running was like watching the shame run down my arm, cleaning me. But after a while the high would stop. I’d go back to feeling numb.
When times get really bad I still use this as a form of release.
My latest lapse was just a few months ago, I sat in the bath and I took a kitchen knife and inserted it deep inside myself. Feeling the pain and seeing the blood run out into the water gave me such an overwhelming sense of relief I nearly passed out. I sat and for the first time in ages I cried.