We had pretty much a free reign there. At home I was always so tired and sleepy during the day; at Butlins the energy flowed through me.
I always made new friends, and was teased mercilessly because if I hung around with people from Cork I came home with a Cork accent, if they were Northerners I came home with a twang as if I had lived in Belfast all my life. But what got to Da was when I would hang around with a crowd from Dublin’s inner city. He knew I was playing with them when I came back because my accent would go downhill, in his opinion.
I had a Dublin accent anyway but he hated it. At one point he became so ashamed of me that he sent me to elocution lessons. He didn’t realise that the accents were not something I did deliberately. It was something I got teased with for years but I was not pretending. My voice just took over and copied what it heard. I pretty much speak the same now as I did when I was four, so I’m not sure the elocution lessons made much of an impact on me.
I was particularly deflated at the end of those holidays. For me it was not just that the fun was over, it also meant back to reality; back to the nightmare of being sexually abused by Da.
Chapter Five
Not unexpectedly, I was asked to repeat sixth class because I had missed so many days at school. The request, which was justifiable, caught me by surprise and reinforced the belief that existed in my own mind that there was something wrong with me; that I was dirty and deserving of what Da did to me. I was a failure in school, and it was official as far as the other girls were concerned. This reinforced my negative feelings about myself.
I did as I was asked and repeated the year but it proved to be a futile exercise. I didn’t learn much and I was miserable and lonely. Even when other girls in the class tried to reach out to me, I pulled even further away. I was old enough now to know that I had to keep these girls away from my house at any cost.
This was hard when they were always calling for me and I would have given anything to have friends. When they stopped calling to play, I became even more withdrawn from everyone and everything.
The pain inside me just never seemed to go away. While I thought that I shouldn’t have been feeling so lonely and insecure, I did not understand why I felt the way I did. I knew the world was meant to be a happy place and fathers were supposed to be faithful and loyal to their children. But my world was different; I lived in a dark dysfunctional world where life wasn’t that simple.
Inside I felt dead; I existed in an upside-down world where I was humiliated on a nightly basis by the man who was supposed to protect me. Yet I suffered to protect him because he was my father.
I was a 12-year-old girl who got what she deserved because there was no other explanation to explain my predicament.
By this time, I had become more physically and mentally ill. Even if I’d looked for help, I felt that no one would have believed me.
I was a confused child, who believe it or not, thought I deserved what Da did to me and I was the bad one.
When I think of that little girl, I wish I could sit and talk to her and comfort her. I wish I could make her see that her father was not worth having; that he was an animal and an abuser.
Such wishes are nothing more than fanciful notions to me now. At the time though, I convinced myself that there was something horrible about me that made him do this to me; if I am to be honest I believed he wasn’t at fault.
In time, my life became so bad that I couldn’t cope anymore. I decided that I had to stop the pain somehow and permanently. The doctors had tried everything to cure me medically and nothing had worked so I saw only one other option—that was to take my own life. This was not the momentous decision that you might think. Children don’t understand the finality of death. I certainly didn’t. I believed suicide was something that people made a fuss about, but I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t something that I thought through or even wanted. It was, I suppose, a cry for help albeit a serious one.
If I remember what happened correctly, I decided to take my own life on the spur of the moment while I was feeling low one day.
The memory of this event has faded with time but I can remember searching my house for tablets and medicines when everyone was out, gathering up every single tablet I could find. I am sure that I was in the depths of depression though I didn’t know what depression was. I did, however, know that I didn’t want to feel so low anymore. Swallowing enough tablets to kill myself was one way to escape; that was my reckoning.
Thankfully the tablets I gathered weren’t enough to kill me. When I had gathered up what I considered to be enough pills, I swallowed them all one by one and sat down and waited for the pain to end. In my mind I had this beautiful feeling that would be just like the escape the anaesthetic gave me before I had an operation, the peace to fall asleep without struggling and a release from thinking and feeling bad thoughts and a period of absolutely no pain.
It didn’t happen like this though. I lay on the ground at home crippled with pains in my stomach and disorientated. Ma came in and asked what was wrong with me. I just told her that I had severe pains. I think she could see that it was more serious than a simple stomach ache, as she immediately took me to the doctor.
I didn’t tell anyone what I had done though, least of all Ma, because I knew that would be the start of questions I couldn’t answer. Or questions that I would have preferred not to answer. My recollections of this time are still hazy but I do recall clearly what happened to me a few days later.
Life returned to normal—or what counted for normal in my life—very fast.
Da didn’t leave me alone even though he knew I had just been unwell. It didn’t matter whether I was sick or even if I was a young girl suffering from a heavy period, he still came into my room and climbed into bed beside me as always. The abuse continued. The sick bastard needed his gratification and I was there to provide it.
*
My journey towards self-destruction continued unabated. With the passing of time, I became even more disturbed and mentally ill.
I couldn’t eat properly, suffered from phantom pains and illnesses, and developed more serious behavioural disorders.
On top of that, some of the other kids couldn’t understand how I was sick so often, and how I seemed to be off school so much. My trips to the hospital and doctors naturally affected my relationships, as children have short memories and like to play with children if they are there. I was spending so much time ‘sick’ at home or in hospital that I was deemed ‘different’ to the other kids. Some of them would taunt me, disbelieving that I was really sick. They called me a liar and said that I was only pretending to be sick so I wouldn’t have to go to school. I was so confused by this, because in my heart I knew that they were telling the truth; I wasn’t sick in the way that I pretended to be. But I did need help. I did need someone to look after me, and these pains and illnesses in my head and in my heart transferred themselves into my body.
I hated being called a liar, more than anything, and most of all it made me realise that people might not believe me if I said anything about my da abusing me. If they thought I was lying about having pains in my stomach, what would they think if I said that my da came into my room at night? That he would take off my pyjama bottoms and knickers, and put his big, fat fingers into my vagina, roughly pushing them in, bruising me inside; that even when I pretended to be asleep, he would lift my floppy body, and rub his hard erection against me?
*
As I said earlier, one way in which the abuse affected me was to create a series of behavioural problems, over which I had no control. These behavioural problems were all-consuming and possessed me. They finished off what was left of my childhood and caused me to fall even lower into a mire of depression, self-doubt and anxiety.
I was consumed by phobias. One of these, more than any other, practically crippled me and ruined my life. It was a fear of hair strands. I developed a phobia of hair because my da’s pubic hair would often be left behind on my bedsheets and it
used to make me feel physically sick to see them. This phobia then transferred to hair of all type. I became fixated on making sure that I did not come into contact with loose hair strands be they on someone’s shoulder, or on a chair or anywhere else.
As time passed, I got to the stage I forced myself to check my own clothes every night and morning to make sure that none of my own hair or anyone else’s was loose around me.
I had a talent, if you could call it that, of knowing immediately if a strand of hair was loose or attached to someone’s head. I could even tell with my own hair, when it was resting on my shoulders, if any strands were loose.
If I found a loose hair, I could not relax unless I had placed it in a bin. If I was sitting behind someone on a bus or in the cinema say, and there was a hair on that person’s coat, I would feel sick and have to move as far away from them as I could.
The problem became so chronic and out of control, that at times I used to sit for hours just running my hands through my own hair, searching for a strand that felt unnatural or different to me. Although I was born with blonde hair, I gradually came to hate hair strands which I considered to be of a different colour, thickness or texture.
If I found a black or dark-coloured hair, I would pull it out. I now realise this was a form of self-mutilation in so far that I was hurting myself, but at the time it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
If you haven’t suffered from an irrational fear, then it is hard to understand how awful this behaviour can become and how it affects people.
My whole day was controlled by this fear. Of course, once other children discovered this weakness or character flaw, it was used against me. They would leave hair strands on my belongings in the knowledge that it would upset me. Of course they didn’t understand the seriousness of my phobia or what it stemmed from; they simply thought it was funny.
I never associated my phobias or rituals with the abuse. But later, while in counselling, I found out that my subconscious was using these irrational fears to deal with the more rational ones I was being forced to confront.
Self-harm, be it mental or physical, is actually simple to understand.
By pulling out my own hair and creating phobias, my subconscious was channelling my father’s depravations into a form that I could deal with and even control to a certain extent.
My fixation with hair allowed me to regain some control, or, to a 12-year-old girl, to run in the other direction if I came into contact with loose strands of hair. Unfortunately, or tragically for me, I was too young to run away from my father.
*
That summer we went to Spain on holidays. This time my parents decided we would fly, as everyone had been so sick on the boat when we travelled to France. I was so excited to be going on a plane, as it was my first time.
Unfortunately the pleasure of flying was disrupted by an unmerciful sharp pain in my ears that brought me to tears. But even though the nice lady gave us sweets to suck for the landing and take off, I couldn’t stand the pain and was glad to get off the plane when it landed.
We arrived by bus to some holiday resort. I made friends and played by the pool. This is one holiday that I really don’t have any more good memories about, despite staying there for two full weeks. In fact, I don’t have any memories of it, except for one, and this one I would happily delete from my mind if I could.
Somehow I got really badly sunburnt, even though Ma had covered me in lotion before going outside. When we got back to the apartment, Ma covered me in more lotion that night to help with the sunburn, but it still hurt to move.
My shoulders were blistered, and I wouldn’t stop complaining about how badly it hurt. I wanted Da to know how much pain I was in, so that he might leave me alone. I should have known that it wouldn’t make any difference to him.
That night, Ma and Da went to their double bedroom, the boys had their own separate bedroom and I slept in the sitting room on a convertible couch. I remember waiting and hoping that he wouldn’t come near me. But he did. I didn’t have the wallpaper to tear or anything familiar to do. So I just played asleep like I had done millions of times before. He undressed me and dropped my pants to the floor. He was already naked. He pulled me on top of him, even though I was completely limp. He did all the actions, pulling me up and down on him. I was lying on top, floppy and not moving, pretending to be asleep as usual, being pulled up and down, up and down along his body. I could feel his erect penis and it disgusted me.
I remember the stinging sensation as he did what he wanted to do and that, in a way, was a welcome distraction. It took my mind off him. He left and as I lay on my back, with my skin so sensitive, the tears silently fell down the side of my face. I couldn’t move I was so sore. I remember both ears had a pool of tears collected in them. That’s my biggest memory of Spain.
*
The passing of each year brought more misery to my life. I came bottom of the class after repeating sixth class. Spending another year in primary school had been a waste of time. The only discipline that interested me was essay writing. It was the one thing that I enjoyed in school as it allowed me to escape into a world of creativity. Apart from this, my life continued to deteriorate, primarily because my father’s abuse became more intense and invasive. His sexual interest in me intensified because I had started to become a young woman. Contrary to what you might have expected, the start of puberty didn’t turn my father off.
I believe it encouraged him even more. In fact, there were times when his predations became so bad that I felt like murdering him. I wished that something awful would happen to him, that he would die and I’d be rid of him forever.
I had never experienced utter hatred for anyone or anything prior to this but I developed pure hatred for that bastard when I entered my teens.
I think the onset of adulthood triggered off in me a sense of confidence that had so far been missing. I did not understand anything of such emotions at the time but within the space of a year I had found the courage to confront him.
Chapter Six
Despite my poor performance in primary school, I started secondary school when I was 12, attending Mount Sackville, a private school which lies adjacent to the Phoenix Park.
Da told his friends that he chose the school to give me a good start in life. I guessed that he wanted to make a lady out of me; that I’d graduate with perfect grammar and a nice accent.
Whether or not I received a good education was irrelevant. My memory of that time is one of not really caring what happened. I certainly never thought about my options.
In my mind, I already knew what I wanted to be when I grew up—I wanted to be a writer.
I wanted to marry a farmer and live on his farm, surrounded by animals, while I would write during the day. Though at some point, I did also want to become a vet.
In the end, my education became an irrelevancy. I spent weeks at home suffering from phantom pains and illnesses during my first year in secondary school. It was the usual story.
I complained of aches and pains until a doctor finally admitted me to hospital for tests. I was subjected to every conceivable type of medical test until they could do no more. Finally they said they couldn’t find anything wrong with me.
My poor mother would have to traipse up and down to the hospital several times a day, bringing me Lucazode and food from home.
You might ask if I consciously lied insofar that I claimed to feel pain when there was none. This wasn’t the case. The pains I experienced were very real to me. I don’t know whether I imagined them or convinced myself of their existence but I certainly felt them.
My infrequent appearances at school made sure that I never made many friends, though I did become close to one girl. Her name was Dara and the two of us became great friends.
We spent most of the time talking about the boys we liked, clothes, music and makeup. She knew nothing of my private circumstances but her friendship became one of the few things in life that mattered to me.
I just went through the motions of attending school Monday to Friday. I never did any homework and I rarely ever opened my school books, so when it came to questions in class I just tried to keep my head low and avoided making eye contact with the teacher.
I also got into trouble with teachers. One incident happened during sports day when my brother and some of his friends came to visit.
I had my hair coloured pink for the big day. A nun eventually caught me and expelled me. I was told to go home but I didn’t care.
As far as I was concerned, managing to get expelled from school gave me a new-found sense of credibility. I wasn’t embarrassed by it at the time, although I am now when I think back on how I behaved.
I never liked Mount Sackville, not that there was anything wrong with the school. I just didn’t like it because Da had decided to send me there. To me, the school represented his plans for my future. As far as I was concerned, anything that he endorsed was to be rejected. This became my philosophy on life.
*
By the time I turned 13, I had become so damaged that Da knew the suffering his abuse caused me; but he was a paedophile and I was his victim. If he did think of the damage he was doing to me, he either didn’t care or was so sexually aroused by me that he couldn’t stop himself.
So my life fell apart and any future I had went with it. I spent most days watching TV and drifting in and out of sleep, making excuses that I couldn’t go to school because I was sick, or because my period pains were so bad.
This became another routine. I would watch television all day, then, in the evening time, Da’s key would turn in the door and I’d jolt awake.
All My Fault: The True Story of a Sadistic Father and a Little Girl Left Destroyed Page 6