Feel sick that this happened now I'm older TRIGGER

Once when I was a teenager, I woke up and everything was different. My whole body ached, and I was tired, exhausted actually – which was no surprise as I hadn’t been sleeping well for ages. I remember this day vividly as the start of never feeling myself again. From there a precedent was set; every day I woke feeling powerless, like something – perhaps a mystery illness was pulling me down and I couldn’t escape it. This went on for many years and is still happening right now – in fact I can feel aches just about everywhere as I sit and type this at the age of thirty-two. Over the years I have been in and out of the doctor’s offices asking for blood tests, painkillers and even unnecessary surgeries and scans to find out what exactly was making me unwell. On the odd occasion I was able to receive help – the results were time and again clear. Except for some very much needed physiotherapy after having my children my search was fruitless, but that’s another story for another time.
It had been suggested to me that maybe I was suffering with my mental health, rather than my physical health, which I found outrageous at the time the doctor suggested it. As a proud millennial who had always been dead set against proving the ‘snowflake’ myth right – I was not prepared to let my past experiences rule my mind – they hadn’t been that bad. Right? I mean I’d had my suspicions years ago that I may have suffered a little, but surely that was just a blip. Sadly, on hindsight this was another manifestation of thoughts that were blocking my ability to unpack my experiences growing up. These experiences had negatively shaped my mind and my overall health more than I was able or willing to give credit for.
When I had been concerned as a young adult over urges to harm myself, I had often been made to feel as though I was being dramatic and because I hadn’t been through as much trauma as others had been, my feelings weren’t valid. This is wherein the danger lay ahead of me, as I became an expert of masking my true upset and vast parts of my life from those who were able to protect me. I was scared of being a burden to my loved ones and confused as to why my life had suddenly changed, almost overnight. It was like the reverse of when Dorothy gets to Oz and everything hits the screen in technicolour. Everything felt, grey. The picture wasn’t full of colour anymore, it was just a picture. The smile of my face was an image portrayed purely to settle the minds of those around me, but the feelings associated with it were escaping me.
Now I am older, I wish I had the ability to turn back time with an expert to fully assess my mental health as I do believe that at the age of fourteen I had depression. Every day hurt, physically as well as emotionally. It was painful to get up and dressed, I felt lonely, an outcast and the few good friends around me who tried to help were at a loss to my response. Something I still feel tremendous guilt about today.
Admittedly, I had good days - but there are so many days that lay vividly in my memories of walking around in a fog of sadness that never seemed to escape me. Eventually, I started to self-harm out of frustration by cutting my arms. One day, my parents spotted it and the shouting and crying is something that will haunt me forever – it became clear to me that I needed to protect them as I felt any sign of my discontent would be too much for them to take. They sought advice and were told, ‘It’s very common in this age group/some teenagers mimic others who are doing it and there’s a lot in this year group’. Counselling was organised through school anyway but was ineffective because I felt the space wasn’t confidential enough to fully explore the wave of sadness I was experiencing. I had even been accused of copying a close friend of mine’s behaviour and told that as my parents hadn’t divorced like hers, there was no reason for me to be upset. I felt under scrutiny and foolish, because I had been made to feel my worries were insignificant to others. It became a double edge sword of shame for feeling depressed over minor issues, and guilt for exposing my family members to such an upsetting incident.
Truthfully, I couldn’t fully explain why this fog of sadness and self-harm had come on. Like I said earlier, it literally felt like it happened in an instant. I’d hazarded a guess that it may have been to do with multiple close family bereavements; of which I’d observed and experienced a great deal of loss and sadness from. These events and memories live with me to this day and have given me a great deal of empathy for anyone who is caring for elderly, sick relatives - as well as losing them. It is truly horrendous and something that into my adulthood, I am always genuinely concerned about when a person in my life is going through this. In fact, I can remember feeling overwhelmed with concern watching my own parents go through it. Watching the deterioration of my Grandparents, who had formed a large part of my childhood, was extraordinarily upsetting to me and I masked my pain from my parents as I didn’t want them to have me to deal with that as well, on top of everything else. Today, I think it is absolutely imperative that we do not underestimate the grief of children and young people, their empathy for their family’s/friend’s feelings, and how they can mask their own feelings to protect them. In my opinion bereavement counselling should be made readily available to all ages including children.
Additionally, there had also been sustained incidences of bullying when I started secondary school. My best friend had a cousin in our year who disliked me (for never disclosed reasons) and made my life such a misery it got to the point that I ended up breaking ties with my best friend of several years (all through primary school) so that I could get away from her. This hurt me deeply and sadly there was no way to resolve this to my mind as the cousin was part of a large clique that had came from a feeder school. Any attempts for adults to intervene would have been fruitless in my opinion as the group were all ok with the bullying and even participated themselves on occasion. The group was simply too large for the teachers to police, so I felt reporting it would have left me even more vulnerable. Having heard of more situations like this occurring through my work with young people, this is the exact reason why I am extremely opposed to feeder schools.
A couple of years or so on from then, I had made some new friends who I really loved spending time with. They had helped me so much and I loved them for that – truly I still do now. Even though we’ve all grown up and headed on different paths, they were and still are wonderful people. Yet it didn’t make sense to me then and still doesn’t make sense to me now, why I awoke one day never to feel the same again. It has bugged me so much that I have even hypothesised that perhaps it was a literally chemical imbalance in the brain making me feel poorly. What I had been through with bullying and bereavement was sad and unfortunate, but it didn’t seem significant enough to me to garner such extreme responses – such as self-harming for example.
If people questioned my mood, I’d find myself adopting stories about other people’s traumatic events I had heard about or read in the news. This wasn’t because I wanted to lie, but I struggled for a plausible explanation - I still felt silly for being upset over what was becoming apparent to me, things that people just always went through. Additionally, often being teased over my weight at the turn of primary to secondary school I had begun to hide food and purge after meals. Not eating became normal, and my friends would often take me aside to ask why I was so skinny. Looking back, I don’t think I had an eating disorder as I would at least eat some food, I think it was probably a combination of low mood and insults resonating in my mind that caused the issue. Thankfully, this was short-lived when I became interested in performing arts because the message sent by teachers and coaches was that proper nutrition was key. I owe a lot to the world of music – it has been my savoir every single time one way or another.
As I hit my final two years of school, my mental health was obviously still struggling. I felt lethargic all of the time and was even tested for anaemia. You guessed it; my levels were perfect. I didn’t of course know for certain what exactly was wrong with me. I had an inkling my mental health wasn’t great but didn’t know how to get this diagnosed or treated. The advent of the internet had helped me find self-diagnoses tests which suggested depression, but I couldn’t understand how I could access support without involving my parents who had been through enough as it was.
I turned fifteen in June, and by the time July was out I was in love. I loved a man who would listen to all my problems and make me feel better about them. He never belittled me or interrupted me, and he had a history of self-harm and mental illness himself - just like me! My experience of being with him was a breath of fresh air. It was as if finally, somebody got me - and they didn’t cry or shout or make me feel like my issues were a fallacy like so many adults at the time around me had done. In fact, he was the only adult that gave me the space to properly explore what I was feeling- the only issue that worried us both was that we regularly had sex. I did genuinely love him, and the fact he was so sensitive and caring – and validated my feelings was wonderful. In fact, now I look back – in the early days especially he was never threatening or pressured me into anything. If people questioned my age when I was with him, I’d automatically say I was sixteen without prompting. To us, age was just a number. He was my man and we were in a bona fide relationship that nobody, not my parents, or teachers or performing arts coaches or especially police would understand. We’d keep it secret from the world until I’d passed the age of consent.
We truly believed we were soulmates and he would often recount his memory of the day he met me while telling me I was so beautiful - it wasn’t long after my closest friend had got talking to him and his friend after asking him to buy her some cigarettes. I was on work experience at a local hair salon when she met me from work and told me she’d been hanging out at his house and it was a good place to go for a few beers. I wasn’t a fan of smoking puff, but he always had some if needed as well. To be honest, after a day at work in a salon full of dryers in a heatwave, I was very interested in the prospect of having a cold drink with my friend and her new mates, albeit a little hesitant as he was older. With nothing else to do and the opportunity to spend time with my closest friend, I decided to go – even if just to check it out. His friend who was younger and nearer our age answered the door to the bedsit and as I walked in, I saw him. I’m going to call him S, as to be honest when you find out how things progressed you may understand that it is actually in the end quite traumatic for me to use his real name. Regardless, at that moment there was an instant connection and the feeling was mutual. I knew he was twenty-nine but to be honest- he was good-looking, and I could tell that he was interested from the way he looked at me. Of course, I quickly scuppered the plan of ever acting on that connection because he was nearly fifteen years older than me.
I stayed for a couple of drinks and a chat and left for home; during the time I was there my friend was telling me I should go to the shop alone with S because they were running out of papers. I declined because as much as he seemed nice, I had my reservations about walking the streets alone with a man I’d just met. Now I think they were already trying to match us up.
Work experience was ending and all through the following days I couldn’t help myself from thinking about him. His flat was a bit scruffy, but we’d talked quite a bit the day I’d met him and for the first time in ages I’d had a conversation that really interested me. I can’t even remember what it was about now, but I know it was quite innocuous, I had no red flags and there really did seem to be a genuine connection – albeit one to my mind that wasn’t a good idea pursuing.
The weekend came and I was in our local hangout area in the town with my friends. A place where mainly teenagers would come along and play cards, or skateboard. Sometimes even the odd adult, but it never seemed strange because we just figured that they had a mutual interest in cards or boarding. Then S arrived and I couldn’t help but keep looking at him – he just seemed so nice and he came and spoke to me, even though I’d only been in his bedsit days ago for a short while. I was quite flattered that an older man would remember and speak to me. S invited my friend who’d introduced us and I over for a few beers with his friend and him – so I decided to go. My friend who had introduced us had been off school a lot with depression herself, so the chance to spend time with her was nice and they seemed like ok people.
When we got there, we had at least a couple of beers each and S came and sat on the bed next to me. I’d only been sitting there because where it was a bedsit, my friend and his friend were on the sofa and it was the one space there was left to sit down. While in conversation I suddenly felt his hand stroking my lower back- it felt really nice. I’d never even kissed a boy at this point, but the connection seemed so strong in us so when he leaned in to kiss me, I kissed him back. He seemed so gentle and before I knew it, we were laying down together. I’m not quite sure how he knew it, but he’d guessed I was a virgin and asked me really carefully if I’d like to have sex with him- he said there was no pressure. I can’t remember exactly whether I was dressed or not at this point, but I do remember he had put his hand on my private area, and it had made me feel like I wanted to. I decided in that moment to go for it – a moment that I now regret to be honest, but at the time to be fair to him – I showed no signs of doubt. He had charisma and was so easy to talk to and attractive. I feel a great deal of shame to this day about this decision as felt it was too soon, but in that moment – seemed quite swept up in it all. I can’t remember for certain, but I’m almost sure my friend and his left the room. I know they never had intercourse and he was very near our age anyway. When S and I were finished he checked that I was ok and I went to use the bathroom – my friend called out to him, ‘so are you boyfriend and girlfriend now then’ he said something along the lines of yes, if H’s ok with it. I agreed as despite being now uncertain on what had just happened, felt it was important for him to commit to me, so I hadn’t just been used.
After that we became like a young couple living together. I’d of course go back to my house at night but was there pretty much every day during the school holidays. I’d do the dishes and talk with him, sometimes I’d just sit with him for hours talking and drinking tea. My relationship with him seemed like so much more than just sex, we would discuss politics, literature and music – all things that we loved. He had the same ideas and views on a lot of things. I’d tell him about my future goals, and he would be really supportive – always helping me decide things.
I did have a question mark as on a couple of occasions I had reacted badly to drinking around there. One occasion I blacked out after smoking weed and drinking beer and came to in a room full of people performing oral sex on him. I wasn’t quite sure how it had happened but put it down to being intoxicated. On another occasion I had a huge panic attack and started talking about losing a sibling – which was bizarre as I have one brother only who is alive and well. As I have aged, I am actually quite cynical of this and wonder if he had added anything to my drink - as he would always bring me one. Finally there was at least one incident where I was too intoxicated to consent to sex and he had sex with me anyway – I can remember coming in and out of full consciousness while this was happening and was too under the influence to move or stop it.
Looking back, more or less every meeting involved us having sex – even if the time spent having sex was much shorter than us talking. Sometimes I’d go along with it to please him only and would feel quite empty inside afterwards. These incidents occurred from July 2003 – August 2003 when he was briefly imprisoned for a few weeks for an unrelated offence. Our relationship then continued from his release around September 2003 until around February 2004 time when he was sent to prison for GBH. During the second time, the police raided his property relating to the GBH offence and I was arrested along with him and his friend – of course I was cleared of any wrongdoing as was his friend as we had nothing to do with the crime that he had committed. The crime had happened on a Friday when I was at home in bed, and I had gone there on a Saturday as normal not expecting the raid to happen. Being arrested and thrown in a cell at the age of fifteen was also very traumatising and the reaction from my Mother was explosive. The police warned my parents that he was a pimp of which my Mother told me this in her anger, I felt that they were all making a bad judgement as they didn’t know the sensitive side of him I knew. My parents had been kept in the dark previously with S even hatching an elaborate plan the summer we met to get a boy my age to pretend to be my boyfriend for him as they’d twigged I was seeing someone.
While S was imprisoned for the second time during our relationship, I tried to live a normal life and went back to hanging around with kids my own age. During his time in prison I had no contact from him via phone or letter and no updates from any of his friends until a few months into his sentence and then this was only brief. I started to suffer quite badly with anxiety attacks as I was emotionally very dependent on him and to have all contact cut with no support was a huge shock. This led to more self – harm of which I done a better job of concealing this time. I remember cutting the words ‘Love Hurts’ into the shin of my left leg- a scar still partially visible today. I did manage to meet a boy my age – of whom I went out with briefly assuming my relationship with S was over, and only kissed. When S found out about this on his release, he punched him in the face and slept with another girl my age as payback for what I had done. At this point everyone had turned sixteen including me.
S was released in roughly September 2004, by this point I had left school and done very well in my exams through genuine hard study, despite what I had been through. Literature and Music were my best subjects and I obtained A grades in both of these – as well as many other excellent results. I had always dreamed of being a primary school teacher and now S and I had sorted out my affair, he told me he was committed to even moving away with me to Uni – something I thought was an out and out lie. I was forgiven for kissing someone else of which I hated the double standards but was so desperate to get our emotional connection back I went along with this. Additionally, S had dumped me for this other girl only when I learned of his affair but came back to me a couple of weeks or so later. I was determined to sever all ties, but he would wait for me outside work (I worked in Primark while studying my A-Levels) or get his friends to approach me while walking through town and explain to me how sad he was feeling- even saying he was suicidal. At one-point S himself even showed me cuts all up his arm and told me I was responsible for this by not taking him back – my mind is patchy at exactly when this occurred, but I definitely remember it happening. These experiences negatively affected my settling into college and unfortunately there was just too much upset for me to make a success of my time there with the situation.
Eventually S’s perseverance won me back, and he had been placed temporarily in a hotel in Southend. I had turned 16, but at this point he decided that he would increase demands for sex to be more explicit than before. He became quite interested in anal penetration of me and on a few occasions coached me through it. At this point I was still very much emotionally dependent on him and I seemed reassured that this was a normal part of a relationship, but I can actually remember crying and wishing it would stop - and wondering if he had noticed my crying and why he wasn’t stopping if he had. He also said technically we shouldn’t do it because I was under eighteen and I am still unclear to this day whether or not that activity was legal.
S frequently bought me gifts throughout our relationship and even proposed to me a couple of weeks after meeting me, and at this point in our relationship nothing had changed. He treated me to so many gifts, I felt obliged to please him, but had also started to call him out on some of his behaviour the older I became, in which case he would always remind me of how much he looked after me.
As time went by, he started talking a lot about the porn industry and prostitution and claimed his ex-wife had been saved by him from the streets. I thought it quite bizarre that he kept speaking of this as the events were a long time ago. Even his friends were speaking of the industry as well – one told me I was beautiful like his ex who had been a glamour model. S persuaded me to be filmed on his camera phone one day while I was performing oral sex, which I wasn’t pleased about – but he was relentless in asking and I couldn’t see a way out of the situation, so I caved in. Of course, I was under 18 when this was done. It is my belief that where I met him so young, I had no perception of what a real relationship was, and he normalised these things and groomed me into doing them- using my emotional dependence on him as his key weapon. These acts are things in my now adult life and marriage that I am very disinterested in. He seemed very keen on us making videos together, and often asked me to do things – I declined every time after that incident, and I think he realised that he would not be able to use me in this way so eventually gave up.
S did use another woman when we were together to make money from her having sex. There was an address nearby of which I am not sure exactly whose residence it was, but I know she often slept with men there while S took a cut of the proceeds – her name was C and he seemed to move on there quite quickly after a while. There was also another man involved in this, whose name I cannot remember. Additionally, in the flat there were frequent drug users including people injecting Heroin. I only went there once or twice before he moved onto talking to a lady called S** who lived further into town.
S** had a daughter called K, who S slept with behind my back. She was a little older than I was, and it was claimed by her younger sister (who was my age) that she had heard or possibly briefly seen evidence of S and his friend from the flat having a threesome with K. S denied this to me when questioned and I was getting ready to leave him when K said that another male had gone to her house the next day and raped her. S quickly got very angry about this and went out that night and attacked the man responsible. He was arrested and imprisoned for several years because of this.
I decided that enough was enough and now that S was in prison – I could make a break from him. He was writing letters to me via S**’s address and I used his contact details to write a letter to him saying I wanted to end the relationship. He sent letters by return calling me a ‘bitch who had broke his heart’ and threatening to kill himself on the front drive of my own address when he left prison – at this point I think he was on remand and there was no certainty on how long he would be inside for. He called my mobile frequently when in prison of an evening and even was able to remember my home phone and my Dad’s mobile number from when he had temporarily loaned his phone to me. Sometimes I could have around 20+ missed calls from him and then the other phones would ring – playing on my insecurities about my parents finding out about the extent of my situation and forcing me to answer my own mobile to him.
When I did answer the phone, he would either want to talk about getting back together or ask me for money. I did try to change my phone and sever contact on a few occasions throughout his spells in prison, but for some reason he was always able to find my number – even tracing me to my contract phone I had taken out at the age of 18 and by then working in an Insurance company. I ended up losing a lot of friends as I feared there was a mole in my group from the town and possibly one of two from school as well.
I was 17 when I met my now husband through a work colleague during my final year of my A Levels and at first, we became friends as his best friend was my close work colleague’s older brother. Her and her brother thought we were a good match and eventually encouraged us to go on a date. I had split from S around April time, and met T in the July – we started dating in the October- by this point I had split up with S and hadn’t heard from him. If it wasn’t for T and the help he gave me in breaking my ties with S, along with some good friends from college, I am not actually sure where I’d be today. Sadly, S caught wind of my budding friendship and dating of T – which had nothing to do with him as we’d split up and so chose to call me and told me to stop seeing him. He said he would release the earlier indecent footage he’d taken of me on the internet and make sure that my dreams of being a primary school teacher would not happen - because prospective Universities and teaching programmes would see this and deem me unfit to be a teacher. I lost all motivation with my A Levels and the UCAS application process and flunked them but pretended to split up with T as was very worried that he would release the footage and unsure of what to do. I was also extremely worried about T’s safety – and although I am too this day embarrassed to reveal what was happening – I did warn him of S being dangerous – but T wasn’t scared and manipulated by him like I was so wasn’t worried.
These threats led me to start a fake relationship with S via phone – which probably lasted at least a couple of years. I actually feel terrible about it as I have never told my husband about the calls as was worried the questions would lead to him hearing about the video and that I would lose him for that. I would simply answer the phone, tell S what he wanted to hear and then that would be it for another week. In the end I deemed S as being mentally unstable and obviously the threats and knowing he had tried other phone lines in the house in the past also had me concerned.
Not long after T asked me to move in with him, which was at least a couple of years into our relationship, I reasoned that S’s mobile footage would either be unusable or now at the age of nineteen and more mature, realised I could possible cite abuse as the cause of the images. I decided it was getting more and more unfair to my boyfriend in T to move into his flat and spend even just a few minutes each week speaking to S – plus S was starting to realise that there was no ‘love in my voice anymore’ as he put it. I changed my number and only passed it to trusted friends and decided if he did call my parent’s home or my Dad’s mobile, I would just have to stop being afraid and be honest. My relationship with T has lasted for fifteen years, and we celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary next month.
In the meantime, S was getting upset that he couldn’t speak to me and did write a letter to my parent’s address a few months later, this was around the Christmas after I turned nineteen. My parents were convinced that I had not seen or spoke to S for years and made me write him a letter – under their eyes confirming that I wasn’t interested – and also one to the prison service explaining I hadn’t spoken to him for ages. S’s tone had changed in his last letter to one of more concern that I was ok, unlike previous communications that were quite aggressively addressed to me. I did want to explain about the situation to them, but they seemed content that all was well and I wasn’t ready at that point to explore my trauma from his abuse with them – to be honest I still don’t feel able to, to this day. I have only recently been able to speak to T about my concerns and he didn’t know the full extent either.
Over the years I have suffered with a great deal of physical problems, which I think have been triggered by my experiences. My doctors have suggested ailments such as anxiety, depression and fibromyalgia to explain why I am always feeling poorly with no test results to confirm another underlying condition. I have seen S on a couple of occasions in town since his release and have felt obliged to say hello to him. It is surreal, but he seems so familiar and I wasn’t sure what to do as he obviously had a huge role in my life. I even spoke to him once via my Facebook as wanted to confront him about our relationship – but thought better of it and ended up changing my details on there and blocking him.
Now through my employment as a Youth Leader, I have completed training in safeguarding and do believe that he abused me (possible CSE) – a new revelation that I haven’t been sure of for over half my life as the shame made me feel like I was at fault – something I am still coming to terms with. Remember, I am more than twice the age now, that I was when the abuse occurred initially. The training has also triggered a series of flashbacks and I think a lot of memories have been repressed – more will probably come back to me as I look to heal and try and help others by getting support in reporting him.
I am very worried about what my family and friends will think and feel so much shame about writing this. Every part of my body has tingled all over and I have felt sick to the pit of my stomach while typing. I had to do it this way as I was confused as to the exact sequence of events – this has helped me order them and make sense a little of everything. It is my intention that this document can be used by the correct authorities to look into my experiences. I’d like to point out that I have been honest – but as my memory is patchy things may change and I may even come back to this exact document and update it.
I have learnt to be tough, but there are still people in the community – even a child in my daughter’s class whose Nan is/was a friend of S’s- so the case would need to be dealt with very carefully. I need to act to process this though as believe that my traumatic past is affecting my health and my ability to look to the future with my family. I am also very worried about other people experiencing abuse from him and suffering as I have.