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Monday, February 3, 2025

Child abuse ...innocence lost can never be found again

by

20120625

I am ug­ly, I am evil and I don't know what I did to de­serve this, but I know it is my fault. How do I know this? My moth­er told me.

It was just be­fore my eighth birth­day that my moth­er was ar­rest­ed for child abuse. My teacher had told me I need­ed to stay back af­ter school. I re­mem­ber be­ing ter­ri­fied be­cause of what had hap­pened the last time I stayed late. The oth­er de­tails of that day are bro­ken up in­to frag­ment­ed pieces of mem­o­ry. I clear­ly re­mem­ber be­ing tak­en from my pri­ma­ry school class to a build­ing I had nev­er seen be­fore and be­ing stripped naked by a woman, be­fore pic­tures were tak­en of the scars that cov­ered my body: pic­tures of my bro­ken arm, the bump on my fore­head from the pre­vi­ous night and scars that even now I can't speak about. I don't know if I was em­bar­rassed. I was per­haps too young to recog­nise the feel­ing. But I do re­mem­ber fear. Not fear of the strangers around me, but fear of what my moth­er would do if I didn't make it home on time. The last time I had come home late from school, the ex­cuse that my teacher had held me back for read­ing was la­belled a lie and a belt came swift­ly.

I re­mem­ber one spe­cif­ic mo­ment she grabbed the back of my head and slammed it in­to a wall. The bump that grew was fast and clear­ly vis­i­ble. When my fa­ther came home she told me to go lie in bed and throw my­self off the edge to ex­plain it. I did.

Now, af­ter be­ing poked and prod­ded by a nurse, I was put in­to a po­lice ve­hi­cle and tak­en to the po­lice sta­tion. I saw my moth­er there. She nev­er looked at me. A po­lice of­fi­cer asked me if my moth­er had abused me, or if she would beat me. I knew what they meant. I re­mem­bered wire hang­ers across my back, I re­mem­bered be­ing slammed in­to a wall. I re­mem­bered be­ing made to kneel on bro­ken pieces of brick while a leather belt hit my back. I said no, and begged to be with my moth­er. I was placed in the care of the State for two months and stayed at the chil­dren's ward of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. My moth­er was ar­rest­ed, she went to jail, then to court and was sub­se­quent­ly re­leased on bail. Af­ter a court hear­ing, I was re­leased in­to the cus­tody of my aunt. The al­ter­na­tive was a state or­phan­age. The court or­dered that I stay away from my moth­er un­til I reached the age of 18. I saw her be­fore then, but it was not a hap­py re­union. There was too much be­tray­al and dis­trust. What I couldn't un­der­stand as a five-year-old child, I saw clear­ly as an adult.

No one can ever un­der­stand the mind of a vic­tim of abuse, un­less they them­selves were vic­tims. You can feel pity for us, judge us, and there will be the few that will say "a lit­tle licks doh hurt," but you will nev­er un­der­stand. It isn't easy to go through life un­able to trust an­oth­er hu­man be­ing. It isn't easy to go through life blam­ing your­self when­ev­er some­thing goes wrong or pun­ish­ing your­self for every lit­tle mis­take. It is even more dif­fi­cult to stop and con­trol the spi­ral of ha­tred that pro­vides an easy es­cape. But I did and I know many peo­ple who have ei­ther suc­ceed­ed or is at­tempt­ing to get to that place of ac­cep­tance that I have reached. It wasn't easy get­ting here. I saw psy­chol­o­gists and priests, I read the books and watched the movies. I can't tell you those things worked, but I can say that I am grate­ful that un­like many who have suf­fered worse, or the same, I am not lost.

I am con­tribut­ing to so­ci­ety in a pos­i­tive way. I am alive and I am do­ing ex­act­ly what I have want­ed to do since I was eight years old. Every day I wish for a per­fect world where young chil­dren do not have to fear for their lives. Maybe with the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty soon to be ef­fec­tive, this coun­try can of­fer more pro­tec­tion. Un­til then it is more im­por­tant than ever that teach­ers, fam­i­ly mem­bers and neigh­bours are watch­ful, and just as my teacher saved me, maybe one by one we can all save a child. Be­cause in­no­cence lost can nev­er be found again.

For help in abu­sive sit­u­a­tions, please con­tact the po­lice sta­tion near­est you.

An al­ter­na­tive would be to con­tact any of the fol­low­ing num­bers so that you may be guid­ed:

Child­line: 800-4321

Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Unit: 800-7283

Fam­i­lies in Ac­tion: 628-2333

Rape cri­sis Cen­tre: 622- 7273 or 1079

Ed­i­tor's note:

This sto­ry was writ­ten from per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence by a Guardian staff writer, whose name has been with­held to pro­tect the pri­va­cy of fam­i­ly mem­bers.


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