Being picked up from school, taking tests, birthday parties, Christmases, family get togethers. All a standard part of a childhood, right? Well, what I know for sure, is that I was abused sexually, physically and mentally. The rest of my childhood, I have pieced together from photographs and video footage; and from conversations with family members. "Well, don't you remember winning your spelling competition?" All I can do is look at my grandma blankly, nod with a fake smile and apprehensively agree. "Oh, yeah... I must've forgot about that..." I mean, how are you going to tell your grandmother that the past three or four nights you were dropped off at Church, you weren't learning about Jesus. Or, at least, not the Jesus she knows about.
The Jesus I learnt about from the age of three, was going to punish me if I told people what was really happening when my mother dropped me off at five-thirty pm. The Jesus I knew about was going to send me to hell if I didn't comply with the tall, dark figure standing over me with a coy, smug smile etched upon his face. The Jesus I knew, didn't make sense to me. 'If Jesus loved his children so much, why would he want to hurt them?'
One time, I asked that question. He reached down to me and brushed my dark curls from my face, his palm flat against my cheek. "You're doing such a good thing, you know. You'll be safe with your saviour, you know. And I know this because I am God's messenger. You're such a pretty little girl." Even typing these words makes me shudder, and the latter part of that sentence has been ringing through my head verbally these past few days.
I had my usual therapy session on Tuesday evening, and we talked and it led into the topic of abuse (as it normally does, obviously). At one point, we started to talk about my ballet. I had danced since I was around 3, and my beginner lessons were in the Church hall. I danced there until I was ten or eleven; which is most of my career as a ballerina. (I had to stop dancing at fourteen, nearly fifteen, due to a torn meniscus and cartelidge.) She asked me if I thought I was a pretty little girl.
I think it's dangerous to deem children as pretty, it treads a pretty fine line, and frankly, the whole sentence makes my skin crawl. Delving into this a little deeper, she asked about my lessons, what would happen if my parents were late. Or that time when I slept over at his house because my dad decided to send me to Church camp with my abuser.
I often wonder if my father knows about what happened to me. What I went through. The reason I was an unhappy child, acting up and throwing fits left, right and center. It wasn't because I hated my parents, I don't. I do have a lot of anger; towards them, towards my abuser, towards myself. I wanted my parents to see what was happening, to walk into the Church early one night, if traffic was light or they just wanted to see me dance. But that never happened. For whatever reason, my parents never came to pick me up on time. They never came to watch me dance. They never walked in as he pinned me down on the table, and held me in place. Or as he back handed me so hard I went home with a black eye, and told them I fell off my bike into a wall. Or the time I broke my arm? That wasn't a bicycle accident either, mum... dad.
Just before I transitioned from primary into secondary school, the abuse stopped. I guess he didn't like kids who were growing up. Who were gaining their own voices and independence. At that time, my dad suddenly decided to pull me from that Church, and we all started going to a different one. I don't know why, and when I ask why we stopped attending, he kept his lips shut. Shortly after, the man who abused me moved away. I know exactly where he is now. I have his phone number stored in my phone - not in some weird, close way. But because I know his area code is nowhere near my own. As long as he is far enough away from me, then I am fine. I will be fine. I hope, at least, I will be fine.
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