Never a Mother to Me by Tracy Black

Author:Tracy Black [Black, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471102745
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CHAPTER 9

BOARDING SCHOOL

Shortly after telling Mum – and being called a liar – something seemed to change in me. I think that the very act of putting the abuse into words brought this change about, even if no one believed me. I realised that I needed to get out of my own life and away from my family. I had to take charge of my future. I felt as if I was eighteen rather than thirteen, I felt as if I was at that stage in my life where everything gets assessed and decisions are made; but the sad truth was, I was still a child, even if I was a child who had never been allowed a childhood.

I felt like something had been set in motion. I think I had long known that as soon as I told someone, my life would change. I guess I was breaking the spell in a sense. All of Dad’s lies and manipulations were shattered from that moment, because, in giving voice to what had happened, I was bringing the outside world into my private hell.

As an adult, of course I wondered why I hadn’t said anything earlier, why I had continued Dad’s charade of secrets and games. I’ve never been able to fully answer my own questions, but perhaps that’s understandable. When you look at something through the eyes of an adult, and when you have escaped, it’s impossible to be in that place from years before, when everything was so dark. When I wonder why I kept quiet, I do that as a grown woman, as a mother, as a businesswoman, as a competent, confident individual – not as a five-year-old; and, while the questions may be asked, I would never want to betray that five-year-old by saying that it was wrong to keep quiet for so long. I only did what I did because of the absolute control Dad had over me, and because of the unquestioning love I felt for Mum. Neither of those things – his control over me, my love for her – are there any more, so I can’t judge myself on what I did when they were. I think every abuse survivor has to, somehow, come to the point where they have made a peace with themselves, no matter how uneasy that peace is. I was blamed and excluded and made to feel like dirt for so long – I try very hard not to keep doing all those things to myself, but it’s hard. It’s very hard.

I had no idea what was in store for me but it had to be better than the life I was living. I decided to run away, and confided in my friend Holly.

‘Does your Dad ever hit you?’ I asked her one evening.

‘Why? Does yours?’ she answered, immediately.

‘Yes – yes, he does, and I’m really fed up with it,’ I told her. I wanted to see what her reaction was, to work out whether I should go further and tell her what else he did, but she wasn’t that interested.

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