Not sure if I will post this yet. I have said for a while that I think there may be a few things from when I was younger that maybe possibly have an effect on the way I am now.
I have an idea what may attribute to why I am like I am. I don't know why now. But maybe why it does happen.
There were a few things that went off when I was about 12-13 and an incident when I was 15. I have not spoke about them before as I worry that it will change peoples perceptions of who I am. So hence why I have not told the counsellor or anyone. The thing that happened when I was 12-13 for me is the one that I worry will change peoples perceptions. It affected the whole family and meant my family had to move house of something I did.
Can I ask you people. Do you think at the age of 12-13 a person is fully developed and can they be forgiven for something they did. Does it depend what it was (don't worry it's not like murder or anything like that)? In my eyes. When I was that age I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew it was wrong but I couldn't help myself. Yet, now as an adult, if I were presented with the case I would say that person is a child. Their brain is not fully developed, they have not developed a full moral understanding and can not be held reliable for it. However, on the other hand, if it was a violent crime, a murder, a sexual assault (like in the case of the murders of James Bulger) I would say lock them up! My values are fluid and will change depending on the situation. In this country the age of criminal responsibilty is 10. In other parts of Europe it varies from 12-17. I would like to know peoples takes on it.
The summer I turned 13 I stole quite a bit of money. It was £20 at first. I saw it lying there and I took it. I gave £10 to my friend who was my next door neighbour...I'll call her Ali. Between us we kind of got addicted to it. Over time it amounted up. There was a bowl where the money was kept in the kitchen. Just thrown in there. Not that that makes it ok. We would go round and take between £50-100 a time and go into town and shop. We didn't buy clothes it was things that we could hide from our parents. Things like nail varnish, make-up, tapes etc. We were sneaky. We used to make up dances to show them to get them in to the same room out the kitchen and then one of us would go in and grab some while we could. This continued for a while. Over time Ali's Mum found out. At the time we thought she was being cool about it as she didn't say anything and let us get on with it. Looking back it is as though she condoned it. It makes me think now what kind of parent would do that and even encourage it? It all came to an end. We got found out. We had been in town with Ali's Mum and we were walking back from the bus stop and I saw that my Mum's car was in the drive. She should have been at work. Straight away I knew something wasn't right. I knew that she had come back from work so something was seriously wrong. As soon as I walked in the house I was confronted. I denied it and denied it. In the end I admitted to some...£20.
The shit hit the fan big time. I was banned from seeing Ali. Ali didn't seem to be in much trouble over it. I was grounded indefinitely...in the end it was about 3 months. My parents put the house on the market and 3 months after we had been found out we moved.
The worst thing in all of this. The people we stole the money from were my grand parents. So not only was I a thief. I did it from my own family. I don't know why I did it. Maybe I was pressurised by Ali. Maybe once her mum found it it made it seem ok.
My other grandparent at the time was struggling for money. I often used to sneak money in to her purse. I adored this grandparent. My grandad (her husband) died in an accident when I was only a baby. I never knew him. But this grand parent was like my mum. I saw her every day and I cared about her so much. I loved her so much. I used to spend xmas eve at hers and new years eve every year as I didn't want her to be on her own. I used to stay at her house at least once a week. I was probably closer to her than I was my own mum. One of the things that hurt the most was how she reacted to me once she knew about the money. She screamed at me and shouted at me. She asked me if I had stolen money from her. I would have never have done that and it hurt so much being asked if I did. She barley talked to me for weeks.
Around this time is the first time I had sex with someone. I was 13!!!! I didn't really want to. I was kind of pressurised in to it. More peer pressure really not from the lad who it was. We did it a few times and I always felt horrible after. The worst thing is is I can't even remember my first time. I know most peoples first times are awful, but at least they remember it. There was another lad when I was about 14 and he was 16. He did kind of pressurise me. But at the time I didn't really think much of it and I am not overly affected by it. I wasn't at the time. It's only now as I have got older that I think about it and it upsets me.
The other incident upset me at the time. It went away but recently it has come back and bothers me quite a bit. I was 15. My grandma ( the one who I was mega close to) had died 2 months previous and I was really upset about it. To try and take our minds off it my parents took me on holiday. While there I met a few people as you do and hung around, did the club games etc. The guy who ran the hotel club games took a shine to me. He was ok, nice in a way and was nice to have positive attention when I was feeling so crap about things anyway. One lunch time he asked me to go with him to his office so I could help him write in english on the certificates. He could speak English well but not write it. While we were in there he kissed me. Things went further. I didn't say no. I didn't know how to. So I let him continue. I can't say we ended up having sex as to me sex is a mutual thing. It's both peoples enjoyment. I didn't enjoy it and although I didn't verbally say no I didn't want to. It was horrible. This man. He was 30. I was 15. I remember going back to the hotel room and crying and crying and crying. I told my parents I wasn't well and stayed in the dark room for the rest of the day avoiding him. That night while watching the hotel entertainment with my family he was presenting and he started talking about how he was married and his wife was pregnant. I also found out he slept with a girl a year younger than me who I was friendly with on holiday. She told me I didn't find that out on stage!
For years and years. I have thought well I consented. I am dirty, disgusting etc. It's only now, recently that I think about it more and more. I can't say I was raped, as to me that is not rape. I didn't say no. I didn't fight back. But I look at my cousin now who is the same age as I was then. And I think if a 30year old slept with her there is something seriously wrong with him. Why would he want to? The more I think about it now the more I get shit feelings about it. I don't know what it was. I know he couldn't be expected to read my mind but still! Or am I making excuses for my past behaviour. Am I trying to attribute the way I am now to the things that happened then.
It makes me feel sick thinking about it. I have thought about it quite a bit in the past but never really had strong emotions about it which I do now. I want to go back to how it was.
I have told a couple of people about these things. Only one person knows them all but we are not close any more and she does not know of the mental health problems I suffer from. Also she knows about them as I suppose she was part of it. No one knows everything and how I feel and this is the first time I have ever talked about it all in one go. I have friends who know I slept with someone on that holiday. I have never told them how it made me feel. This is probably because the emotions of it are all coming to the surface now.
It was after the money thing that I slept with that guy. Maybe it had something to do with it. The psychologist/mental health worker in me if talking about another person would say...
"this client had issues from a young age. She wanted to be a people pleaser and seeing that the money was making her friend happy and made them spend more time together was getting positive reinforcement from it. In wanting to be a people pleaser she went along with engaging in sexual activities when she didn't really want to. She admired her friend Ali and knowing Ali had also engaged in sexual activities she didn't want to be different and left behind. In her attempts to keep people happy and not upset people she engaged in further sexual behaviours when she was 14. When her grandmother died she was in a very vulnerable position and again the pleasing people attitude came out in her. She felt that in saying no the man would be upset with her and think differently of her. In her vulnerable state she relished the attention. Having body image problems and grieving she saw the attention as a compliment. Because of her past history of sexual engagement she didn't put any emphasis on the actual act of sex itself and just saw it as something that was done."
However about myself I think that I didn't really see the act of sex as an intimate thing. Being so young when I lost my virginity I felt that I was a slag. I told my self that I was dirty and was living in a self fulfilling prophecy. So I let it happen.
I don't know why these things have only just started to affect me. Maybe it's because I have seen so many different health professionals now that ask "tell me about your childhood". I have always said I have had a normal childhood. I can't blame Ali for anything as we were the same age. It's not as though she was an adult. It has affected me though.
The fact that I hate myself so much for what I did I try and make up for now. I never steal. I worry so much when peoples things have gone missing that they think it was me even though they don't know about the past. I do anything to get people to like me. I will drive miles out my way to do things for people. I will offer people things, I go beyond what is expected of me so that people like me. I am so worried that people if they knew about my past would have altered perceptions of me. I know I was young but it's no excuse really. I think it could possibly one of the reasons why I don't let my emotions show. I am the strong one. I don't cry, I keep it together. I don't do crying in front of other people. But I can't say that is a reason why. I remember being really young and being embarrassed about crying in public. I would have only been about 6. But who sees a 6 year old crying and think they are pathetic. But that is how I was. I always kept check on my emotions. But even when my gran died I tried not to cry. I don't like people seeing me cry. It's not because of how I look, I don't want people to know I am upset about something. I avoid confrontation if it means I may upset other people. I don't like the idea of upsetting people. Who does unless they are some sadistic person. But what I mean is if I have inadvertently upset someone I feel terrible.
I talked to Sam about the sexual stuff today. It was so hard to get out. I couldn't bring myself to talk about the money thing. But I did talk about the sex stuff. She said I need to think about it in context. She said I needed to remember that I didn't want to, I never felt comfortable doing it. She was talking about being groomed. Was I? If I had have been 16 which would only have been 4 months later would the situation have been different.
I said I didn't want to be a victim. I also said that it added more weight to the diagnosis they are trying to pin on me of PD. I have never told anyone before about it. Well I had but I didn't explain in detail. I didn't say I didn't want to. She said I could report it and she would help me. I said there was no point as was so long ago, I never actually said no and it was in a different country. There would be no way, no way at all of conviction. And I would be torn to pieces in court, ripped a part. That's even if it got that far which I doubt it would as of lack of evidence. And also the way I feel about it. I think if I was in the position of law enforcement even now one persons word against anothers with no evidence if I was on CPS I would not take it further. So I am not going to put myself through that. And, it would make me a victim. I haven't been for the last 11 years. I am not going to be one now.
I feel awful for actually having talked about it. I feel like I just want everything to be over with. I want to blank everything out. The only way I see that happening is death. I feel more suicidal than I have ever been. I do feel it's only a matter of time. I don't think I will talk about it with anyone else. It was so hard. I was talking in code about it as I couldn't say and then I asked Sam to tell me what she thought I was trying to say. She thought it had something to do with abuse. In the end after she had a general idea I told her about the event when I was 15 which led in to me telling her about the other ones. I explained to her why I thought I had not made anything of it for so long was because it was of the way I felt of myself. I wont be talking to anyone else about it. I can't. For now it will remain hidden. Sam has said she will come to the Clinical Psychologist with me. I may ask her to. I think I may also ask her to be the one who tells the CP as I can't. But this is on the assumption that it is something that is causing effects now. I am not so sure. I have only really thought about it all in the last couple of weeks yet I have been self harming and been depressed since I was 22.
The evenings are the worst now. In the day I am on placement and I am so busy I can distract myself. I am a different person. The person who gets out the car once she is there is not me. It's someone who doesn't have any problems, can hide them, is someone else. Why can't that person follow me home. It's like I am 2 people. I want to be 1. I want to be that career minded, motivated person. I don't want to be this person who as soon as is at home goes to her room, starts researching suicide methods, starts self harming. Why can't this person stay all the time?
