I'm fed up with all the hostility between males and females. If a female said something a male doesn't like they're 'feminists'. If a male said something a female doesn't like they're 'idiots' or 'basement dwellers' or 'bastards'. Why can't we just admit that people are different and have different reactions in different situations, from various experiences growing up?
This is my experience of how one male managed to change my life for the better. It's a bit of a long take and friends and family is the best category I can find unless someone else thinks of a better one.
My mother used to be in a care home growing up because of her father, who was a pedophile. The police case was he used her older sister - my aunt - to satisfy him, and recorded pictures of them. He got out of jail I think not too long before I was born. Dad was taken aside from the police saying they would like to put me into foster care, and it's one of the many things I have to thank him for. Growing up life wasn't so bad, I saw many things that happened in our family that I never truly understood until I was thirteen/ fourteen years old.
When I was born mother was eighteen and dad was twenty one years old.
When I was baby, I was a quiet baby but this was probably cus dad would change me and dress me before leaving for work; I think he had a six or eight hours shift. He would come back finding the nappy around my ankles. In the same clothes he left me in, and the bed needed to be changed. My mother was in the other room watching TV.
We used to have a cat, I was told that the landlords said we weren't allowed pets and it was taken away. (I was three or four) What I didn't know till I was a teenager was my mother said the cat was staring at her and was creeping her out. What she did was glue the cats eyes together with superglue, to stop it 'staring at her'.
When my mother was twenty one she asked for barbie dolls, clothes accessories etc. Her reasoning was she never had them growing up so she wanted to play with them now.
There are many memories that I was beaten with a belt buckle and all. I remember one time I think I was four, maybe three. I had long hair down to the bottom of my back, my mother grabbed that hair and dragged me upstairs into the bathroom. Grabbed the bar of soap and washed my mouth out, after around five/ ten minutes she got a knife out and cut a couple of chunks of soap and forced me to eat it.
My parents argued a lot and there was loads of fighting occurring generally one to three times a week. One of these arguments involved dad kicking a hole through the door, because she slammed the door in his face. Another she chucked ink all over the computer and some of the games we had.
I think I was six and my mother being the stupid person she was, believed this guy who said he was rich and living in Scotland. So once again I was taken out of school, and got to Scotland she then realised that he was lying and living with his mum (who had a large house). During that time I was spat at, by both the man and his son and locked in my room at night. Which meant one time I really needed the toilet but couldn't get there and ended up wetting the bed.
Another time I was around five; me, my mother her mum and dad were all sat in the living room. Dad came home from work (he had a twelve hour, six to six shift), he went out with her father, slammed him up against the wall and said "if you ever come round here again and or go anywhere near her I'll fucking kill you". That was the end to home visits. But the start of visits to the grandparents house.
When I was sixteen and doing my final year of GCSE's I had a repressed memory within a dream, that I knew was real. In this memory I was five or six and sat on the sofa watching Finding Nemo (this I remembered), but on the other side of the room was my grandfather on the computer locking his lips. On the computer was a little girl being raped, she was soo small and innocent. At the start of the video she was screaming and crying, halfway through they broke her, and she was silent with tears running down her face. It was after that dad kicked the front door down and took me out of that house, though he never saw the video. Since retaining that memory that's the only nightmare I've had in years it's always the same one, with a few different changes like actually getting raped or being beaten till I coughed blood.
It's taken me years to not have a have a panic attack on the mention of the Disney film Nemo.
Later that year my mother kept coming up with lies to try and get away from dad. One being that he beat her every night and she was worried for my safety, (even though there's no bruises or evidence of this beating). Let me tell you some of these places can be nice, but having someone threatening you because you took a cookie out of a cupboard is not nice at all. Luckily I was only there that day, since she rang dad and he got there in a taxi.
It was during this year I noticed all the men leaving the house and it wasn't till I was older, I realised she was a bit of a whore. There were these scary men or the 'black men' as I used to call them who came every Tuesday. Since they were dressed in black sunglasses and all, which I realised later were loan sharks.
One day when I was seven dad didn't come home. Mom sat on the sofa with Josh (fake name given), and I asked where dad was and she said he didn't want me no more that I was an "ungrateful brat, who'll never amount to anything so he left while he could". That hurt me deeply, I ran into my room and cried myself to sleep. I didn't believe her though and kept a small photo beside my door of my dad, it was one of those ID ones without the smiling. (What actually happened was she changed the locks to the flat, so that he couldn't get into the inside flat). Before that happened he gave me his old phone and taught me to delete call history and texts. He brought me this puppet teddy and on the inside tag wrote his number. We used to talk most nights.
Sometime later like around three months, I was seeing dad on weekends and Wednesday's after school. It was around this time I had solicitors around and my dad was trying to gain custody of me. Dad collected evidence and used many things to show that my mother wasn't a good carer. He took reports of hairdressers, teachers and the solicitor got evidence as well.
Before the locked out incident dad was planning a holiday for me, mother and her mum. In Devon a camper van, this holiday ended up with josh going and lasted three days, two nights because it was 'boring' with nothing for adults to do. During the trip she said she had no money to spend on sweets and rides despite dad giving her money. (I learned later the money spent in pizza Hut the following three weeks, was the money dad given her for me).
When dad wasn't living with us life was hard a lot of my toys were taken for no reason. Things I got for my birthday or Christmas was sold and I never got the profits. Some of my games game cube and game boy, we're given to josh as a present. I was beaten more often and dad wasn't around to stop it.
It took a year but dad finally gained custody of me. He had to go to London to get a solicitor, since the city I reside in said only females are allowed to gain custody of children.
At the age of twenty nine dad started his whole life over. He had no job, no home, nothing really from his last home and a child. I ended up living with my nan (from my dad's side), dad and his brother my uncle in a four could be six bedroom house.
Even when dad had custody of me it took a year for me to trust females especially my nan. She used to get sworn at, called rude names and I never let her touch me. All because if the things my mother said to me about her before I ended up moving in with her.
I've been happy since and being with dad was the best thing that ever happened to me. Despite this it's taken till now to finally open up about this and not feel ashamed or mad at the consequences of people's actions.
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