Our Lives
I’d spent my childhood running away. And now, as I grasped at happiness, a sickening reminder of what I was escaping stood beside me.
As Ilay in bed, the smell of bacon wafted up the stairs. It was Sunday morning, and Mum was cooking a fry-up for our breakfast.
But just as I was about to get up and go down, Dad came into my room.
‘Shhh,’ he whispered, climbing under the covers with me.
I was just five and I froze as he began touching me down below.
‘If you tell your mum, she’ll leave you,’ he said when he’d finished. ‘This is love, it’s normal.’
Afterwards, he went downstairs to tuck into his bacon and eggs as if nothing had happened.
Soon it was happening every weekend, and all I could think was: If Dad says this is normal, then why don’t I like it? While my friends at school Sitting there listening to the After that, looked forward to the weekend, I began to dread it, because it meant there was no escape from Dad.
It wasn’t just what he was doing in secret either. Dad was a big, scary man, who ruled our home with fear.
As I got older, the abuse became more frequent.
Mum was the only one working, so as soon as she’d left the house in the morning, Dad would come into my bedroom.
School was the only place I felt safe, but because of what was happening at home, I struggled to concentrate and fell behind.
I’d stare out of the window, disconnected from the other children in my class, who were living normal, happy childhoods.
Then when I started secondary school, I had my first sex education class.
Sitting there listening to the teacher talking, a cold realisation dawned on me.
What Dad had been doing for the past six years wasn’t what other dads did to their daughters.
It wasn’t normal at all, and it definitely wasn’t love. Instead, it was something sick and disgusting.
Not long after, Mum and I left home and went to live with my aunt.
I was never told the reason why, but I didn’t care, because I was just relieved to be away from Dad for a while.
One afternoon, I came in from school and went upstairs to find Dad lying on the bed.
‘Come here and give me a cuddle,’ he said, reaching out for my hand.
In that moment, I knew I couldn’t take any more.
‘No!’ I screamed, and clattered down the stairs to get away from him.
After that, the abuse stopped. But the damage was already done.
I went off the rails, running away and only turning up at school when I felt like it.
My teachers could see there was a problem, and one day, one of them managed to coax it out of me. ‘It’s stopped now, but my dad touched me from the age of five,’ I confided.
Social services we
