Broken from the inside

I vowed never to write this post mainly because of the heads ace it takes me to, but also because it is going to expose so much about me that maybe 5 people in my life know about.  But the as the last week on social media has been full of good and bad about  bullying, and the media has been full of tales of sexual attacks perhaps now is the time for me to tell my history and hopefully it will help someone.

For those that don't know i come from a single parent family, which when I grew up in 1970s England, was still frowned upon. Add to this we lived with my grandfather and that added to to the social sigma. For reasons not relevant I had one false start at school, which made what happened even worse.

The day I started at church school aged 5, it was the funeral of my great aunt, being so young I wasn't allowed to attend, in retrospective that was the first warning. For the opening line was "we good christians". How I never lost my faith over the next 11 educational years thanks to that one sentence I will never know. I'm not going to give you all the boring blow by blow account of the next two and half years, and I can' name those that did such things but I will say I was ridiculed for being a "bastard", physically tortured for entertainment in front of my fellow class mates. Abused in all senses of the words by certain staff behind closed doors, to the degree I went home daily with bruises to head arms etc. Certain teachers encouraged the emotional bullying from my classes mates as I was a "bad" child, just because of my parentage. Needless to say I snapped, at 7 years old, I fought back the only way I knew how physically throwing a chair at a teacher. Unsurprisingly this became my way out although by the time it got reported home it had become I tried to strangle a younger  pupil. Anyway when the edited truth came out my family pulled me out of education for 6 months while the powers that be covered it up, tested my sanity and found I had genius level iq, then quickly got me into a better school.

The damage was done though, I would binge eat, stealing to get money for candy, for the rest of my educational life. I lost all my carefree innocence, went through episodes of self harm that even now can creep back 40 years later.  But the bad just kept coming.

Although I got a few years of safe education every so often it would creep back, and I was never able to trust anyone fully. Then I went to high school and due to the way the UK system is set up I met up with previous pupils from the church school. It started over again, the ridicule, the rumours and the teachers not defending or helping. I went through another 5 years of this before I got out and went to college out of the area. Only then could I start to rebuild . However life isn't kind at times and as I got my mental state back to near normal my physical health which was always weaker than most started to give in a big way, like life threatening, at one point looking unlikely I would make 21.

I would love to say I got through it and all is well, but it's not quite that nice and simple. I live with now 3 chronic illnesses, and despite having managed to work hard till I was 40 I'm now disabled by them .

The worst bit of all this is one of the conditions was probably triggered by something that happened when I was 6 years old and being bullied by the teacher in front of the whole class. I found little comfort in the fact I have subsequently heard and know for fact other children were abused in that school and upon my sudden departure from the class another 10 + pupils were also removed by parents for similar reasons.

I will never get the investigation or justice I deserve as I know two people involved are now dead and possibly more. I never got the counselling or therapy any child need to recover from such events, as it wasn't available back then. By the time I did find something to help me, a lot of the memories are now so deep in my subconscious I only get them back in flashback or nightmares.

However the real I wrote this down is not for sympathy or anything like that, I'm too far damaged and too used to my own coping strategy to need that. But to reach out to anyone else who has been or is in this situation or something like it. Although it' been hard for me and sounds very bleak, there have been highs. For a brief time I got to work in an industry I dreamed to while my health allowed. I learnt how to fight for what is right no matter the cost to me, and I still have one friendship that started before this and continued through it and still goes strong. I am able to function with out most people even realising my chronic illnesses aren't the real damage done to me and that is my biggest win.

We are now in a world where this no longer needs to be hidden, and can be stopped. Where stigma is no longer is acceptable, and where if a child cries for help they will be listened to. If you can take one thing away from me writing this truth, please let it be you never let another child go through what I have , and if something doesn't feel right about a childs  behaviour ask the questions, call the relevant people. It's better to be over cautious than blind through ignorance. Remember by 5 years old I was so scared of my own  being I was a capable liar to my own family from the indoctrination from the adult bullies and abusers, so it may take more than a slight scratch on the surface to gain the truth.