India says ‘I want to succeed in life, but don’t feel I can because my past gets in the way’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
India was neglected as a child.
When she was sexually abused, in one way, she says, she was pleased someone was taking an interest in her.
India relates that her mother was ill throughout most of her teenage years and could not look after her properly – she often went hungry. When she was in her early teens, someone she knew began sexually abusing her.
On one occasion her mother saw it happening but just shouted at her. India chooses not to say who the abuser was, but she does say she could not tell anyone because of who he was.
India says that she found the abuse ‘disgusting’, but at the same time she liked the fact that she got some attention. It continued for about six months, until for some reason the abuser stopped.
When India was in her mid teens, she was raped by someone she had thought was a friend. She told a teacher, and was asked if there had been ‘foreplay’. She says she was made to feel that she was lying and it stopped her from talking about it again.
After this she began to use drugs and take other risks with her behaviour. She started missing school and ‘hanging out’ in town or in the flats of older people. She began self-harming and drinking alcohol.
She was raped again a year later by a man who was a few years older than her. She and a friend had gone to his flat. She says she didn't want to have sex with him but ‘eventually gave up fighting against it’.
India relates that she had no friends at school who were the same age as her, and says that the teachers just saw her as ‘trouble’. She feels because she couldn’t shake off that label, she ended up ‘living up to it’.
Her mental and physical health has been affected by the abuse she experienced. She finds it hard to trust people, she is afraid of medical examinations and has difficulty sleeping. She has had suicidal thoughts.
India says that even ‘when things are going well in life, I can’t cope and often destroy itas I can’t handle it … I find it difficult to say what I want or what I don’t want as Iautomatically need to please others’.
She says she feels constantly drained from having to mentally push herself every day to just try and live ‘a normal respectable life’.
She has sought help and counselling but she has found it difficult to engage.
India feels that troubled children are still being let down and lessons have not been learnt. She says ‘People need to spot the signs that a child is being abused and then do something about it. Children in the care system are particularly vulnerable’.
She feels concerned about gang culture and that children are seen as behaving badly and blamed, rather than recognised as needing nurturing and protection.
She says ‘I was never able to be nurtured or to be a kid before I became an adult … I have to grieve for the childhood I never had’.