Kia endured 12 years of brutal sexual abuse by her father
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Kia is trying to overcome feeling responsible for having been abused. She feels she was let down by a number of professionals, including school and healthcare staff.
Kia’s father began abusing her when she was about five years old. He told her it was punishment for bad behaviour and over time, she realised that he seemed to prefer it if she was emotional when he abused her.
Sometimes he took her to different houses and allowed other men to sexually abuse her. The abuse included rape.
After the first time this happened, Kia couldn’t walk properly and other children at school teased her. A member of staff asked her what was wrong and she replied that her daddy had hurt her because he was angry. But no one followed this up or ever mentioned it again.
Kia says she had trouble going to the toilet properly and often wet the bed. She was taken to the doctors to investigate the problem, but she says ‘They never realised ... and missed all the signs’.
When she was about nine years old, she started self-harming and was referred to children’s mental health services. Looking back on this, she says the support was not effective. She saw a number of different counsellors about her ‘anger issues’ and she remembers one telling her to do her homework and be ‘a good girl’. This reminded her of what her father said when he was abusing her.
In her mid teens, Kia was assaulted by a friend of her father’s. Her mother suspected something was wrong and questioned her, but she says her father convinced everyone she was lying.
When she was at college she became friends with a girl who had also been abused by her father. This friend became convinced that the same thing had happened to Kia, and although Kia would not confirm this, she contacted the police. Kia was questioned by the police and social services, but would not talk about the abuse.
It was when a cousin revealed that she had been abused by Kia’s father that Kia confirmed she was also abused by him. The police then started an investigation. She says they were ‘amazing’ but she found the court process very difficult, particularly the poor communication.
Her father was convicted of abusing several other children and given a very long prison sentence. Kia suffers with feelings of guilt that if she had spoken out sooner she might have stopped him abusing others. She says that at times she believes she was ‘just as bad as him for not coming forward earlier’.
She says she still feels very ‘messed up’. A lot of her family turned against her and still do not speak to her, and she has found this very difficult. She suffers from PTSD, flashbacks, anxiety and depression. She finds the thought of being in a relationship impossible, and she is scared of going to see doctors.
However, she says she has now found a good counsellor and while some part of her still feels that she ‘deserved to be abused’, she understands she was vulnerable.
Kia feels she was let down by a number of professionals and that some people do not want to ask the right questions as it would mean ‘more work and form filling’.
She believes counsellors should be sensitive to the needs of different people and their approach and language should reflect that. She also thinks schools have a responsibility to give age appropriate lessons on sexuality, and to teach children that it’s not just strangers who may be abusers.
Kia says that if sharing her experience through the Truth Project ‘helps one person, it will be good’. She says she would one day like to become a counsellor herself.