Michelle says she craved affection from her abuser that had always been missing from her life
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Michelle was born in the 1970s. Her parents were unable to care for her and her siblings and from the age of two to 18 years, she moved several times between foster placements and children’s homes.
She suffered from physical abuse and a lack of love and affection that made her vulnerable to sexual abuse.
Michelle remembers being physically abused at a very young age by a foster father. She says she would hide under the bed in fear and once she spent the night in a vomit-soaked bed because she was too frightened to tell her foster parents she had been sick.
At the age of seven, Michelle was moved to a children’s home. One evening when she was play-fighting with another little boy, a member of staff accused the pair of behaving sexually. They humiliated the two small children by making them stand outside naked while the other children laughed and teased them. She says she could not understand what she had done wrong as she certainly didn’t understand anything about sex at that time.
At a later date in this home, Michelle was sexually abused by an older girl who would touch Michelle’s genitals and make Michelle touch hers. Michelle says she didn’t understand the behaviour or whether it was right or wrong, but in any case, she did not have anyone to tell about it.
Michelle was moved to another children’s home at the age of 12 and soon after arriving, she began receiving attention from the manager, Mr Warren. He was married with a family. Michelle couldn’t understand why he wanted to spend so much time with her, but she remembers that she liked the attention and care he was showing her.
Gradually Mr Warren began to touch Michelle – at first this was in an ‘affectionate and caring way’, but it progressed to him taking her Michelle into his room at the home, where he slept during night shifts. He began to have sexual intercourse and oral sex with her regularly. The abuse lasted for about a year.
Michelle says she believed she loved Mr Warren and that their ‘relationship was a romance’. She craved his affection – the affection she had been missing all her life. She says: ‘He made me trust him, made me believe he had the same feelings for me. My frame of mind was I needed to be loved.’
One day Michelle told another girl at the home about the abuse, who reported it and social services were informed. She remembers Mr Warren rushing to tell her that some people were coming to see her, and she must not tell them about their ‘relationship’.
When Michelle was asked about the abuse, she denied it. She says she didn’t want to lose Mr Warren from her life, she was worried he would go to jail and the impact it would have on his family. She adds: ‘I felt guilty, I wanted to protect him … I didn’t want him not to love me anymore.’
Mr Warren was moved to a children’s home for boys in another part of the country.
Michelle says: ‘The big shock for me, when I think about it, is that no one even contacted the police.’
For a while after he left, Mr Warren wrote to Michelle until one day he told her the relationship had to end. Michelle remembers how devastated she was – she cried for months about it but couldn’t tell anyone why.
She was then moved to live with a foster family that she describes as ‘a good placement’ where she stayed until she was 18.
But she says the abuse and experiences of her childhood have had a significant impact on the rest of her life. She describes herself as having been a rebellious teenager and sexually promiscuous; mistakenly equating sex with affection and care.
In her 20s she went to work, met her husband and had a child. She says she didn’t feel maternal and it didn’t come naturally to her to care for her child. However, she was determined to get on with her life and do her best. She feels she tries hard to always please others, avoiding conflict at all costs.
Despite her experiences Michelle feels that she was ‘one of the luckier ones’. Her siblings have all struggled with the experiences of their own childhoods.
She says she is very vigilant in her parenting and has tried hard to educate her child about appropriate touch and what adults should and shouldn’t do. She feels she is sometimes very selfish and can be difficult to live with – ‘My experiences have made me a very strong and independent person – a lot of my life I had to fend for myself.’
This has caused some difficulties in her marriage over the years, but she says she has a very understanding husband who recognises how her past has shaped her behaviour.
Michelle says she came to the Truth Project after she saw a documentary on television that has prompted her to talk about her experiences in the hope that it will help protect others in the future.
She says: ‘It’s easier just to give up and not fight. If you do that then the person that has done that to you has ruined your whole life … But I’m going to fight.’
She adds: ‘I don’t feel I’m being brave. I’m just being upfront and honest, to protect other children.’