Dearest Tiana
I have for a very long time wanted to write about what happened to me and to bring it out into the open. Survive has been my life line over the last 18 months. It has kept me afloat, made the worst times better, made the hardest memories possible, made the most difficult obstacles surmountable. It was reading the stories on your wonderful site that first made me understand I could go on and get on with my life and it is to those people who went before me that I now dedicate this letter and this terrible truth. To the men who did this to me I comend nothing but that they must always live with the pain they caused me. I do not ask for revenge or retribution. It is my belief that having to live on after the deed itself is punishment enough.
I want to start with a poem I wrote years later:
Just a happy kid....
Here's my happiness
Here's my life
Here's my innocence
Here's my heart
Here's my hope.
Just a happy kid.
I had it all to give
You wrenched it from me
You didn't take my sweets
You didn't take my toys
No you stole my will
Wrecked my trust
Broke my heart and hurt me.
Now take this....
Wrench this from me too...
Here's my anger
Here's my pain
Here's my tears
Hear me scream
Here's my shattered heart
Here's my shame
Here's my numbness
Take them, let me live again.
I was a normal girl living a happy rural childhood. Then one day when I was just 7 I made some mistakes in class. My teacher took me aside, took me into his office and said 7 words that are forever ingrained in my mind "naughty little girls have to be punished". Thus it begun. He sits me on his knee puts his hand up my skirt inside my knickers suddenly big bad pain. Other hand pinching my arm. His voice telling me to say "I am a bad girl" telling me to say "I am a naughty girl". Feel pain. feeling hurt. feel his hand down my top pinching my tummy. somehow repeat the words. Told to say it louder. feel hair being pulled. finger still inside me.... say it louder feel myself crying. don't cry you are ugly enough already. feel hair bieng pulled again.; then finger in my mouth "clean me up you ugly little girl clena me up" horrid strnage taste. hurting hurting ..... get back to class. do better next time or I will show yuo what real punishment is. scared, crying. GO BACK TO CLASS.
Little did I know that that time was only a taste of all that was to come. Over the terms that followed I learnt what it was to be locked tied, naked and gagged in a dark cupboard. To feel two maybe three fingers pushed inside me. To feel my hair pulled, my body pinched and bitten, to hear bad things said about me. I learnt what it was to have a man call me ugly. I suddenly understood how much I loved my sister when I heard the threats levelled against her of what he would do if I didn't do exactly what he said. I learnt to live in fear, to jump at the slightest sound. I learnt how to beg him to hurt me, to put his fingers inside me, to beg him to give me some attention.
I learnt the taste of sperm, how I could not breathe as his penis grew bigger in my mouth how I would be punished if I didn't give him enough pleasure. I discovered the taste of my own s**t. He ordered me to eat my own vomit. I really believed I was an ugly worthless little girl.
One day he tells class I am bad girl and not allowd out at lunch for week... tells them i stole money.. spend week of lunchtimes being his toy... hitting, sucking, hair pulling, touching myself for him , locked up tied up in cupboard when he not want me, forced to do things to myself for him.
Tried to tell another teacher. She laughed at me told me there must have been some misunderstanding. I didn't try to tell again after that.
He told me he could hurt me more. I didn't believe him. Of course I should have. I should have he was right I was wrong. I deserved pain. I deserved to be hurt... of course he could hurt me more, do worse things.
my nineth birthday... he grabs me at lunch time...... i've got your birthday present come to the cupboard with me. takes me.. don't want to go... we get there... usually its his office we go first.. we go straight in cupboard.... already someone in there... dark... don't know who... he locks door.. him me and this strnage man. hear him "take off your clothes" tell him no.... he hits me feel him ripping at me.... fine don't lie on the floor scared lie down... remember I said I could hurt you more.... fele other strange man grab my arms... him lie on top of me biting me, other man pulling my hair hear other mans voice for first time... open your mouth get your head back more feel other mans penis go in my mouth... pushing in my throat.... choking can't breath.. get it in furhter you studid girl..... feel my skirt being pulled up.. feel knickers bieng pulled down feel somethng pushing aainst me hard then suddenly pain.... try to scream... can't other man blocking my mouth can't breathe absoulute agony hear both voices tellming me i'm ugly little girl that i deserve to hurt that i can be hurt more feel something hot wet sticky between my legs in my mouth hear someone say swallow clean me... sounds long way away. hear them say happy birhtday. they get off me for a moment think its over but no am rolled over they swap places.... his penis in my mouth the other man on top of me on my back...... sudden worse pain than i have experinece yet.... fele his weight.... feel head being pulled back.... taste horrid tastes.... feel myself being crushed.... blacing out.... balcking out... far away.... not here....
sudden light... him other man gone... him mopping me..... carressing me, comforting me, kkssing me telling me what a good little girl i am telling me happy birtday.... telling me how lucky i am... telling me i am a big girl now.... telling me that i have lots to look forward to with him....remember being sick in loo going back to class....
happend a few more times.... he would hurt me lock me up make me ask him to put hiimself inside me... tell me i was priviledged.
tried to tell someone got told I can't have understood what was going on .... got laughed at... just waited... left the school evenutally.... safe at last.
Over the years the memories jumped in and out of my mind. Mainly I tried to ignore them to pretend the past had never happened. But the flash backs could not be denied. The freezing during sex could not be ignored. The cutting of the wrists, the sudden bouts of depression, the blacking out. It is time to get the truth out now and I hope for every person who reads this and knows the truth about my past there is another person who never has to go through my hell.
Finally to all who read this may all your birthdays be truely happy ones. Remember what ever you go through you can survive. There will always be someone in the world with the glue to stick your shattered heart together again.
Tiana thank you for all that you have given me. Thank you for handing me the glue.
All my love
Millie 13th February 2001
Last updated 13th February 2001