It's nearly 2am on New Years Day..the first day of January 1999...everyone here is asleep in bed..i am all alone..scared frightened..and wracked with memories that won't leave me alone..this last week has been hell..the flashbacks and nightmares so intense..so real..i'm scared of closing my eyes tonight for fear they return..i don't want to be a little girl any more..i want to be in control again..like i used to be..
instead the little girl in me is 6 years old..waiting listening for her daddys footfall..his bumbling steps as the alcohol makes him stumble..the cursing under his breath as he falls heavily against something..the smell of the whiskey on his breath waiting for his rough hands..his probing fingers..the male smell that is uniqely his..the heat and weight of his body pressed against mine..the shooting inexplicable searing pain as he forces himself into me..the feeling as if my whole body is being torn apart..i am 6 years old..a baby still..and yet he is using me as a woman..
he told me on Christmas eve that year that if i didn't play daddys games that father xmas would know i had been a bad girl..and wouldn't bring me any presents..that was the Xmas he raped me for the first time..the Xmas my world fell apart..the Xmas i learnt to hate him and myself..
every night that week he came to me..always after the whiskey..always the same smell on his breath..always wanting to do the same thing..the threats ..the reminders that this was our secret game..and i mustn't tell anyone..i was 6 years old..and all the myths had been dispelled..i had grown up overnight..he robbed me of my childhood..my life..my feelings and emotions..he robbed me of my soul..i was numb..and hurting..i was bleeding but didn't know why and how to stop it..i used cotton wool and toilet tissue to stem it a while..i was too scared to tell anyone..i hid my soiled underwear..burried it deep in the garden where no one would find it..i was so ashamed..i thought i was dying..bleeding to death..my body felt bruised sore..i couldn't sit down..i couldn't barely walk..
but i pretended i was ok..learnt then about the mask i would continue to wear for many mnay years..the mask that hid the little girl who was hurting away from the rest of the world..i couldn't cry..i wouldn't let myself..no tears ever came although my body could be sobbing hard..still no tears ever leaked out ..not until last year did i cry for the first time..and yet now i can cry..i am doing..the tears won't stop..i've carried this dark secret with me for the last 30 odd years..only this Xmas has it been allowed to surface..for the first time..
the flashbacks of what happened Jan 26th last year have brought it out..mingled and confused with that morning..the voices get muddled..sometimes it is him ..sometimes it is my daddy..sometimes it is both..i feel so ashamed..so confused..and so very alone..
tiana January 1st 1999
Last updated 13th February 2001