To My abuser

It's been 30 years since I left your house for the last time, and yet, you are still abusing me. I can't stop thinking about you and what you did. Every night, in my dreams, I relive some part of the torture that you inflicted upon me. So even sleep offers no escape from you. Do you even realize what you have done?

I remember when I was nine years old, I had my life planned out, and my world was safe. Living with your mother since I was a baby, she was the only mother I really knew. Yes, it's true, I was a naughty child, I was spoiled and indulged. I had dreams though. I was going to be a doctor and work in the Emergency Department at the hospital, I was going to find a cure for my grandmother's diabetes. I was going to marry a beautiful woman and have three children, 2 boys, and 1 girl. I was going to have a big house and 2 cars. My grandmother was going to live with us for the rest of her life. I was going to have lots of friends and have dinner parties often. I was going to take my family to see the wonders of the world. The Pyramids, Niagara Falls, Sydney Opera House, The Mona Lisa, etc.

I wanted to be like my idol...you. Yes, you were my idol as a child. You had it all, the house, the money, the family, the career. I wanted so badly to be like you, out of all of my grandmother's children, you were by far my favourite aunt. Then, of course, that day came and our worlds came crashing down. I still remember the exact words you used to tell me that my grandmother was dead. Those words I have replayed countless times. She was your mother, and although I was her grandchild, she was the woman who raised me when my own parents couldn't be bothered. That's why I called her mum because she was the only mum I ever really had.

When I came to live with you, I was so excited, I knew that I would want for nothing, after all, you had everything and more. The first two weeks were as good as they could be, I was comfortable. Then it happened, I was late home from school and you slapped me across the face, oh yes, you apologised to me the following morning and gave me the day off school, but, like any abuser, you couldn't keep your hands off me.

8 long months I was with you, being subjected to your twisted sadistic games because that's what they were to you, little power games. You were creative in your efforts. I remember how you kept me off school for months so that you could be alone with me to use me as your punch bag. All those days making me stand up all day in the doorway, just so you could punch me whenever you left the room. The times you would leave the freezer door open and punch me until I confessed that I had done it on purpose. The nights when you would make me stand half-naked on the cold dark landing whilst you got into bed. The small amount of food that you would serve me whilst you and your family had plenty. The times you would ram my head into a doorpost. Then as if that wasn't enough, you invented a new torture. That night that you had me on my knees whilst your husband watched on as you bent my fingers back until I confessed to stealing my grandmother's wedding ring, you even managed to break a finger. I confessed just to make the pain stop, I would have confessed to being Jack the Ripper the pain was so bad. The following morning, when we were alone, you told me that you had hidden my grandmother's ring in the garage, oh how you laughed at your game.

It wasn't enough to beat me up every day, no, you had to humiliate me too. That day when you said there was a five-pound note missing and you did a strip search on me, the times you would grab at my genitals with your false fingernails, that time when I wet the bed and you made me stand with my wet pyjamas on my head all morning. All the time you touched my genitals, you told me that you were going to make sure that I could never have children.

Those times where you would grab my throat and squeezed cutting off my air supply, do you remember the time when I started to pass out and you promised you would not hit me again and how you said you would look after me, that lasted all of two hours and then you were at it again. I often think of that day, you had me by the throat in the kitchen, and to my right within reach was the knife block. I admit, it crossed my mind to grab a knife and kill you there and then, but, I am not that kind of person. You told me other things too remember. Like how you blamed me for killing my grandmother even though she died of a heart attack when I was in school.

Do you know what fear is? It is the intense worry that you would carry out the threat that you made every day, that you would drive me out to the middle of nowhere and kill me and then bury my body in a place where it would never be found. I believed you, and that's when I decided that I had to kill myself before you could kill me. It was then that I was saved from you, finally, the school made enquiries and I was taken into care.

I wish I could say that's where the abuse ended, but it didn't. Because of you, most of my dreams are nightmares, during the day I have flashbacks. I have attempted suicide four times. I cannot sleep with women, so I became gay. I physically shake sometimes and I have such anger inside that I am afraid to let it out.

I wish that I could forget what you did to me and forget you, but, then who would I be? My entire adult life has been spent in counselling and turmoil. You stole my dreams and my teenage years, my twenties, my thirties, and now into my early forties. I have tried to understand why you did what you did, but I can't. I can't forget, and it is something that will be with me for the rest of my life. I know you have no remorse, and that over the years you have lied and made excuses. I wish I could hate you, but I can't. The Police and the rest of the family may have believed you, but, I know what you did, I live with the memory every day. I just hope that when you look in the mirror that you remember what you did and that you are a child abuser.