a proper thankyou

over the last few weeks some pretty heavy stuff has been going down in my life.
it's stuff i should have dealt with a long time ago, but im only strong enough now.

in 1991 my mums boyfriend moved in. i don't remember a lot about him. he worked at a tyre place. he once drove me and my brothers around and around a round about for fun. i remember him filleting fish on our back porch. they are really the only normal memories i have of him.

i have more.

these aren't normal memories. these are memories that people shouldn't have to have. people should be able to look back at being 13 and think about having fun with their friends, hanging out looking at boys, writing in your diary and singing to your favourite songs. i did all that too, but there was always that other part, the secret part, that tainted everything, and still does now.

mums boyfriend molested me

although there was no *actual* sex, ie penis in vagina, there was enough of everything else.
when it was happening i never told anyone. i often thought, for some reason, about running up the road to the fire station, or perhaps to the ambulance, never once did i think about the police. i don't know why. maybe if i told the police then it was really happening to me.
i managed to get on with my life and do all the normal 13 year old things, and 14, and 15, until at 15 my boyfriend wanted to have sex with me.
it brought it all back up, and i had to tell him about it. he'd be the first person that i told.

once i told phillip, it was easier to tell other people. it opened the flood gates i suppose, and i told sharyn, my best friend, and my other close friends. everyone was really supportive, and we formed a small army that vowed to kill him if it was needed.

since then, i think i've told almost all of my boyfriends who i had sex with. everyone has reacted the same way. upset that it happened, but there for me, and that has been great. but i've never felt the powerful urge to go to the police as much as i have this last year.

after i had my boys, i started to freak out in public places, thinking that i had seen him. i'd only ever had this once before. i'd freeze and my legs would go weak and i would feel as if i would fall to the floor in a puddle.

i needed to be strong for them. i didn't want them to have to see that someone could hurt their mummy so much. they needed me to be brave, and fun.

so i called the police, i told them what he did to me. not what i did, or what happened, what he did to me, because that's what it was. none of this is mine, its all his, and i need to give the blame back to him and start to live my own life without this shit hanging around me. cos its not my shit. it's his shit. no matter how many prettily wrapped parcels he gave me, they were always full of black shit that i kept having to wear, to carry around on my 13 year old shoulders.

now i am giving it back

the police are looking for him, they're looking all over south australia, and they've been really great about it

i feel taller and cleaner already

so i wanted to say thankyou to everyone for being there for me and for encouraging me, and giving me strength. *someone* wrote a thankyou over there in my tagboard, but this one is the one really from me.

thankyou