Why I am who I am
Admin 1 BTC
A lot of you may wonder who I am and why I so vociferously fight for the boys from One Direction, why I expose the music industry and why I speak out about closeting, injustice and abuse. So I’m writing this to share my story as a way to let you see why I do what I do and why I want to see changes in the world so desperately.
Women, and many men, are often subject to sexualisation, sexual assault and abuse at the hands of both other women and males and while there are many charities out there dedicated to helping survivors of abuse, the role society plays in facilitating abusive situation and the constructs of law mean that actually getting help when it’s required is more difficult than most people can fathom.
I grew up with an alcoholic father and a mother who had severe depression and mental health issues. I watched my parents fight and hurt each other both with their words, their hands and use my sister and I against each other. They are still together to this day and while I love my parents, growing up in such a volatile environment has left scars on me to this day. My mum has unpacked trauma from her childhood, as do her siblings as their dad was a violent man towards them and my beautiful gran. What this meant was that she never realised how harmful or unheard her actions made my siblings and I feel, but I know my mum and dad love me, and even though our relationship is much better these days and they adore my kids, there are scars that cannot be healed and wounds that cut too deep to be addressed.
Further to my parents, I grew up in a family of homophobes. Yes, you read that right and while now many of my cousins are out as gay and lesbian, no one was like me, so I stifled the part of myself that was queer until going through therapy at age 38. I’m now out and proudly bisexual, but even that wasn’t an easy journey. The first person I ever told that I thought I was bisexual, told me that there was no way I was and that I would have known if that were the case. This was my former best friend and it really threw me because how could I be bi if my friend, a bisexual herself, told me I wasn’t. It took a few conversations with my therapist, my sister and my husband before I again broached the subject and discussed how I had suffered from internalised homophobia due to the family I grew up in and the time I grew up in as well.
One of the reasons I needed therapy was due to the traumas I’ve suffered through my life and while I have a wonderful, incredible, loving husband who is a great dad and works hard to help me raise our boys, before I was with him there were traumas that happened to me, some I’ve talked about and others I haven’t but I feel okay sharing here.
The first is I was raped at 18. It was my first time and it was my cousin’s then boyfriend's friend. He was seven years older than me and it was our first time even kissing. I told him I didn’t want to have sex before anything started and he agreed. All was going well he held my hands above my head and pushed into me while I still had underwear on. It burned and it hurt and he didn’t stop. I’ll never forget how used and dirty I felt afterwards, but my cousin, her then partner and his other friend were downstairs, none helped me or did anything to make me feel better, in fact my cousin later compounded the trauma by gossiping about it to her aunt who told my aunt who then came to my house, confronted me and told my mum when all I’d wanted to do was forget it happened to me.
I never reported it because even then I knew how difficult it would be to be believed and to get a conviction.
Further I was sexually assaulted multiple times as a young child by a friends older brother and his friends and we’d play mummies and daddies and touch each others genitals and play at having sex— and yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever shared that with anyone. But this was common among these friends and we didn’t know any better so we’d play it with others too. God my heart hurts thinking about our naivety and how innocent we were and I’m so so sorry for not realising what I was doing or what games we were playing. I was way too young to understand anything about what we were doing. Then when I was older I was sexually assaulted at my work by a colleague who used to feel my breasts and joke about how big my ‘tits’ were and I’ve had men touch my ass, one guy putting his hand right up my skirt while I was out on holiday with friends. Lastly, I was also abused by a member of my extended family. He would touch me inappropriately and tried to get me to touch his penis when I was a young girl and he was driving me home.
All of these things have made me into the person I am today and I know that I can’t change the past, but I want to change the future, for myself, for others and for future generations. No one should be sexually assaulted, no one should have their trust broken or be abused by people they should be able to trust. When you have Jess Philips, a Member of Parliament stating that she has been told that two members of the House of Commons have committed rape, and you have multiple people coming forward about a well known news reporters sexual assault, only to see the case dismissed, or when you have a singer bringing her abuser to court to try and get away from him only to be forced to continue to work with him, you realise the world is broken.
Victims of sexual abuse and assault are in the courts treated like criminals and made to recount everything that has happened to them, over and over again. Perpetrators are left alone as victims are asked what they were wearing, what they were drinking, whether they consented at first or whether they said no outright. Silence is not consent, no is not consent and sometimes even saying yes is coerced. When you are raped or sexually assaulted, it’s like you lose a part of yourself, another part of you just withers and to then have people not believe you or make you recount a trauma over and over again is horrific. There needs to be a better system in place to help victims and there needs to be a way to change the narrative from what ‘she’ was wearing to why they person assumed they had the right to have sex with someone without their explicit consent.
Further NDAs should never ever be used as a way to silence victims. I know my perpertrator’s never made me sign one, but I blocked a lot of abuse out because I cared about my abuser, how fucked up is that? I cared more about him than I did about myself and I blocked out my abuse, leaving him free to abuse again and again. I don’t know if he did, but the thought of it happening because I was a coward who didn’t tell makes me feel heartsick. NDAs and buying people’s silence leaves abusers free to continue abusing victims over and over again and not having the courts, the lawyers, the employers ensure that their clients are safe and protected is a symptom of how broken our society is.
People are speaking out about abuses and there are cracks in the foundations, but I wish more people would come forward. I wish that the courts, the law, society itself would protect victims of assault instead of protecting the abuser at any cost. Women who are killed are usually killed by an abusive ex partner, women who are stalked or abused find it difficult to get out and away because society is set up in such a way that they are not believed or helped in the long term.
There has to be a shift in how we deal with assault and there has to be a focus on mental health because many victims like myself often blame themselves for the abuse they have suffered. I know I did. I know I blame myself for allowing my abusers to live their lives and potentially abuse others, but I will fight with everything I’ve got to give victims of any type of assault a voice. I’ll be your voice, because I couldn’t find mine. I’ll fight with you all and for you all because you deserve to have someone willing to fight for you all. You are not alone, no matter how dark things seem, you can survive because you already are and each day you do is a giant fuck you to those who abused you. You are stronger than they’ll ever be which is why no matter what they’ll never win.
This is why I fight. This is why I’ll call abuse, please stand with me, with Katie Waissel, with all others out there and let’s be counted. This is my FORTHERECORD, although I’m not in the creative industries. Katie has given a voice to the voiceless and I want to be as brave as her, as strong as those who are fighting this in the public eye. Please help us. Please help us stop others being abused and call out the entertainment industry for the abusers the protect and the victims they silence.
Silence is complicity and if you are a victim and aren’t ready to share your story with the world, that’s okay, but you can help us by sharing the stories of others. And when your are ready, if you ever are, we’ll be here to raise your voice too. You are already brave. You’ve already won and you are a survivor regardless.
All my love
S
BTC
Add comment
Comments