I wasn’t sexually abused but it doesn’t make the abuse I experienced any less.
My loving Mum passed away when I was 11 making my Father my sole caregiver.
He was the only parent I had left, and I could not lose him too despite the emotional abuse.
I learnt to dissociate as a coping mechanism. Present in my body but exiting my mind when the environment was too overwhelming to process. I learnt to live with the unacceptable.
The abuse has always been very well disguised. There are two sides to my Father: charming and loving “victim of fate” to the outside world and manipulative, lying, verbally abusive maniac inside.
There was a bin emptied onto my bed because I forgot to put the bin bag inside.
I was told that it would be better if my brother or I died instead of my Mother.
I was encouraged to jump off the balcony of our 11th floor flat.
Then I was offered food. Like nothing happened.
I escaped the life I was “living” in Poland just as I turned 18 and I moved to London.
