One very stormy summers night

My father and I have a tumultuous relationship! He, being set in his ways, always thinking himself right. I, on the other hand, think him manipulative, both mentally and psychologically!

As I leap backwards in time to my most horrible memory, I realise that I was never what people deemed a ‘normal’ seventeen-year-old. A major portion of my life remained undisclosed. After, what was then, several years of sexual abuse by the hands of my paternal grandfather, my self-esteem and body image on a whole, understandably, suffered.

Back then, I had yet to be diagnosed with a mental health condition as I was shut down and withdrawn, not allowing anyone access into my ‘real’ lifelong nightmare!

I remember one very stormy summers night in particular! I was finding sleep problematic, the wind and rain hurtling itself with gusto against my bedroom window, keeping me from the nightmares that invaded my dreams. I got out of bed to use the toilet when my mother called me into my parents’ bedroom.

‘Tell her!’ she said, using those same two words repeatedly until the ultimate change in my father presented itself. ‘I’m having an affair!’ he informed me, the repetition of the words plaguing my consciousness. I pinched my arm to assure myself that I was indeed awake and present in that particular moment. I had no inkling, the news hitting my stomach like a ten-ton weight being dropped into it. I felt sick and was unable to articulate the disgrace of his actions, uttering simply, ‘you bastard!’

After exiting the toxic environment without explanation, I descended the stairs and sat in the kitchen, noticing every mark and scratch on the surface of the table, doing everything in my power not to pay heed to the revelation which ultimately destroyed my family.

I heard a gentle knock on the door, closely followed by my father, who I hadn’t verbally granted access to the space I had claimed as my own! As he maintained the mortgage payments, he had as much right as I did to be in the room, more even! I was determined to not let him phase me and continued looking at the marks on the tabletop.

‘Will you talk to me?’ he enquired. I refused to express my feelings towards him pertaining to the affair! I brushed past him and ran upstairs, back to the wind and the rain, sleep eluding me, my mind too busy wrapping its head around the new and surprising information!

As I lay there, staring at the ceiling, counting the glow in the dark stars that were stuck to it, I wondered how he could manage such a life changing omission of guilt for so long? And then to have the audacity to seek me out to talk! It clearly should have been my mother that he needed to have a lengthy conversation with!

I remember that to be the very first time I mutilated my own body, using a corkscrew to make the gaping hole that no one needed to be privy to! It was yet another subject I kept secret!

The next day, I recall saying goodbye to my father for what I believed the last time. He left early that morning, only to return, three days later with his tail between his legs. He continued the pattern of leaving on a Friday, only to return on the Monday, full of apologies and regret.

I remember clearly sitting him down on the sofa in the playroom after the third time of what I believed a pattern and told him he had two choices! He could either stay…permanently or leave for what would be deemed the final time! I kept my composure in the situation, not raising my voice or showing the man any emotion, which was exactly what I felt back then. Our conversation lasted well over an hour, my father contemplating the gravity of the situation for what I perceived to be the first time, shock at my audacity in me making him choose whether he desired to stay in the family unit, which I guaranteed would remain regardless, verses fleeing into his girlfriends’ open arms.

At the time, my father’s whole demeanour had changed. He was more irritable and short tempered and it wasn’t until he revealed his true colours that it became apparent as to why!

My mother, unwilling to comprehend what turned out to be the final goodbye longed for him to return, girlfriend or not, as she was still as infatuated with him then as the night they met! She was unaware of our little conversation and turned to drink to numb the pain of the ultimate betrayal. Once Thursday arrived, with no sign of my father, him still keeping his promise to me, devastation struck for the final time as she realised, he had left, never to return.

I remember feeling pity towards her. Her disappointment in choosing the wrong suitor obvious, but she always was grateful towards my father as he presented her with the two greatest gifts a mother could ask for, myself and my brother.

If I stand back from the situation, realising she would have put a stop to his antics sooner or later, I don’t regret our conversation and me ultimately asking him simply to choose. It was a choice I would have never been able to predict, but then again, my father walked on water in my eyes back then. He was my idol, the role model I desired to become.

As the days past, then the weeks and finally the months, my rate of my self-mutilation grew. Once I hit four or five times a day, believing the blood to be my problems being expelled from my body, my mom found out and rang the GP. She acted accordingly and presented me in the local A&E, where I got stitches in two of that day’s mishaps, and antibiotics for a wound that was beginning to turn green.

I remember a vision approach me in the waiting room after being assessed by the triage nurse. It was my father, a man I had very little contact with for months! My mother called him just before we left the redbrick, semidetached dwelling called home, as mobile phones were too expensive back then for me, and my mother was adjusting her budget constantly, trying to juggle the bills, amongst other things.

My parents, in the same room for the first time since my father vacated the building, still had no clue as to what problems I was trying to let bleed out. Upon his insistence, I was placed in a hospital, the same hospital I am going backwards in time, divulging the details of my parents’ separation to you from.

I did expose my grandfather, years later, for the paedophile that he was, but he died before I ever came close to justice. That was of course the situation I yearned to release from my body using self-harm. The years coming up to my declaration of the abuse were grim. I have had my neck stitched up twice, my wrists even more! I am still sitting here however, recalling a very tough situation I was put in back then.

If I was to go backwards in time, I wouldn’t change a thing! Well…I would have liked to have discussed the abuse earlier, but that’s another story!