Happy 2013 Grommit.
One question...
Do you have his new wife's email address?, actually perhaps that's a bad move (although, doubtless one day she'll find it helpful to know someone who can share the horror that she will likely face), the positive thing is that you can...and have moved on. Really pleased for you.
I know both her Facebook accounts and my fathers, I sent it to all three and sent a paper copy to their address. I also sent a copy to my cousin from his side of the family, who have no clue what he had done.
My reason for making it public was to start the healing process. Arch can tell you that It's something that has always affected me and held me back. In a way I feel robbed of my childhood, something that should be a happy and fun time. My sister and I were nice, kind, polite children, but our father and to some extent our mum, made us out to be monsters and would dole out punishment. I haven't gone into what they did, I can forgive my mum, sometimes you have to try and protect yourself when faced with that level of abuse.
It wasn't until I had counselling from a good councillor that I began to realise that my life was very much like the averts you see on the TV, the one where the chap aggressively says "I'm all right, leave me alone". They then trace his life back to his childhood.
Most of what we went through happened behind closed doors, no one ever came to help when we screamed for help. We were little children, the walls in our house were thin. I will never understand why people turned a blind eye and chose not to help?
Someone posted on the forum once that they heard children being shouted at on a regular basis and were unsure whether to tell social services. I want people to see that it does have an affect on you as an adult, when you live with that level of abuse. It's wrong as an adult to ignore a child's suffering.
When we were looking after my mum, the kids next door, all under the age of 10 were being shouted at daily for doing the smallest thing wrong. This wasn't the "No little so and so you shouldn't be doing that", this was the full on violence that we were doled out as children. My mum was afraid that if I reported the parents, that they would be violent to her, so I waited until mum died. What made it worse was that I had a conversation with the oldest child, I didn't start it she talked to me. She was a very polite little girl, just like I was all those years ago.
Social services thankfully were going to do something about it as someone else had also informed them. I hope for the children's sake that they put them into care and given a loving home. But I'm afraid that the damage has already been done to them.
I'm going on a bit sorry. I have my reasons for posting the letter publicly on the forum. If it helps people to come to terms with what they have been through then that is good. Most of all It makes me feel better, as it's no longer kept behind closed doors to bite me in the bum like it has done in the past.
Thank you for all your kind words
Debz
