Deep inside of me there is a dark secret from my past that I keep to myself, but as I lay here in the middle of the night unable to sleep my mind wanders and I feel the need to share something very personal about my history...
A long time ago now, things were much different, my mother and father were 'happily' married living together in their new house in Parmelia, which at the time was a brand new release in Kwinana and was still surrounded by bush-land. We even had a beautiful German Shepherd named Shaka-Zulu (stolen from the movie of the same name).
I even remember the light blue LX Torana my dad used to have and would race against his best mate down the back industrial streets all the while Led Zeppelin was blasting out of the stereo. Life was for the most part pretty good* (lots of medical problems not withstanding)
Back then I never really understood why my parent's decided to split up, I knew they argued every now and then but had always figured they would be together forever & despite being told otherwise was certain it was somehow entirely my fault.
I can't quite remember how it worked out, but my Mum, my sister and I stayed in the house for a little while and my dad just left & I barely saw him and didn't really speak to him for a while. Mum started going back to Uni at the time and started making new friends.
Much of my memories around this time are quite hazy, probably due to me just trying my best to forget what happened, but I don't remember how he came into our life but I do remember he was trusted and friendly to me, when at the time it seemed nobody else was.
Over a period of time this friendship grew and he told me how good I was at things, how smart I was and made me feel quite special. As I hadn't really ever had a grown-up friend before I wasn't aware of hows strange this was and when he asked me to do some horrible things, it all seemed so normal...
This carried on for some time (I honestly cannot remember how old I was nor when/how long this happened these days) until I mentioned to my Mum quite innocently some of the 'games' we had been playing.
To say my Mum broke down would be the understatement of the century and to this day I'm certain that she some-how blames herself for the actions of a disgusting man (p.s. mum if you ever read this you're not to blame!)
At the time, I think the worst part was I felt like I was dobbing on my 'best-friend' and what we we're doing was just innocent fun... obviously I know now how silly that is, but it felt horrible having to explain to complete strangers what had happened and I had no idea why so much fuss was being made about it all.
It wasn't long after this event that my father went to the family law courts and requested full custody over my Sister and I, which was soon granted.
I think the main reason I have such difficultly sharing this part of me is that I don't want to be labelled a victim, nor do I wish to bring back any of the horrid memories that surround this period in my life.
For better or worse this is a part of who I am and it has certainly made me grow up very quickly and a few of the closest people I have shared this with have often said that they think I'm a stronger person because of it, some days are definitely tougher than others, but I just do my best to focus on my future and not be defined by my past.
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K
