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Family

When It Goes Wrong

By J CPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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I was always told family should stick together. Family should support each other and also family should trust each other.

I learnt a long time ago, that trusting anyone was wrong.

This is my story. I was born in the summer of 1989 to a young couple whose lives changed. My mum was fresh out of high school and my dad had just started his first year at college. They both were as loving as they could be. In 1992, my cousin then came to live with us which meant I had someone to play with.

Aged six it all changed. This was the first experience I had of my dad breaking a bone in my body. I still don't know to this day if I truly deserved it but as a six-year-old who lost a baseball game, was this the correct punishment?

For the next ten years, I was repeatedly hospitalised for broken bones. All of which was never investigated by anyone. I could have said something but when your dad is the one doing it and your mum is so focused on her alcohol and pills, who would have believed me?

As the years went by, my cousin installed cameras in the house which were hidden from sight. She told me later that it was for my own protection. Especially after my dad stabbed me in the stomach. This was the time that an outsider was made aware of what was happening. What did she do? As a nurse, she stitched me up but never said a word to anyone. I guess I couldn't blame her because my dad had a way of making people listen and be scared of him.

At the age of 16, I finally had the confidence to take my father down. The reason, my best friend Damien. He knew what had happened to me but even when he pushed me, I still never had the courage. Until the day he died. My best friend lay dying after being involved in a fight and getting stabbed. I lay beside him, holding him whilst waiting for an ambulance but it was too late. As my best friend let his last breath go, he begged for me to finally fight. So I did and using the camera footage, took it to the police and reported my dad. He was arrested and I was placed into a temporary residential placement. During the case, I was questioned over and over. Finally after 18 months, he was found guilty of 27 cases of abuse. Four years in prison!!! He was sentenced in 2006, released in 2008.

I never saw him again after he went to prison. Except when I received a call telling me he had died in 2010. I visited him at the chapel of rest and then stood alongside family to bury him. This was my letting go and now I know, no matter what. I survived.

I haven't seen my mum since 2007. I now pick my own family.

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