I was born in the late 1960s into a family with a mum and dad and an older sister. My entry into the world was a little fraught. My mum had pre-eclampsia, a condition that can threaten both the mum and the baby’s lives. Mum was in hospital and was bed bound for most of her pregnancy. I remember her once telling me that she lay in a darkened room and the nurses and doctors would not even let her doing any knitting for the new arrival.
My dad would visit her every day. We had no car at the time so he would catch the bus to go and see her. The situation was so bad that the doctors asked my mum: “Are you sure you want this baby?” to which my mum replied: “Of course I do.” They wanted to induce me on Friday, 13th but my mum was very superstitious and begged them to leave it another week. So I was born into the world on Friday, 20th. Being premature, I was transferred to an incubator and I recall my dad saying that when he first saw me I was grey in colour and was being given oxygen. He said my heart was thumping away so my feeling is that I really must have wanted to live. I don’t know how much I weighed or how premature I was. I stayed in hospital for several months and my mum, once she was discharged, and dad would travel on the bus every day to see me. I recall my mum saying that I slept a lot and she had to tickle my feet to keep me awake when she was feeding me. My mum also said that I used to snuggle into her when she was holding me.
That nurturing response was evident from my parents, especially my mum, from the start. Looking back, that was such a huge blessing that for maybe the first 12 months of my life, I was loved and cared for in an appropriate way. These things make a massive difference to little ones. I have recently been looking through some old photographs of me as a baby. They show a happy, smiling baby who is obviously being well cared for and loved. That is compared to photographs of me aged around two years where I look the exact opposite of cared for. In these photos my body language says it all. I look completely forlorn, completely broken emotionally. So, what you might say, caused the change? The answer to that is that I had become a victim of child abuse. Even more sad is that this abuse took place with my parents’ knowledge. Years later, during one of many counselling sessions I have had, my counsellor at this time said something that was a revelation to me at the time. He said that it is the responsibility of adults to keep children safe. This truly was a revelation to me at this time as I recalled that I had never felt safe as a child. The reason why I never felt safe was that I was taken on numerous occasions to be abused either indoors or outdoors, sometimes in freezing cold conditions, in a really cruel manner by a child abuse ring. How any human being can do this to another human being, let alone a little child, simply beggars belief. The details of the cruelty I endured at the hands of these abusers is, to be quite frank, not fit for publication.How my parents were drawn into this situation where they had felt no choice but to allow this to happen, I do not know. But I guess that with any cult there is a level of grooming that takes place. You don’t start becoming involved with something like this, knowing the full details of what will be taking place, you are groomed little by little. And by the time my parents discovered what it was all about, they found themselves in a position where they felt that there was nothing they could do. To say that this childhood trauma impacted me is a real understatement. I was totally broken and it really affected my quality of life. Over the coming months, I hope to share with you more of my story and the things that have really helped me over the years. I hope and pray that, whatever your situation or story, they help you too.
Feathers from Heaven 