the flower that grew without water

Trigger warning: Before reading this post, please be aware that it contains references to rape, childhood rape, and other forms of sexual assault and abuse.

The voice I have now did not always exist, after all my innocence was snatched from me by my own father. For many their earliest childhood memory might be a happy family going on a day out or going out on dinners, now don’t get me wrong my childhood does involve going out for dinners and to the world we was just any other ordinary family but only me and my siblings knew the actual truth of what this “ordinary family” underwent. My earliest childhood memory was of my dad beating my mum up for a reason that is a blur – all my mind does have access to is cuddling with my siblings and seeing them cry whilst trying to oppress my own feelings. Hearing my mum say call the police but being helpless and not understanding what that meant the guilt still entraps me till today. I was only 5. My life was always a rollercoaster in the literal sense that we didn’t know what to expect but what we did not would one day come to a halt because our father told us from very young “he would leave when we are 18”.

My biological father was a character that manipulates others to idolise him to be this innocent man trying to raise his children. My mother has epilepsy and was unable to cook and he took the responsibility of that on but only by punishing my mum on a daily basis for it. Swearing at her – emotional abuse which society fails to recognize that she underwent for 17 years. She would have seizures and he would rape her infront of me and my siblings the hardest moments are the moments i tried to walk away but he made me stay and watch, i would try to protect my siblings by keeping them away from it as much as i could only for my youngest brother to witness it during the night. My dad would rape my mother when she least expected it, she would be frozen in fear and looking directly at her children whose tears she couldnt wipe away because he had more power then her. When will society see that just because they were married does not mean she consented,when can a woman who is in a seizure agree to such things? Slowly everyday the damage was being done to her brain and we were losing our mother both mentally and psychically. Because she was there but not there. She was stuck in her own little world questioning her existence daily, nobody to tell her that it will all be okay and her staying strong for her three little children. While people might of been normal to the sound of music in my household the only normal we had was my parents arguing and swearing and the punches she received.

Whilst destroying my mum and taking the capability for her to recognize danger, my dad began to groom me, he would fill my head with stuff about my mother and tell me i have to win his love for me, innocent child i was i wanted to have the same love that the male figures in my life gave to their children i wanted the same acceptance. He groomed in the sense he would buy me gifts and take me out even give me money. He knew the one thing I wanted him to stop was to stop making my mum cry and he used it against me. Waking me up at night to rape me. Telling me if it’s not me he would go hit my mum. He would become this monster when he was abusing me. I thought it was normal because “my dad is doing it” only for him to tell me if it is not him it’s going to be his friends. That was my biggest fear as a 9 year old and as it continued till 11 the abuse only became worse. He would do stuff that would make me vomit, show me videos that scared me. He would rape me and i could hear my mum and my siblings downstairs watching t.v. I wished the abuse would end, when i realised something isn’t right, I prayed somebody would save me. When I would bleed from the abuse he would tell me I started my period but the bleeding would stop the next day. I remember him washing my clothes separately to my siblings eventually using the laundrette. There would be times i would pray for him to just touch me rather then rape me because the pain was bearable. During Ramadan he would use that to his advantage and abuse me, when I would cry he would laugh at me.

My biological father would make me do things identical to the videos he showed me… my innocence was being taken from me. All I could do was allow it because I wanted my parents to be together. I used to wet the bed till the last moment of the abuse and till he left when I was 11. That is not the day I was freed from the abuse – because mentally he stayed in my head. I still am not free from him. He’s not here physically but menally he breathes in my head everyday through flashbacks and nightmares. I began self harming when I was 12 to take out his dirty blood, to punish myself because I felt it was my fault. My family could not believe me straight away, they didnt for a long time now they do, the only people who supported me throughout was my grandparents who did not doubt me for even a second… My case was told “lack of evidence” now I could have let that become my defeated loss. But I did not, I used my experiences and this trauma I endured to my success.

You heard my past and now hear my present. I am working with four services to improve the quality of their service in terms of mental health and wellbeing support. I work as an interviewer for four services and am part of the voice that recruits the people in the most top roles including band 8b. I am also part of the independent youth advisory board and a young advocate for policing in my borough to ensure social justice is achieved for young people. I am also a mental health first aider. I with such advirisy passed my exams with grades like A** I am also a spoken word artist with a 7 episode film and published in a book and online. I am an aspiring forensic psychologist with nothing to lose for, because my life is nothing but a comedy to people who still support the man who ruined my existence and my mothers who unfortunately will never be the same women she was before 17.

I started my fight alone with social services, the police, the law, the police, my primary school failing me, and along the way gained people who supported me throughout,I fought in a brutal world to become something other than a statistic of children who have been abused and did nothing with their life. I am bigger and stronger and living proof no matter what happens you’re not alone and hope is real.

I am a flower that grew without water, my childhood had no love in it. i hope one day i can be all the things my abuser never thought i could acheive.

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Laiba

i am a fighter for justice.