Survivors' Story

            I was sexually abused by my uncle. My earliest memory is of abuse. He continued until I was about 11 or 12. I can’t recall exactly. Some of the memories are vague and some merge in and out of other memories and some are like dreams. I know they are there but when I try to find them they disappear into shadows. I do remember throughout my childhood an acute feeling of something being wrong. I remember a ball of confusion which I carried in my stomach, which got bigger and more tangled with each passing year until I thought it would engulf me. I remember feeling small and insignificant. When I was 8 I started to comfort myself by fantasizing about my death. I would spend hours day dreaming about how free I would be if I was run over by a bus or if I contracted an incurable disease. I started collecting the names of fatal diseases which I kept in my head ready to pull out and hold onto for comfort when I found it too hard to be alive.

            I was 15 when I told my mother what had happened to me. I was terrified she wouldn’t believe me. My uncle was a highly respected GP and an eminent member of the temple community. I was a 15 year old girl always in trouble for not doing my homework. I will always love my mother for listening without a word and then saying “I believe you”. I will always hate how my family reacted afterwards. I begged my mother not to tell anyone as I couldn’t bear the feelings of shame which would make me shake even if someone so much as glanced at me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to face people at all if they actually knew about my shame. My mother told her brothers and sister and the uncle was confronted. He denied it. In his experience as a General Practitioner I was a very disturbed young girl who was in urgent need of help. However he slipped on one of his lies and was forced to admit the truth. My family thought that was the end of the matter. He had made a mistake, he would apologise, I would forgive and we would carry on as before. The matter would not be spoken about again and everyone would be happy.

            My family are Indian and my parents are first generation immigrants. They came to the UK in the late 60s and early 70s from Africa after the expulsions from Uganda. They came to a country that didn’t want them, they faced discrimination and hostility from a country they had always considered as the Motherland. To survive they formed very tight communities and when one of them succeeded in business, medicine, or the law they were held up and paraded to the British as an example to represent us all. My uncle was one of those successes. To discredit one of our success stories would be to discredit us all. I started to despise everything about me that was Indian. I refused to speak the language, I rejected the religion and I cut off all my thick Indian hair. I even started telling people my origins were Mediterranean when asked. I despised looking in the mirror as I saw a fragile looking Indian girl and I wanted to be none of those things.

            I somehow managed to get my GCSEs, my A-Levels and a place at university. By the time I got to university I was filled with rage. I was angry with my mother for betraying me. I was angry with my father for welcoming my uncle back into our house to share our lives. I was angry with my aunt for staying with him. I was angry with myself for being so insignificant. And all of that anger was a small fraction of the anger I felt towards my uncle. I started to drink and I missed all my lectures. At the end of my first year of university I tried to kill myself.

            It was here at my lowest point I started to take control of my life. I realised my parents were not going to take me in their arms and protect me. To them I was expendable. I made the decision that I was not going to think that way about myself. They were wrong, I was not expendable. I made it clear to my family I did not find their behaviour acceptable, I would not be a part of it and I was not prepared to attend family events where my uncle was present. Many of my extended family reacted by ostracising me and openly said I was an insolent girl, a trouble maker and a bad influence on the younger members of the family. But with each decision I made I felt more and more positive about myself and more in control. I decided I wanted financial compensation from my uncle and took the first steps in that process. My uncle was struck off the GMC register and no longer allowed to practise medicine. Although I couldn’t take the credit for that, as he was struck off for other offences, I felt victorious. I started my search for a therapist, five therapists and years later I found one I felt safe with. She showed me how to stop hurting, where to find peace and where to put my rage. She taught me to trust. I no longer feel the shame that crippled me when I was younger. How can I feel something that isn’t mine? I now proudly say my roots are Indian when people ask. I realise I can stake a claim to my Indian heritage without accepting the values of my family. I attend Bollywood dance classes and I’m learning Hindi. Now when I look in the mirror I see a confident Indian woman, with the potential to do anything she wants. Every day I feel privileged to be me.

            I sometimes think about the girl I was a few years ago. I wish the woman I am now could have spoken to her when all she wanted was to slice open her wrists and watch her blood run away from her. I would have listened with gentle understanding and I would have said, “You have a right to your feelings, you are right to be angry, you have a right to your hate. You did nothing wrong and your family behaved badly. But I know these emotions that tear at you can be gone. You can be happy and find peace. When you’re ready put your hand in mine and together we’ll find your path out.”

            I’ll never say those things to that girl because she doesn’t exist anymore but I can say those things to those of you who are still in your pits of despair. When you’re ready, take my hand and together we’ll look for your way out.  

            I chanced upon my uncle a few months ago, I was shocked by how old he looked. I laughed when I saw him because I remembered a conversation I had had with him as a child. He asked me what I would wish for if I had three wishes.
            “Beauty” I said, “I would wish to be as beautiful as Victoria, as clever as Christina and as happy as Claire,” picking out the girls in my class I envied the most.
            “Well, just being beautiful would take up more than three wishes because you would have to change so many things.”
            “Yes, that’s true” I agreed, “what would you wish for uncle?”
            “I would wish for the only things worth having; health, wealth and wisdom.”

I laughed when I saw him because I could see although he was just 60 his health was crumbling away from him, I had dented his wealth and it would take him more lives than this to find wisdom. As I stood before him laughing I knew in my own way I had all those things I had wished for and so much more. I have everything and he is nothing.

By a NAPAC volunteer