I am in that dark place once more. The place I promised myself I would never venture to again, not even to look at from a distance while the rest of the world falls apart around me. But aren’t promises always made to be broken? I knew it would only be a matter of time before I woke up and found myself drowning again.

Once you’ve been to the dark place, I think you are always within its unflinching grasp. I find myself hiding from it, pretending, wishing I had never seen it… but I know it’s there. Deep down inside I can feel it reaching for me, beckoning me back with its long spindly fingers. Waiting, like a ravenous beast, for some small complication to surface. Prowling, until he can clamp his ferocious jaws around it and somehow manage to transform it into the deepest tragedy of my life.

Powerless. I hate him. Paralysis clouds my mind, making it impossible for me to fight back, to stand up and regain control of my life. Instead I have to listen to him; the voice which constantly shouts over the top of my thoughts, spiralling me into a state of confusion and delusion. I cannot define reality from illusion and he loves it. He makes me suffer by telling me how selfish and pathetic I am. He has opened my eyes and made me realise that everything is my fault. Maybe he is right. Am I merely a burden, a liability in society? Perhaps the world would be better without me.

Guilt. Guilt is what traps me in this silent world of self-hate and depression. Obsession. Spending every moment fixated with what people think of me, the way I act, the conversations I engage in. It’s starting to wear me down. Being around people has become an impossible nightmare. I can feel their judging eyes, taste their bitter comments as they try to lull me into a cradle of false security. Every move I make is detected, every word spoken is recorded, every smile, frown and tear categorized. They make me feel like a criminal, a prisoner in my own mind. The whole world is busy surveying me, probing deeper, intent on penetrating my mind until I break and confess everything. I don’t want to be sought after, hiding from the world. Why am I the one being pursued? No crime has been committed through my hands but I have experienced unthinkable acts. My naive childhood vision was blurred by the dull reality that life is not as innocent as teachers and parents make out to young children. All of life’s impurities were thrown at me in one night and from then I had a different view of the world. Bad people did exist and anyone could hurt me. Even the people I least expected.  I was not going to allow myself to be exposed to anymore pain and so I locked myself away inside my head, allowing the fairies to guide my way. I’m still trapped there now, but the fairies are long forgotten. They let me down when I needed them most, abandoned me when I cried at night, but all my life I have struggled on my own.

There was a period in my life when everything changed. I was strong and independent; a career was waiting ahead of me but nothing lasts forever. Dreams are crushed and hopes painfully shattered. When I look in the mirror I see a familiar stranger, a ghostly reminder of a forgotten child, a fragile memory kept hidden in the shadows of the night. Two hollow eyes, full of secrets, stare back at me with pity.

Pity is all I’ve come to know from family and close friends. They try to relax around me, try to establish a comfortable atmosphere but I can see in their eyes that they are afraid; afraid I’ll fall to pieces if anyone makes an insensitive comment amid the long, awkward silences. I do appreciate their care and wish I could express my feelings towards them, but I’m scared. Fear brings with it a sense of uncertainty. Will I make a fool of myself or disappoint them? Will they let me down? Sometimes they treat me like a little child who’s forced to listen through closed doors. Muffled voices discuss and plan what to do next in a vain attempt to pull me back to life.

My isolation from family has caused me to move deeper into my head, creating a barrier between what was left of reality and the world inside my mind. When I’m in my dark place the only person I can trust is myself. No one understands what I feel inside and everybody has given up trying to understand. I won’t let them get close enough to try. Fear of rejection has made me realise that if I remain distanced from everyone then nobody will get hurt, especially myself. I couldn’t handle the pain and humiliation of being unwanted by the people around me. Again.  It is easier to live inside my head than to start something that will only end painfully. I don’t want anyone else to suffer because of me; they have already sacrificed too much. This is my battle and I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve placed them on the front line.

Physical and mental scars make it impossible to forget my traumatic childhood. I hate knowing that I failed, that I was too weak to help myself. All my life I have experienced failure on a daily basis. I dread waking each morning, afraid of the mistakes I will inevitably make throughout the long, unforgiving day. Minor tasks stand like savage mountains in my way, impossible to overcome because of my desperate fear of failure.

What is fear? Is it an irrational mind game that focuses on destroying the weak and vulnerable? When I was exposed to pain and raw emotion, fear choked and blinded me making it impossible to think rationally. Maybe if I hadn’t been so afraid I could have stopped what was happening to me. Even as a child I knew what he was doing to me was wrong but he made me believe it was my fault. He was punishing me for a reason, which I could not and still cannot work out. All I had ever done was try to please my Uncle Harry so why did he do that to me, the man who destroyed my life and managed to carry on as if nothing had happened. I wish it were as easy for me to forget. I’m the one left with the memories, the scars, and the humiliation of what he did to me.
 
I adored Harry as a child, he was around when I was born and as I grew he took me everywhere. I became his shadow, always walking in his footsteps. Now I’m hiding in the shadows, wishing mum and dad had been home that night, wishing they hadn’t asked him to baby-sit me. If they hadn’t left me, maybe he wouldn’t have come into my room that night and the next night and…Oh God I hate him. For six painful years he abused me, and he made me feel like it was my fault. His hands were like razors on my skin, poisoning me, infecting my veins, tearing the innocencefrom the seven year old girl who still believed in Santa and fairies. Every hand on my thigh sent a blow to my heart; every kiss added an unbreakable layer of numbness to the admiration I once held inside for him. Every time the floorboards creaked and my bedroom door handle turned, I prayed the fairies would take me to a magical world, a sanctuary where I could be the child I was supposed to be.

Hearing his footsteps approaching made me tightly close my eyes, frantically praying to God, I begged him to send my Guardian fairy. With my eyes closed I could imagine my magical sanctuary, there were no tears there. I was free, free to be a child, to have fun without the memories of what was happening at home. I lived inside my head, a dream world created in desperation. Every night I wished my fairyland was real but the pain always dragged me violently back to the reality of what he was doing.

Silence. Darkness. Fear…

I’m drowning again. Sinking into oblivion. The result of too much time spent replaying the terrible days and nights from my past. I question myself constantly and cry when I cannot come to a rational answer. At night, drifting in and out of consciousness, I pray for peaceful sleep. Instead I wake shaking in the dark with tears staining my face. Delusion fills my mind and I see images in the soft moonlight. My heart beats like a thousand drums crashing at once. With wide, tear filled eyes, I search the room only to find it is empty and I am alone. It was only another nightmare. That doesn’t change the way I feel inside though. My head is pounding from exhaustion and anxiety and a familiar sick fear rises in my stomach. When will all this end? More questions run through my confused mind: Did I do everything I could to stop him? Was it really all my fault? Why did he do it? I used to ask God these questions every night when I lay in my bed but I lost my faith in him when my hope died and reality detached from my life.

I convinced myself for so long that one day my Uncle would wake up and see that I was hurting; that what he was doing was wrong. Surely he couldn’t hurt me forever…could he? I’m still waiting now.  I thought he would eventually tire of the touching, thought he would get bored of my pitiful whimpering as he crushed my frail body. But he didn’t. Instead he started beating me as well as abusing my young body. As I got older, he found new ways to punish me. Blamed me for being too provocative, gave me more bruises and more confusion to add to the weight, which already held me down. He touched me and I bled tears, tears full of anger, fear and hate. I guess it was my fault he became more threatening. I allowed him to get away with it. I hid the bruises, refused to cry in front of my parents and pretended I was the happiest girl in the world, and they believed me. Why did they believe me?!? I was their little girl; they should have known something was wrong! They should have realised I was crying inside, they should have noticed the scores of cuts and bruises I kept underneath my clothes. That’s what parents are supposed to do. Look after their little girls. Keep them safe. Protect them from the monsters. Why didn’t you protect me from the monster in our home mum? Why didn’t you save me daddy? I needed you so much and you didn’t notice me did you?
 
As the long years dragged by I realised I was on my own. If my own parents didn’t notice, then who could stop my monster? I became dependent on my God, my saviour; He was the only person I could talk to; the only one who would listen to my pleas for mercy. Every night as I lay in my bed I would ask him to save me from this hell on earth and every morning I would wake up and hope that He had answered my prayers. He never did.  A fist would deny all of my hopes. Soon, even my God- once my only sanctity through the dark times was lost. He had been my last hope when I realised my parents were oblivious to my suffering, but he too abandoned me just like my precious fairies.
   
Maybe one day I will find my God again, but before I can do that I have to find myself. I must let the little girl inside me move on, to forget my lost childhood. I need to forget him, to live my life, but he’s constantly in my head. I’m hiding in the darkness, locked inside a petrified 13 year old who is searching for a flame which was blown out long ago.