" Be still, be quiet, don’t move, don’t say a word…or I’ll kill him. Be a good girl now"
I've been working with a CASA worker (Centre Against Sexual Assault) now for a couple of months, she was meant to be helping me until I can transition to a more permanent shrink as I just parted ways with mine after 15 years. The first thing she wanted to know was if I had dealt with the trauma load from my CSA, I looked blankly at her before telling her that I had been told that it was in the past and I should focus on the present as we cannot change what had happened. She became visually annoyed and me being me got ready for a spray, instead she said "So if you break your leg do you just ignore it? Do you assume the pain you have in your leg forcing you to take drugs everyday are unrelated to the injury? Or do you try to heal the leg the best you can and then remove the reason for the need of the pain killers?
You would think this was a pretty simple equation, an easy answer, but for a person who has been to repress and ignore for so long all I could do was burst into hysterical tears. You see it wasn't even that she was willing to look at treating me for the abuse it was the fact her first words were not, Can you prove it? Who was it? Why didn't you tell someone earlier? It couldn't have happened! You have a very active imagination. Or my favourite, is it time for your medication.
I was only around four the first time, it is hazy and disjointed a lot of it didn't make sense to my child's mind and it has taken years of flashbacks, nightmares, addiction, suicide attempts and escapism but I am finally ready to start to share some of what I remember.
I lie in my bed, a little haven in the big world that can hardly be comprehended in my four year old mind, I’m in my safe room, I’m surrounded by my protectors and best friends, my teddy bears and my brother. I can hear him snoring, from the top bunk of the bed beside me, a sound I have had since I was one, a sound that never failed to clam me, making me know I was not alone. Tonight it is accompanied by the music that trickles down the hall way and into our room, I smile as I drift off to sleep to the hits of the 60’s and 70’s, laughter and the occasional loud karaoke.
While it always took a long time to go to sleep, my special skill from the day I was born was I was a heavy sleeper who never wanted to wake, so it was groggily I opened my eyes that first night, not knowing what was going on, I started to panic that something was wrong. It was then the smell hit me, SMOKE! FIRE! Suddenly alert and ready to act as the big friendly fireman bear had taught us, I remember briefly hoping to see a big red fire truck in our front yard like the one that had come to school. While this was going through I head, I got the secondary smell, beer and alcohol in general and I remember going cold.
What had I done? Was there something we could have been in trouble for? Why were we going to be yelled at and hurt, I was doing good sleeping, I wasn’t being at all naughty… It was then he said it in a voice that forever will haunt me, but I can never quite get in enough clarity to identify this man. “Be still, be quiet, don’t move, don’t say a word…or I’ll kill him. Be a good girl now” .
I lay perfectly still, I closed my eyes and tried not to breathe, I tried so hard to be a good girl. I heard his rasping breath, laboured and dirty. I was enveloped in the smell I now know as cigars mixed with beer and alcohol. I tried not to cry, but soundless tears rolled down my cheek as he removed my filly pink floral doona and lift my nightgown. I could feel him staring at me in the golden glow of the night light that was meant to keep nightmares away. I could feel the roughness of his hands over my stomach and undeveloped chest, as his hands moved to my hips then to my inner upper thigh.
I kept thinking of the red fire truck, and hoped he was smoky enough for the firemen to come and rescue me. No one came. His breathing changed and I could hear what sounded like animals growls and started to become terrified that he wasn’t a man but an animal, my body was shaking as I tried to figure out what to do, I turned my head and stared at my bear willing him to help. When he just stopped.
My crutch hurt so bad I didn’t think I would still be able to wee, I didn't understand why he'd hurt me there? It was then while he was cleaning himself up I remembered what my brother had told me about the witches in the toilet. These magical people who could change shape but hid in the toilet would push their wand into your private parts repeatedly until you got off their home, but they only would do it if you stayed on the toilet too long and I was in bed. I thought one might have escaped, mistakenly thought my bed was a toilet! Just as I was starting to put it all together, he spoke again , “good girl, don’t say a word or I’ll kill him”, and felt as my doona was place upon me again.
I didn’t want the witch in the toilet to mistake my bed for the toilet again, but I also didn’t want my brother to die so I didn't tell him that he had mistaken my bed for a toilet, I just stared at the shape leaving my room. I remember hearing the music from the kitchen become louder and hoping it was an adult, thinking they would see the witch and stop him, but instead the music just returned to its gentle muffled noise, that previously helped me to fall sleep.
I was scared to move. The bed where I had wet myself in fear, was now a cold uncomfortable patch beneath me, I pulled down my nightie down from my armpits where he had left it and quietly cried myself to sleep My brother woke me in the morning as usual for a weekend, mornings were a time of scramble eggs if the parents were up or pikelets followed by making them tea in bed after the last cartoon if they were not. Straight away I knew I was in trouble, the bed was still wet and I couldn’t hear any music in the house. My brother started to make fun of me and call me a baby, and I cried, hard. He stopped like he knew something was wrong, and just hugged me. We labouredly stripped the bed and dragged the heavy sheets to the washer (with no soap or softener on god knows what setting) and turned it on. I tried to explain it to him that if I told him why I wet the bed he would die, but I couldn’t explain and he didn't believe me.
After the first cartoon during the boring bit of Saturday Disney, we got out our stools and started making pancakes off the recipe stuck to the wall, it was during this when I needed to go to the toilet that I had my great idea. I went to the toilet, and yelled at the top of my lungs down the toilet. I screamed that the witch had mistaken my bed for the toilet and started to explain how they could tell the difference. Just as I was getting into the details, that only a four year old could think of, I heard something so scary I had my second accident in 24 hours, I had yelled and woken up my mother.
My mother so hung over she looked like one of the villains in the cartoons we’d just been watching came out screaming, yelling, and hitting. She quickly discovered I had wet my pants she grabbed the knees of my tracksuit and pulled, my legs having been pulled from under me left my head bouncing off the floor in an explosion of pain. The next bit is a blur to me but I can surmise enough to know that she found out about me wetting the bed, by our attempt at washing the sheets. My brother had tried to explain I was blaming the toilet witch, and that was what I was yelling about but she wouldn’t listen, she didn't care.
Next thing I knew she had hold of my shoulder and half carried half dragged me to our room and threw me in. She took the mattress from my bed and slammed the door. I lay huddled in the corner of my brothers bunk for a while, again scared to move. Listening for a sign that she had gone back to bed, waiting and hoping my brother would come and save me, he was my hero after all. Finally I tried to open the door, it was jammed. I’d been locked in our room, alone, with no food, abused, in pain and scared.
I never said another word about how I had thought the witch in the toilet had visited me that night. I also refused to ever wear a nightie to bed, until I learned that pyjamas didn’t make you safe and it wasn’t the witch who came to your bed at night but someone much worse.
