Just Love Me - SBS Writing Competition Entry.

 

I grew up with a mentally abusive father. He didn’t know how to raise a daughter and I looked too much like my Mother. 

I felt alone from such an early age. I remember him sitting me on his knee at 7, warning me my uncle might hurt me. My mothers family weren’t safe. 

The white floral dresses he made me wear. The sequin shirts and tracksuit pants that made me get bullied in school. 

I had to be his perfect princess. I wasn’t even allowed to cut my hair. 

One year on my fathers birthday, as I sat in a black leather arm chair with black wooden arms, my father announced we were no longer allowed to see my mothers family and they were separating. I was 9.

I climbed to the top of the stairs that evening to see my mother sitting in a chair my father had built, alone in the dark sipping a tiny glass. 

I don’t think she ever knew I was there. But I will never forget it. For that night changed my life. 

I would sleep with a photo of my Mother under my pillow. I would put it in a paper bag and it made me feel like she was with me.

I saw her very little.

For my 12th Birthday my father was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. 

I remember that night coming home from visiting him and our front door was open. 

My Father and my Nanna convinced me it was my mums family who had broken in and we weren’t safe. 

I can remember my Mother crying at the front door hoping to see us. 

My mothers family bought me the most happiness as a child. I felt loved. My fondest memories. 

The older I got the more I looked my mother. 

My Father would tell me I reminded him of her, all the good and all the bad. 

I was both beautiful like her, and at the same time things I did annoyed him like her. I remember him taking his anger for her out on me. Calling me a ‘“spiteful little bitch” or “your getting nastier like her as you grow up”.

He used to tell me no one would love me. I wasn’t good enough at school, I wasn’t dressed properly. I wasn’t proper enough. I wasn’t enough.

It conditioned me to believe as such.

And my anxiety flourished. 

I was dependent on his and others opinions, criticisms, ideas of what I should be.

My father only became more abusive the older I got. 

Controlling, manipulative and cold. 

It took me a long time to comprehend the impact that this eventually on my life. The way that I saw myself and my worth. 

When I was 16, my Father told me he had a few years left to change me. I was never enough.

I have always gravitated toward men who abuse me in the same way. Men who get pleasure out of taking advantage of my trauma. 

If you see someone covered in scars, what sort of human only inflicts more?

What soul, finds pleasure in inflicting pain?

When I was in my late high school years I had no where to run. My father was abusive at home and rarely let me see my mother. People bullied me in school for being different and opinionated. 

I thought many times about taking my life. Most memorably a knife in the top kitchen draw. I can still remember what the draw looks like. 

I went to sleep at my mums house when I was 17, I never went back home again. 

My first love was my brothers best friend. I had so little self worth and loved him so deeply that using me became natural to him. I can even remember buying him a pocket watch with all the money I had saved. To be respected so little. 

My first relationship was a man 6 years my senior when I was 19. He charmed and groomed me and on the first date and I found myself in his bedroom. 

He was mad at me for being a virgin. 

It lasted 5 months. He told me I was nothing special and he was only with me for sex. 

2 years later I ended up in a relationship. 

The first year was what I imagined a relationship to look like, sex, fun, adventurous, lots of laughter and good company. 

After that it was about the things I wasn’t. 

I stayed in that relationship for 4 years, and when I wanted more commitments he gaslit me into thinking I was too needy. Too vocal. 

He wouldn’t hold my hand, wouldn’t kiss me outside of the bedroom. No affection.

I confronted him twice that I needed more. More affection, more love. Show me. 

I was on the verge of being done. 

I found I was pregnant not long after, sitting in a doctors office alone. 

And I ended up going through my pregnancy alone. 

When my child was born I spent so much of my time trying to still cope with what I’d been through. 

People in my life found me easy to guilt and control. Mostly to get what they wanted. 

Mostly emotional abuse. 

A few months after I gave birth I herniated my spine and spent two weeks in hospital. I couldn’t walk. 

I focused everything I had on raising my child. Being everyone. Keeping the peace. Walking on eggshells. 

When I finally went back to work I felt an element of myself. What do I do now that this is just me? 

Not just me as a Mum, but me. 

I caught the attention of a married man at work. I didn’t notice much at first. He was much older than me and I was naive to the idea. 

When we worked closely he would send me messages to say he cared for me and made inappropriate comments. 

I felt lonely. I’d focused on being a good mother for so long, why did he even notice me? 

Like a spider he groomed me. Slowly enticing me into his web. He got me drunk at after work drinks for my birthday, would ask me for photos, videos, text me at work, flirt. Tell me about his failing marriage. 

6 months later I was accused of harassment. 

A one sided story where he had not been involved in hundreds of messages. Not groomed me, not gaslit me. 

I had two choices. 

Either I could take the blame and leave. Or I could stand up for myself. But that meant exposing my entire private life.  So I stood up for myself. 

My councillor described it as like being “publicly raped every day”. 

All my texts, photos, desires, everything. 

I was shamed, ignored and belittled. 

But I proved it. 

As women we are conditioned to think that we are meant to be pure, untouched. Spoken to but not to speak. Idolized but not allowed to be powerful. 

We must fit the mould of wonderful wives, mothers, daughters, friends. 

Our curves must be in the right places but we must not show them off. 

We must not enjoy sex too much because we might be promiscuous, but we must not enjoy it too little or we are frigid. 

We must not be us. 

I used to want to get married. I used to love the idea of kissing a man on a beach, bare foot, waves hitting my ankles. 

I used to think my happiness lay in someone else’s treatment of me. 

When I became a mother, I felt a power shift. An immense change.

It made me look at myself as that child who was abused.

It made me consider that I wanted to be the person I had needed in my life as a child.

To comfort those who suffered. To just sit with them so they weren’t alone like I was. Someone to listen. Someone to just be. Just sit with me. And be my friend. 

As a grown woman I have three tattoos. One small, two quiet large. I have multiple ear piercings, my hair is cut and I like black and red. A far cry from white floral dresses or track suit pants and sequin t shirts. 

As a mother I have always felt guilty for wanting to be touched. For wanting to be held. To be kissed, to have the warmth of another human being. 

As women we are conditioned to think through fairytales that a man will sweep us off our feet. He will save us. The stories never tell us we should save ourselves. 

Our homes are in ourselves.  

We grow up with our bodies being sexualized and then made to feel guilty when we desire sex. 

A woman is shamed for wanting to be naked, for wanting to feel pleasure. 

Her primal instinct and her need.

And as a mother how dare she have those needs. 

At 30 I realized in my life that my greatest friend is myself. That the me now, can walk into my fathers house and carry the child me out.

That I am now my own protection, my own safety. 

I am something special, I am worthy of the love my father told me I would never receive. 

I am not my fathers image, nor am I anyone else’s. 

I stood up for the single mother who was prayed on at work by her superior, the child who was told be here father she was a bitch. 

The child who was thrown out doorways.

The child who was raised by a man who didn’t know how to have a daughter.

I fight for her.

People will tell you as a woman to be less sexual, to be less opinionated, quieter, prettier, the yin and the yang of life. You must be never too much or too little of anything. 

And I call bullshit. 

Whatever they’ve told you to be, whoever they’ve made you become to hide yourself, to be their version, 

Set fire to her. 

The most important thing in life is to remember who you truly are. Your not defined by your parents, your job, your family, your clothing, your appearance.

You are defined by who you are as a soul. 

It doesn’t matter if no one accepts that. 

So long as you do. 

You are enough when you wear a short skirt, when you desire the touch of a man. When you play with your child or have a night off. When you balance work and home life. When you beat yourself up for missing something. When you stand up for yourself. When you enjoy self pleasure, or the pleasure of a man. 

When you speak up, for yourself or for others. When you walk around naked. 

When you love yourself. 

You are enough. 

So set fire to HER.