Daddy's Favourite: An Autobiographical Memoir Of Childhood Abuse

Alone

There are times I wonder if it would have been better if I had never been born. It's a hard thing to think about but the thought is always there. I wonder if the life I live is better to simply never have happened at all. There was a time when I nearly did snuff it out, believing that ending my life then was just as good as never being started at all. The thought of my mum finding me is the only thing that held me back but the thought is still there.

It's tempting. I won't lie about that. To never have to deal with that heavy burden of his twisted pride I carry on my shoulders is like a siren's song to me.

If I wasn't here then there wouldn't anyone he was proud of, there wouldn't have been the one the resentment was shoved at. If I wasn't here, there wouldn't be a need to hate the favourite. If I wasn't here then no one would have to be hated at all besides him. If I wasn't here then everything would be better for my family.

You would think that you would become impervious to those feelings as you grow older. That you could stand tall underneath them but you don't. It still bothers you and it twists something deep down inside of you as you keep your face straight and unmoving.

Being the favourite ruined me but I can't let anyone see just how badly. My feelings about my father don't matter. I wore the cloak of his pride then and I can't shake it off of me now. It is something that I will always be in some of my family's eyes. It is something I can never escape, it is cloying and sticks to me like a tar I can't ever wash off.

So I have to stand in front of them with that stain upon my body and I know I can't pretend it's not there because they can all see it and if I acknowledge it then the resentment flares up once again. I understand why, I truly do, but I am stuck in a place where I can never win and I always lose.

Who wouldn't want to escape that?

It's even worse because I can't truly speak about other incidents in my childhood because that stain covers it all up. I can't talk about how my father's rules made it so easy for my molestation to happen. I can't talk about how being taught to never say no to an adult made me an easy mark, made it easy for adult hands to sneak down my pants while everyone else in the house was sleeping.

I can't talk about it because he drowns it out. I am stuck inside of myself, never truly being allowed to talk about it with anyone because he is always there. He blinds everyone to everything, this I know. I can't talk about how I was affected by the other shit I suffered growing up because he is right there, breathing down my neck, reminding me that I was the favourite and if I tell anyone anything else that is all they will see.

I stayed silent about it for a long time. I did. I kept it all in, let it fester, let it tear me apart inside. I told one person my molestation happened, my mum, and it never happened again but we never spoke of it again, never talked about it. I wasn't sent to counselling, wasn't given tools to help myself work through what I had happen to me.

I know now that what I did in response was natural. I retreated form physical contact. No one was allowed to touch me and I didn't want to touch anyone either. I had a bubble of space that I didn't want violated but I couldn't tell people why, couldn't tell them the reason they couldn't touch me. I was silent in the face of being forced into physical contact that made me want to scream, that made me want to shove people away, that made me want to curl into a ball and hide.

Physical contact grated on me, it grated against my nerves and sent panic fluttering through my stomach and limbs. It was something I needed to control because when I lay on that couch with a male hand in my pants that touched what no grown man needed to touch on a child, I wasn't allowed to move, I wasn't allowed to say no. I had to take it, had to have his other arm wrapped around me tightly as his breath brushed over my cheek as he did as he wished with me.

All I can remember is stale alcohol and sweat. I can't smell either without nearly throwing up, my body panicking and fighting against something that destroyed what little I had left since my father.

These are things I cannot tell numerous people in my family. Some because I cannot bring myself to bring it up because of the burden that rests on my shoulder and the others because I had been requested not to. Because while I love my mum, I adore the woman she is, she has asked me to never tell because some might never forgive her if they learned that she made me live with the man who molested me for six years after he did so.

I resent her for that. It is something deep in my bones that I can't get out. She stopped him from doing it again, yes, but she didn't get me the help I needed. I was seven years old and had been left alone in my trauma. She said she was sorry but that I never said anything else about it, never showed signs I wasn't okay. I understand, her life was hectic, she was trying to sort her own shit out but I resent her because I was stuck, dying on the inside while I had to smile and play nice with the man who tore something deep inside my soul. I had to stay with him, had to look at him and be polite. I had to watch him exist in my life without reprimand or repercussion.

In her search for herself she had forgotten me. For me as a child it was okay. I was used to being ignored and pushed aside after she divorced my father. I was used to being other, used to being pushed aside for the rest due to the burden I carried.

So I did my best to carve my own place out in the cramped and sullied world I found myself in. No one needed to look and no one could touch. I went without willing physical contact for nine years. I didn't touch anyone, hug anyone, willingly for nine years.

I tried to fix myself when I realized it but sometimes things are just too broken for us to fix on our own. Still, I stayed quiet, refusing to speak to anyone about it because if they truly cared I would have been helped before. I would have been taken care of and not left to lick the wounds on my soul alone.