Aberdeen

How many people can remember the first life changing lie they told? I can.

In a time of weekly Bunty editions, when I was content making mud pies in the garden with my wellies and a red tartan dress as my everyday clothes (Gotta love 80's fashion on a small child!). I was sitting on my parents coffee table swinging my legs because they didn't reach the floor. I remember seeing vague reflections on my scuffed black patent dressy shoes, and trying to pull my socks up despite being told not to fidget by my hovering mother.

I felt silly all dressed up, it wasn't even a school day and I was still wearing my most hated shoes, but today had been a strange one. There had been muffled yelling and everyone seemed tense and here I was alone with everyone's eyes on me. This strange woman with a really long floaty skirt was bent over me asking me questions, and my mum and her kept reassuring me that it was fine I wasn't in trouble.

Yeah right like I was going to believe that! Someone was in trouble, and I was the only one in the room. Dad was really quiet, on the other side of the room, he wouldn't look at me or talk to the lady. I had to have done something wrong, and I knew what it was. I wasn't daft, despite what the kids at school said, so I lied. I never looked up from my shoes, I just lied and hoped it was enough for them to leave me alone.
That lady was a social worker and this was the D-day of my childhood, one I still regret. Perhaps if they had talked to me about what was happening, perhaps if I had been alone. But I didn't want my parents to hate me and I definitely didn't want to get taken away and put into an orphanage. Realistically all I needed was one on one time with a specialist, away from the judging looks of my parents and my sisters glued to the other side of the door to find out what bad thing I had done.

God dammit, here goes nothing.

I was sexually abused from the age of about 5 until my brother was taken into care when I was about 10. This was what the questions were for. I don't know how they found out. Did he boast to them, or did his friends, did my parents suspect? The burning question for me was did I give it away, wasn't I happy enough, didn't I hide it well enough? I felt like I'd failed, and there was a punishment if I told anyone or anyone found out. Didn't they see? They were going to make it much worse, for all of us.

My half brother had promised that if I didn't tell anyone it would only be me, if I kept quiet my sisters would be left alone. It was ingrained in me that it didn't matter if I fell out with them I had to look after them and keep them safe. So I did. And I was so jealous of them.

I put veg under the table and blamed it on my sisters, I denied all knowledge of how my mud pies smelt of mums Chanel perfume and how the bottle ended up in a tree. I said I wasn't scared of Watership Down, I said I didn't mind changing schools. I said I had friends, I said I wasn't bullied.
But this was it: THE lie. The one that changed everything for me. One sentence that shaped the people pleasing fool I am today into an embittered emotional wreck.