No one will believe you

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By Allison Watson

‘Who is going to believe you?’ That’s what my step-mum used to tell me every single time she hurt me. Often with my face mashed against the wall, with her screeching in my ear and her saliva hitting my face, ‘It’s my word against yours and who will believe the brat over me?’ She always abused me when my Dad wasn’t around. It wouldn’t have mattered though, as he also hurt me. Mine was a very dysfunctional family. As sibling number 5, I was born into that dysfunction.

I couldn’t tell anyone

Those words my step-mum used to yell at me stayed with me for years, and it took me until I was close to 40 to actually tell someone. I had been working with a counsellor for a few years on what I thought was a weight issue. Slowly I grew to trust her and I told her. I expected her to hate me because I am bad, I’d always been told that. And yet I saw something else. She showed an emotion that I had had forced out of me, tears.

It was so unexpected. She got upset by what I told her, not because I was bad but because what she was hearing was distressing. I can’t tell you how much that acceptance meant to me. I had been holding something for so long because I had been told I would not be believed, I would not be accepted, they would see the bad in me. It was a revelation. The more people I told, the lighter it became because they all had that same reaction. I expected hate and instead got upset, but more than that, belief. They believed me. She said they wouldn’t and they bloody do!!

People who ‘get’ me

It’s been a little like that launching my blog page, because in doing so I am saying, ‘Yes, I have a mental health problem’. I guess I’ve always hidden it pretty successfully. First by being a workaholic, then by focusing on just my physical health. Then when I went into the Cassel Hospital Personality Disorders Unit for 10 months, I was suddenly with a group of people who ‘got’ me. I could just be me, 100 per cent of me, for the first time ever.

This is no disrespect to anyone, but when you are being abused or have been abused you have many many different sides of you and it’s very rare that you will just let people see you vulnerable. But in the Cassel I didn’t have to be someone. If I was having a down day it didn’t matter. I could just be down, grumpy, miserable. I experienced a massive sense of acceptance there as well. These were all people who for one reason or another had been badly hurt and had found ways to cope. I never had to explain my emotions, they just knew. They have given me a lot of strength to remember that this isn’t because I am bad, it is because of things that were done to me and how I learnt to cope.

Acceptance and support

What I have received is a bit like when I told my counsellor for the first time about what had happened to me. Shock at what had happened, but complete acceptance and support. I have actually found it upsetting; when you prepare yourself for rejection constantly and people accept you, it’s a bit of a shock. I am so grateful for all the comments people have made.

There is a part of me that feels exposed now that I have always kept hidden. And what the people around me are saying, to my surprise, is, ‘We have got you, it’s OK, you’re OK.’ How I wish I had that as a child, but it feels amazing that people accept me for who I am now.