19
I was born in Saltburn, which is near Redcar. When I was four we moved from there to Marske, which is just up the road. It’s round the corner from where the Tees estuary ends and the open sea begins and beyond are the Yorkshire moors. Marske consists of row after row of bunglalows with neat front gardens facing the grey north sea and to me it felt difficult to separate the greyness of the sea from feelings I had about myself.
The husband of my mum’s friend sexually abused me from when I was eight until I was ten. I didn’t tell my mum until I was seventeen. I suppose I thought she would go a bit mad, maybe go round there and get hold of him - he lived nearby in Marske - but she didn’t do anything. It wasn’t she didn’t believe me but she didn’t want to stir things up. Marske is a small place where everyone knows everyone else and she didn’t want a fuss. That’s how it seemed anyhow.
I know all about the connection between my heroin addiction and the abuse. I know I take drugs to block out my childhood. I also need to blank out my memories of what went on between my parents. I remember when I was small there was a stairway with no carpet and I remember cutting my finger. I remember my dad in the kitchen doorway screaming because my mum was in front of him holding a knife and threatening to cut her own throat. My dad used to hit my mum and sometimes he hurt her so badly she had to go to hospital. It wasn’t that he was drunk but just that he was a violent person. I sympathise with him in a way because he had the same sort of childhood as me: his dad was a violent man like him. I want it to be clear I love him but also that I can’t forgive him.
I started using heroin when I was eighteen when I was working at Just Hair in Redcar. Within a few months my doctor put me on a methadone script. That was thirteen years ago and nowI’m on a higher dose. I should’ve got off it straight away and through the years I’ve tried to reduce the dose, but I’m frightened of using heroin and I suppose I’m frightened of being on my own. I’m quite stable now, though that hasn’t always been the case. I had a few chaotic years during which I stole things to pay for my heroin and when I was caught I went to Low Newton. I served seven sentences there in all. I didn’t mind prison all that much but it didn’t help me either. I’m not sure I should’ve been allowed to stay on methadone all this time. Someone should perhaps have put more pressure on me to get off it; but there again maybe that would just have led to more chaos. I want someone to tell me what to do - maybe to go to hospital for a week and be looked after while I go through the withdrawal. I would need someone to be with me and to look after me and I can’t think who that might be.
Every now and again I’ve tried to talk about my childhood but it just ends up with me crying. I’ve never managed to get through the crying and out the other side. A few years ago I had a probation officer who was kind to me. I saved her dog’s life when it ran into the road. She was new to the job and perhaps that was why she had so much to give. She persuaded me to go the police about the abuse I suffered, but I couldn’t face going to court so I let it drop. Anyway, I’m not sure that would make so much differerence to me. I think talking to someone would make a difference, but I’m not sure I can do it and I’m worried I would go through the pain of it and find I was still in the same place afterwards.
I sometimes wonder whether we decide anything very much for ourselves or whether everything is already decided by those who’ve gone before. I’ve never felt I’ve had much room for manoeuvre.
