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JESSIE'S STORY
I was born on the 19 April 1984. I lived in Nairn with my Mum and Dad.
Life was good up until I turned eight and my Dad changed from a loving father
into someone who hated his two eldest children. He would beat us for no reason
at all - we couldn’t speak without him hurting me and my younger brother. My Mum
wasn’t aware of this as he would wait until she had gone out to bingo. This went
on for about four years until it got too much for me to handle. I couldn’t keep
taking beatings off him to protect my younger brother.
While living at home with my Mum and Dad, I went out one Halloween and
while I was walking through the woods to go trick or treating I was ambushed
from behind and raped. Because this happened it made me late home. I tried to
let my Mum and Dad know what had happened but he was so angry at me being late
that he would not listen to me and just punished me and sent me to my bed.
After about a year, I just couldn’t keep going. In the end I had no
other option but to tell my Mum who then got in touch with the social workers
about what had been going on with my Dad. After seeing them she left my Dad and
we moved to Glasgow. My life was really good while living in Kilwinning,
Ayrshire. We stayed there for two years and then moved to Ardersier as my Mum is
from there. Because she was quite young when she married my Dad, after leaving
him she turned to drink and never stayed in leaving me to look after my two
younger brothers. She used to take a different man home every night as my Dad
was the only man she had ever been with when they split up, she wanted to have
fun and not be on her own. Because of this one night she came home with a new
man who was a soldier. I was in my bed and so was my Mum and brothers; my cousin
was also there but she was downstairs with another guy when I was awoken to find
the man my Mum had taken home standing above me. He then raped me my cousin was
awake downstairs but she never heard my screams. The man then went back through
to the room my Mum was in and slept until he left the next day.
After that night I went off the rails drinking and taking soft drugs. It
got that bad that I was taken off my Mum and put into foster care. I was still
quite bad after I got out of care I tried to kill myself so they put me into a
mental institution for children. After I came home I lived with my Mum for a wee
while until she got a new boyfriend but me and him didn’t get on so I ended up
having to leave home.
I moved through to Inverness with my aunt but it was far too overcrowded
and I had to move out. Me and my cousin got our own flat but after a while she
chucked me out and she stopped paying the rent. She left me out on the streets
for a few months and then she let me move back in just before she moved out. A
good while after I moved back in I got a letter of the council saying that they
were going to chuck me out. I ended up on the streets again sleeping in the
graveyard.
I was homeless for a very long time until I met my new partner and we
got a house together. All the time I was homeless and up until five months ago I
was hooked on heroin. I was helped by For the Right Reasons they got me in touch
with a doctor and I am now stable on methadone. My life is a lot better now. I
just hope that somebody struggling with the same problems as me can read this
and see that it can be done and that they could do it too.
Jessie
August 2008
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