Health Scare Part 2.

In the summer of 2008, I was booked in for a Colposcopy at the Royal Free Hospital in North London. It was a great hospital with a good reputation and I was pleased to be in their care. I wasn’t pleased however when my father insisted that I regale him with all the information and details about the procedure. I continued to tell him that it was to be extremely personal and intrusive and as a twenty six year old woman at the time, I wanted to endure it myself. I had not told any friends and was still yet to even tell my mother. Until it got to a point where I had to, it was something I wanted to keep private. Just because he had rooted through my things and discovered the truths, did not give him the right to have full clearance to know every detail of my life.

I had been working so hard to put some boundaries in place between us that this would only cancel them out. He was well aware of this and had no intention of risking loss of power over me. No matter how I reasoned with him, I never won. He had control over me.

As I sheepishly explained the steps of the Colposcopy, I felt sickened with each word. Why couldn’t he just investigate it over the web? No, he revelled in my discomfort.

By the time I had finished, my father looked at me with disgust then left. It was a look I was used to.

I tried to convince him that I would go to the appointment alone. Although I had hid the details of the appointment, unsurprisingly he had found them after one of his random “spring cleans” (or so he said). No, he had to be there and stick around as we sat awkwardly together in the waiting room. When the doctor called my name, I made my way to her as quickly as I could. I’m sure being stressed before was not the best emotion to be going through. I needed to be as relaxed as possible. How was that ever going to happen with the abuser awaiting me outside?

Of course the whole process was unpleasant and uncomfortable. I was very aware of where things were and what was happening to me. As a person who is incredibly insecure of their body, I have to admit it was one of the worst experiences of my life. This feeling was magnified by the fact the abuser would be the first face I would see after it was over.

My father had no sympathy for pain and as we left and walked to his car, he proceeded to list a set of targets I needed to achieve and complete for him over the following days, mainly to do with the house.

I had stopped listening the moment his lips opened and sound left his mouth.

This would be a moment that would be repeated for the next two years as an abnormal result kept appearing. I desperately wanted it to end. My fear of hospitals was fiercely developing and the abuser was winning. I finally opened up and told my boyfriend (my now husband David) about it all as well as my mother. David was supportive and understood that it was not my father’s place to accompany me, it was not doing the situation any good.

He offered to come instead.

I actually wanted to go alone but my father would never have allowed that. Instead, he accepted David’s request and had to back down unwillingly (he felt threatened by another man). He would not have a leg to stand on if he fought David for his position.

My last Colposcopy was 2011. It came back clear.

I had my catch up smear last month.

My results were normal.

4 spiteful girls – Part 2.

H was a colleague of mine. We worked together from 2007-2008 before I realised I needed to leave that job to challenge myself in a better career.

She was another loud, confident character. An Irish girl who loved attention and seemed very easy to get on with. We bonded straight away and had a very intense friendship. She was away from all her friends back home so clung to me quite quickly. I didn’t mind, I needed to focus my attention to anyone other than my needy father. I opened up to her very soon into our friendship. She was shocked at first, she had met my Dad and assumed like all the others that he was a kind and decent man. He was generous in front of her and acted like the proud father he certainly was not. I never rejected his kindness in front of her, it would have been foolish to do so as it would have created an unnecessary argument.

She didn’t dispute or fight my accusations against my father as many others have in the past. She was just surprised as our relationship seemed so normal and my father seemed so loving.

During the year of 2007, we spent a lot of time socialising together, regularly going out to bars and flirting with men. From very early on, it was clear that H was a bit of a man-hater. She had clearly been hurt in the past and had very candid and brazen opinions of the opposite sex. She was over-protective of me and would “assess” the men I spoke to. She rarely approved of any of them. I was twenty five and had never had a long term relationship that I felt could have a future. I wanted to meet someone who I could love. It was something I saw happening. H wasn’t impressed often reiterating how useless men were and that I’d be better off without one.

At the end of 2007, I decided to become part time at the job I was doing and focus on Teaching. I went on a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course in the heart of London.

That course would eventually change my life. Not just in the career sense but it was where I first met my husband, David.

We began dating a month after the course having first begun a friendship. H was suspicious straight away. She couldn’t and wouldn’t trust any man especially ones that I had taken a shine to. She immediately hated David.

Having met him at my twenty sixth birthday party she was confused as to why I was with him. Questioning how I could be attracted to someone who was clearly the polar opposite of me. I was confident, friendly and fun. He was shy, quiet and distant. That was how she saw us but I knew we were both very different than that. We both had layers that we revealed only to each other. H never saw beyond the confidence. I had to be like that in my profession, I wanted to excel in my job and be respected by my peers. I was a people pleaser, a chameleon, I found it easy to adapt to different situations. Inside, there was much more to me as there was to David. We discovered those parts of us together, it was one of the reasons I fell for him.

My best friend K was there that night too. She also worked with us once before she also realised she was better than the job too. K made a few comments the following morning which resonated in my mind. She was shocked that H would not leave my bedroom when we returned, placing herself on my bed as David and I waited to go to sleep. She attempted to launch into a big conversation about nothing just to irritate David and I. It wasn’t going to happen, neither of us were that rude. I think K even tried to usher her to her own room but she just wouldn’t budge. K thought it was strange that H was so possessive and desperate of my attention.

I had never thought of her like that but K was right.

After that night, I began going out less with H, instead I spent most of my weekends travelling down to Essex to visit David. I didn’t mind the journey, I was so happy to be away from my father’s grasp.

H criticised that I was never free and had put a man before our friendship even though she saw me every day at work. It did not faze me, I had longed to meet a man like this for so long I was not about to throw it away. She, in my mind, was still my friend and I was hoping that she would not be insulted or take it as rudeness. I just wanted to make my relationship with David last. It was incredibly important to me.

Eventually her anger came out.

In a long winded message over Facebook, H launched a verbal attack on my personality.

I was horrified.

I was not expecting it.

It was cruel and merciless. She mocked and insulted me freely, accusing me of exaggerating my father’s behaviour for attention. She ridiculed David and shocked me with her nasty words that so naturally fell from her poisonous mouth.

I was upset. I was annoyed. How could I have fallen into this mess again? What the hell was I doing attracting these venomous people into my life? Was it true, were her words true? Too many girls have said it to me before it cannot be false.

Was my father a bad man or was I creating that in my head for attention?

NO, of course not! It happened and it happened to me. She could not face the truth. None of them could.

I won’t be held under suspicion or challenged by short-sighted people.

It is my truth, my life and H was not meant to be a part of it.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.
Winston Churchill