The daily torture.

He is dead and gone.

I never have to see his face again.

Yet I do see him every day. Every day, on my way to work and every day on my way back home, there he is – the abuser. Since moving in with my mother, I have the unfortunate daily routine of passing his house on the train. The tube rarely travels overground in London except in some cases. The tracks run, for a short while, behind my childhood home. The prison where he kept me under his control. The garden with no way out into the world, trapped by those blasted tracks. The building that never sheltered me from the storm raging in my father or protect me from his thunderous nature.

Every day I have to pass it.

The residence of torture and his haven of abuse. That solitary confinement that controlled and watched over me. His sadistic dungeon of emotional perversion. I know it is coming as soon as light appears after the darkness of the tunnel. I am expecting it, awaiting it and fearing it. I have tried to avoid it by sitting with my back to it and although physically it helps, mentally I am completely aware of what is burning into my back. It is unfortunate my mother lives in the same area as my father did and that I have to endure this journey each day.

Occasionally, I peer in. Worse, if the train stops by the house (which it can do), I am forced to stare into each room. Nothing has changed which only sparks more anxiety in me as if he’ll appear at any moment. I look hard to see any shadow but nothing materializes. Instead the rooms look the same as when I left them. The stress and panic in me builds within a few short seconds. By then he has imprinted himself in my mind.

We will move out of this area. That is a guarantee. I cannot do with this daily torture for the rest of my life. I never want to see that house again.

21st August 2012 – Freedom. At last.

21st August 2012:

• Seven people are feared dead after a bomb blast by Syria border
• Comedian Phyllis Diller dies, aged 95 in her home in Los Angeles
• Witchcraft related products are to be banned on eBay

And my father, aged 75, takes his last breath and dies.

The following is a short extract from the penultimate chapter of my autobiography – “The release” describing the events that took place one year ago today.

Tuesday 21^st August 2012.

I awoke at 7.am  to my sister ringing me. She said our father had slipped out of consciousness that night and although he was still breathing, there would not be much time. She insisted that I left home at that point in order to reach him in time and meet her there. I told her it would take me over two hours when she would be there in thirty minutes. I was making excuses; I did not want to go. I just couldn’t do it again, feel suffocated and trapped, staring at his lifeless body, but more than that –  be alone, watching her fawn and weep over my abuser.

After a stressful morning and what seemed like an eternity of waiting, I checked my phone. I had received several calls from my brother-in law but had not heard him ringing. I phoned back only for it go straight to his voice-mail.

  Suddenly, my phone buzzed; it was David.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Ros….honey….”

It didn’t take many words.

I knew.

My husband told me he was on his way home to me as I put down the phone.

Emotion encompassed me as I stepped into the kitchen and I finally broke down. But the words that left my mouth are the words that I truly felt at that moment.

“I’m free, I’m free!”

I wept and cried loudly, shouting these words repeatedly.

I was finally free from him.

Saying goodbye doesn’t mean anything. It’s the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it.
Trey Parker

I absolutely agree with this quote. I could not say ‘goodbye’ to him. It is only a word, it has no meaning. This is very poignant and I’m assuming that “Trey Parker” is referring to a positive memory about someone he loved. I’m not. In the years my father and I spent together, he mentally tortured, insulted, hated me and that will always be how I look back on our relationship.

The memories are tainted and no longer innocent. The love I had for him as a young child has disappeared and only a sea of disappointment spreads across a land of sadness.

Today is one year since my father died and although he left a mound of issues behind him for us to deal with (well, he was never going to make my life easy alive or dead), I can finally begin to move on.

I am free. I am free.

I am finally free from that monster.

4. Back to a time of despair.

The final thing I uncovered from my bedroom was a bunch of folded, hidden papers. I only read them recently and was thrown back in time to seventeen years of age.

It was all so angry, so upsetting. My husband was silent when he read them; shocked by my words and frustration. It was a side of me I rarely show. I am not an angry woman but reading the words I had written brought the despair back.

I had clearly written all over the sheets of paper in one go. Fury flooded over me and painful words bled out, piercing my heart. I felt sorry for myself, upset that my seventeen year old self had suffered so much. I was mad that I didn’t do something earlier and save myself a long time ago.

I was talking directly to him. My words were barely readable as I’d written them without thinking, it was just flowing from my soul. Endless words, strings of nonsense sentences, a desperate cry to be loved.

Swearing and hate filled one page and left me in shock as I looked at the continuous course of contempt for him and myself. My resentment echoed through the sheet, my hatred for him beamed from the page and my self-loathing radiated wildly.

The ache to be loved was a key element of my ranting. I just needed love. I just wanted to feel self-worth. A reiteration of failure played over and over as I read through the countless sheets of heartache.

After reading it all, there was nothing left to say.