HelenzArt-life-musings

Tag: teenage years

  • What do I care!

    When the ‘boyfriend’ turned up after school, I wasn’t too bothered. The relationship hadn’t really ended as such, just drifted as I hadn’t seen him for a month or so. I’d never actually told him about being pregnant, but he had been spoken to by the police. His family made choices for him and those hurt him somehow, and he took me and I was back to being his sex on tap. As I was in a smallish town it wasn’t exactly easy to avoid him and I never really thought to try if I’m honest. I went to school, went home. If I had sport training after school I had to take the bus from town, or walk the 3 miles, by the same route, he often found me at the bus stop, or he’d step out from the houses on the route home. To take me by the arm and I’d go with him. No resistance on my part. There never was resistance. Perhaps I’d had a learning felt deep inside that resistance was futile. Just like the Borg say in Startrek! Reflecting back it’s easy to say that I dissociated and compartmentalised. I didn’t consciously do it, it’s just the way I was. He wasn’t brutal as such but certainly not gentle. He didn’t need to threaten or keep hold, I was acquiescent to his wants. Even when he invited his friends to have sex with me. Yes, that’s abuse, some of it I recall some I don’t.

    The inevitable happened again quite quickly. This time I didn’t see a doctor. I couldn’t do that again, yet what was I to do. Sort of didn’t care enough to ‘do’ anything! He stopped seeing me and at that time I didn’t know why but that was a relief. Now it was pregnant me, on my own. Me, hiding sanitary products so my dad didn’t know. I didn’t want to be a disappointment to him! Going about my life but not really engaging with school work. The usual reports of ‘could do better’. Not confiding in my best friend. Summer came and I took casual work with my dad. Working in the fields where I was happiest. Getting fatter, dad not seemingly concerned, probably thinking it’s that female, laying down fat stores or something! I was a brides maid at my brother’s wedding that summer. Him, 19, his wife to be in her 30’s with 3 kids. The dress I’d had a fitting for too tight! Almost the last time I saw my brother!

    Heading for 16 and the exam year, finally a teacher sat me down and expressed concern. My skipping classes especially sport. I told her. So that began the process, I saw a doctor, my dad was told and I was determined that the choice was for the child to be adopted. Altruism perhaps, as it would give someone a chance to be a parent. The child would have better chances, I hoped, of not having a poor start in its own life, to be wanted and chosen and cherished. Selfish, self preservation, in that there was no way I was going to be able to give it the financial and nurturing support needed, and that was important to me. I had no support network, none was offered either. I recall no discussions with social workers or other support agencies. I made my choice and that was it. So that was me, home schooling ‘til the child was born in December. Appointments at the doctors, until the time came for the hospital admission to induce me. All vague as I had a Caesarian due to foetal distress. In a room of my own, dad visiting and telling me he’d been to see that boy child I’d had delivered. I never went to see him. I signed the paperwork. My scar healed and life went on. Back to school, no questions no follow ups. Which, on my surface, was ok.

    My year of being 16. I never gave much thought then about how that could have, or even should have, changed my life. It happened, it was dealt with and that was it. Never brought up again. Did it make me shy from relationships? Not really. The only difference was that I started using contraceptives. Did I change in behaviour? Only in that I started skipping school more. Took to climbing out my bedroom window at night to take a walk and stand on the bridge over the main dual carriage way near my home. Watching the traffic, wondering where they were going. If a car or truck stopped and offered a lift for a drink or chat I’d usually get in. See! No sense of personal safety. I didn’t care for me, it seemed that those drivers cared more than I did.

    Different times then perhaps, though the people who do horrendous things have always been around. With the instancy of media at our fingertips now we just hear about it more often. Yet, I met some nice people, non threatening, gentle, lonely people looking for something too, however transient! I was always willing to have sex if that came about, but it wasn’t always the case. And it was sex, a commodity of reciprocation. Even if I wasn’t in the mood it was doable, as I could sink into the sensations. A whisper of breath over bare skin, a tease of tongue on nipple or elsewhere. The wish of some to rub their member on full breasts. Nothing kinky or truly bizarre, just fleeting connections of contact. Some even became ‘friends with benefits’. No strings, just companionship.

    The next few years were of a similar vein. Didn’t do great at those exams but I stayed on to do ‘A’ levels. A new friendship at school, her mother caring more than my own had ever done. Caring enough to express concern over my ‘careless’ behaviour. No career in mind though knowing Uni or art college not an option. I wanted to make a living, earn money and have a husband and family. Make more of life than I had.

  • On a path of self neglect.

    So between leaving junior school and going to secondary school, we were supposed to move so dad could start a new job with more responsibility and better pay. That didn’t happen, his boss found a way to keep us in the same place. He was where he wanted to be I suppose, I was just a kid that wasn’t told anything, which was simply the way it always was. My mum had been through various jobs from shop work to barmaid, trying out nursing was the next thing. My parents developed a social life, they started playing darts for a pub team in town. New friendships for them and I was often included in the extra social events that happened. So for me pubs were simply another place to be, part of growing up, talking to strangers or half familiar faces. Nothing felt as threatening in that environment. Rarely were there other children around, if there were then I played with them. If not, I wasn’t bothered as I would talk to the other people if they started to chat. Some did their best to include me.

    My brother was never with us, he was already going his own way. Sometimes in trouble, so the police would visit but he was often just a passing body.

    My mum left home for awhile when I was 13. Stayed with some female friends, I suppose she was trying to sort out her life. She came home. Within a year she was gone. In town for 3 weeks at a friends flat and then, poof! Gone. My summer of being 13.

    Now, I will admit that although I was probably seen as a ‘daddies’ girl, that was more because I spent most of my free time out in the fields and sheds where he was working. Yet, she was my mum. She bought me my first pair of ‘grown up’ shoes, small platforms that were the trend in the ‘70’s. We weren’t best friends nor was she someone to take into ones confidence. Yet she vanished off the face of my world. Never to be heard from again until I was married and had a girl of my own. I went back to school with that, my best friend knew. Huh! my only friend knew.

    To be brutally honest I wasn’t actually that bothered. Yes, it hurt, yet I wasn’t outwardly emotional. It certainly stung when my 14th birthday came round and there wasn’t even a card from her. Yet even then I had a matter of factness to it. A ‘that’s the way it is-ness’. Practical acceptance. My dad and me just got on with running our home together. He didn’t talk to me about her leaving, and I never asked. My brother wasn’t really home much so we didn’t talk about it either. A big, non-event. That unknowingly shaped my behaviour.

    I say unknowingly because I didn’t consciously think I would become a searcher of tender touches from where ever I could. It wasn’t promiscuity to start with. As I have said before I lost my virginity very early, to a semi stranger. Since then I had a couple of boyfriends at school, one was physically very mature, as was I, and we did take things all the way. The summer of being 14, I began a relationship with someone older by a few years. I didn’t disabuse him of what he thought my age was, though he knew I was still at school. Our school had sixth form years, to do ‘A’ levels, as they were then, so it was an easy assumption to make on his part.

    I sank into the fact that he was wanting to be with me, even if it did seem that there was always an expectation of sex on his part, and I willingly obliged. Why? Because that’s what I did, I never said no. Yes, on reflection the relationship wasn’t healthy. But I had someone who seemed to want me. He wasn’t keen on me being with my friend, or doing my own thing. I was to be with him and his friends. And yes, sex was an expectation no matter how I felt. I did what he wanted, that was how I thought things were meant to be. Our sex was unprotected so the inevitable happened. I was pregnant just after turning 15. I knew fairly quickly and went to my GP. I also knew that I couldn’t have a child and bring it up myself so I chose to have an abortion. The Doc called my dad to the surgery and the arrangements made. All very matter of fact. No, histrionics, little emotion shown. Again we had no discussions, I went to hospital, had the procedure spoke to a Doctor before discharge. Refused contraception and left. Did I feel guilty? Honestly? Not on the surface, but I did feel that I had done the right thing in that moment. It was just another thing that happened, was dealt with and then sank to some underworld beyond caring. Never raised as a subject between me and my dad ever again. No social workers came to talk to me nor any police. That my dad spoke to the police I did discover a few months later when the ex boyfriend caught up with me outside the school gates and began to make my life miserable!