29th March 2016
The screams are loud and piercing penetrating my entire mind as I attempt to grasp onto the last bit of reality with all my strength. The darkness thick and vicious, it permeates my entire being, crippling, restraining me deeper into my bed. The pain pulsating through my body, the trembling rapidly turning into waves of convulsions that become uncontrollably exhausting.
The girls are lined up, stripped bare, showing nothing more than potential money making objects in the hungry eyes of their predators. Humility and privacy, the rights that once belonged to them, are now just a distant memory of a life that once existed. I strain to distinguish between each girl, their unique characteristics, but suddenly find myself looking into a mirror image of my face, duplicated over and over again as hundreds of ‘me’ turn the short line into a boundless procession. I turn away disturbed and confused. Refocused I throw one more glance back scrutinising the girls, their eyes pleading and showing their desperate hopelessness without a word being spoken. The seemingly endless marathon of torment continues on and on until the night finally dissipates and the first rays of dawn engulf whatever darkness was left behind.
I wake sitting upright with a bolt. It’s morning and light is shining intensely into my room giving it a whole new aura compared to a few hours ago. Just another night I remind myself as I work hard to bring the present back into focus. Just another nightmare I repeat again in my head. I smile as I remember being told once that sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. Right now that statement holds a hollow and vacant place is my heart.
It’s Thursday morning. Less than 12 hours ago I sat opposite one of my social workers and police officers being asked to decide whether or not I would go through years of interviews, statements, court appearances, cross examinations, interrogations and questions to help bring down potentially many of the men and woman who shaped and created such a tremendous part of my past.
It’s been almost fifteen years since it all began. Looking back now it seems more than a whole lifetime ago. Today doesn’t even come close to resembling any part of ‘back then’, but I’m reminded again how incredibly long the journey has been and how tough it was to get to this place I find myself in now. They had stolen years of my childhood and many more as I endeavoured to come to terms and start fixing the damage they had left behind.
A mixture of anger, confusion, hopelessness and desperation starts wrangling its way up my chest and into my mind, seeking to regain its control of my thoughts once more. It seems never-ending as the ripple effect continuous to spread further and further out into the vast ocean of consequences from so very long ago.
I will never forget the day the police came knocking on my door two and half years ago informing me that my involvement had become apparent in their major child sex abuse investigation. ‘Operation Bullfinch’ as it is formally and publicly known. I had seen it on the news throughout the year but had never consciously made the link. My world was rocked once again and the realisation that the past I had buried so deep down and had pretended was long gone, never to resurface, was actually unfolding once more right before my eyes.
These last few weeks I have felt so many emotions. Desperate and hopeless, exhausted and selfish as I made the decision to step away from the investigation and not proceed in the trials and court hearings to bring the people who changed my life forever to justice. The police were very thorough in reminding me how ‘they’ are still at work and how so many other lives are being destroyed every day because of it. I feel sick and as I acknowledge the tidal wave of tears and emotion climb higher and higher until I can no longer contain it, I bury my head into my pillow and let it all flood out.
Sometimes life is harsh. And at times life is relentless. There are times I have looked into a baby’s eyes and vowed that I will never bring them into this world. There are moments like now where I step back, look at the choice I have to make, and accept I don’t know the right answer.
Admitting my nightmares that reoccur so often aren’t actually too far from the truth has been pretty tough. Owning up to the responsibilities that have been laid in my hands without ever asking for that privilege. Being given the choice to change other people’s outcomes, it’s a choice I wish deep down had never been given to me.
It has taken me so long to get my life back on track. So long to feel normal again. Is it wrong to choose not to go back into my past? It is beyond selfish to finally crave the experience of a life lived to the full? But even as I ask those questions I know I’m sacrificing other girl’s freedoms for my own selfish desires. Oh what I would have given if someone had come forward and stood up against them when I was young. Oh what I would have given to have been rescued years earlier. What I would have given to have been saved before it had even begun.
I started blogging because I want to give people hope. I want to help change other people’s stories through my own. I blog because I want to inspire and encourage, influence and inform. Today’s blog might not seem like it’s any of the above. But like I said from the start, I want to be real. And more than that I want to be honest. Sometimes life isn’t straight cut. At times it’s not easy or simple and at times life definitely doesn’t go the way we want it to go. Sometimes the answers aren’t just a yes or a no. People will judge, people will criticise and people will pretend that they know best.
Operation Bullfinch has become a nationwide investigation. It will be going on for many years to come and just like the police and social workers told me; I can go back to it at any point and start providing the evidence they need. There might come a time where I have the strength to look my culprits in the eye and there might come a time where I will be ready once more to put my life on hold and do what it takes to set others free. But until that time I’m going to trust God that He has every innocent life in His hands. That His power is greater than my testimony will ever be. And that His plan for all their lives and for my life is bigger than I could ever ask for or imagine.
Every day I pray for the right answer. Every day I plead for Him to show me what to do. But this morning, after another restless and exhausting night I suddenly felt a peace. I suddenly saw my whole life in front of me, every moment of pure joy, every laughter, every tear, every friendship, every connection, all the moments of the ordinary and all the glimpses of the extraordinary. So many memories I have stored up, so many gifts I have been given. My life is so abundantly blessed. So vastly full of love and people who make every day count. And in that moment I realised that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what other’s think, it doesn’t matter if we always get it right or wrong. What matters is the state of our hearts and if we are living in gratefulness and gratitude. And whether or not I have made the right or wrong decision for now, I know I am open to whatever comes next. And I also know that sometimes you have to hold back, so that when you do finally let go, the force of impact is greater than it could have ever been before.
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