I was 8 when my family moved house, to 2 separate places, with my mother moving to London while my dad and I moved to a small village in the midlands. We were still a family, but clearly some things changed. My dad and I moved into a small flat in a small village in the middle of nowhere, where my dad had gotten a job. Life was difficult, moving from to a new place, and dealing with the fact that we were literally the only diversity in the entire community. Things weren’t helped by the fact that my dad was a workaholic, and so was hardly at home. A day in my life was as follows: wake up for school, get dropped of at school, do school, finish school, wait for 10-30 mins for my dad to arrive to pick me up from school, get picked up from school and dropped off home, left at home alone, have dad come back to cook dinner before leaving again for work, attempting to sleep but not being able to, sitting in front of the tv until as late as 1 am waiting for my dad to come home. I was left alone for up to 8 hours a day, with my dad being completely uncontactable during those hours (as there was no signal in the office). I later find out that this is technically illegal and a form of child negligence. This repeated daily cycle happened for 3 years of my life (from aged 8-11), during this period I developed clinical depression (which I didn’t find out until later).
School life during this period wasn’t any better, as in a small class of 24 it was important to fit in. For some unknown reason, in this school that involved knowing too much about sex, and porn, so at the tender age of 9, I started watching porn. It was discussed in the school yard, and while I didn’t like actively talking about it, it made me feel better as having participated in the watching of this content I understood what was being said, which included words like ‘MILF’ and ‘teabagging’ etc. To this day, the fact that this is a true fact about me torments me, and is probably the greatest regret I have in my life. This overexposure to inappropriate content from a young age, has made me feel so uncomfortable about discussing anything sexual. Despite being of legal age now, I still feel way too young to be dealing with sex related matters as it destroyed my childhood and my innocence way too young.
At the age of 11 I moved to live with my mum, in London, where I started secondary school, still living with the trauma I had developed from the 3 years of living with my dad. In year 9 (aged 13) I was caught crying in the classroom during break in a depressive episode, and later diagnosed for the first time as recovering from depression. This professional diagnosis only confirmed what I had suspected but was too scared to admit to myself (I had been taking multiple online depression tests, and had gotten severely depressed each time).
For over half my life I have been living with the repercussions from those 3 years of my childhood. I have major trust issues, and a serious fear of rejection and abandonment, which I associate with the feelings I had towards my father. This fear of rejection and abandonment is coupled with my suppressed sexuality due to the traumatic memories of losing my childhood innocence at 8-9 years old, and feeling of guilt towards younger me. I am scared that I’ll never be accepted by anyone and also that I’ll never feel ready to accept anyone into my life. I know that a relationship is not on the cards for me anytime soon, if ever, as it is generally accepted in society that sex will have to play a role in all long-ish term relationships, and I know I am not ready for that. To be honest, I don’t think I will feel ready to face my sexual repression with someone until I am at the very least 3-4 years into a relationship. However, due to the societal pressures at my age, it is unlikely that any guy would be willing to wait for a slightly fat, asian girl with glasses for 4 years. It just isn’t going to happen. And so I have slowly come to terms with the reality of the fact that for my mental stability and health, I will probably remain single forever, and that’s ok.
I’m only 20 at the moment, but already carry so many scars and trauma around with me. I hope I have provided some of you with an interesting read, with something to relate to, or something to simply make you question the way you perceive others.