Читать книгу I Know What You Are: The true story of a lonely little girl abused by those she trusted most - Jane Smith, Taylor Edison - Страница 5

I used to feel angry with my mum because she didn’t intervene in what was going on when I was a child. But I realise that she’s got problems of her own and I just feel sorry for her now. What made me look at things differently was becoming a mum myself: I try really hard to do what’s best for my child – it’s just a natural instinct; so I think my mum must have been trying hard too.

I would have liked to have told my story without mentioning Mum at all, and especially without saying anything negative about her. But because most of it deals with abuse that occurred during my childhood, that would have made it seem as though she wasn’t there while I was growing up. And that isn’t true. So I’m just going to tell it the way it happened.

There are lots of reasons why people fall victim to abusers. In my case, it was partly because I have a type of autism called Asperger syndrome, which means that I have ‘significant difficulties in social interaction and non-verbal communication’. In other words, if someone tells me they’re my friend, for example, I believe them, even though the way they’re treating me is anything but friendly.

Friends have been a significant factor in my life – because I desperately wanted them as a child, because I didn’t know how to make them, and because my ‘social interaction and non-verbal communication’ problems meant that, for a long time, I wasn’t able to distinguish between my friends and my enemies.

I can’t change what happened to me from the age of 11. I know that some of it will continue to have an effect on me for the rest of my life. But I do try really hard to remember that I am not the bad person I believed I was when I was a little girl.

What’s crucially important when you have experienced abuse is to try not to define yourself in terms of ‘bad things happened to me as a child because I was a bad child’. That’s why I want to tell my story, because I hope it will help other people to realise that what is done to you isn’t what you are.