For me, life is such a difficult journey. When I sit down and think to myself all that I have been through, a tear comes up inside me. My soul, is tattered and worn, tired from nothing more than time. But I fight. I fight for the strength to carry on to the next day. I fight to believe in myself all that I stand for. I fight for my freedom and my life.
So long, I lived under the torture of abuse and intolerance. When I set up this blog, I never knew that I would have so many people reading it. I know that the people out there who are reading this are the silent minority. The ones, who have been following my stories, my dreams, my ideals and my life are the ones I write for. They are the ones who have suffered like I have suffered, who have wept like I have. The ones who have been abused in their life, to the point of extremes but never told anyone about it no matter what. You are the reasons behind my stories.
As we sit and think about holiday season, I ask all of you to look within your soul and imagine what life could be like. Imagine, what it is like to be a good person . When you rest your eyes at night, do you know what it means to love? Do you know what it means to feel compassion or understanding?
I do.
I do every single day. I do nothing but struggle, even now in the present with everything that I am challenged with, but I will never lose my spirit, my compassion or who I am.
For those of you have been following my life story about the abuse I endured on Saint Helena, let me explain to you where we are now.
Nearly a year ago, I reported the two men to the detectives that deal with rape cases towards women and children on Saint Helena. I explained to them the horror that I suffered. I was about 10 years old. I was young and naïve and as a child should only know of love and kindness. But instead, I only knew of abuse. I was beaten by my grandfather on a regular basis, but to make matters worse two young men, and young as in 18. These men were old enough to be fathers. They were old enough to collect wood and take care of their families. But what did they do to me? Instead of taking care the things that they should they tormented and abused me.
They treated me in the most appalling way you could ever imagine. They would humiliate and rape me on a daily basis. They took my innocence away, yet they plead their innocence and get away with it.
As my favourite readers already know, I have written about them and the atrocities that they have done to me. Even though I should have, I never once revealed their identities. I was always worried about the innocence of their families. When I was just a little girl did they think about my innocence?
I was just a little girl playing in the woods I would gather firewood, pick blackberries to sell and play in the little woods where I lived.
The young man in question was William Clingham. He also lived near me and he would come towards me and throw me down on the ground as hard as he could. I screamed! I screamed so loud that you might have heard me in England. But he ignored me. He continued to take my precious innocence and rape me. Not once, but repeatedly every day for a very long time.
There wasn’t anyone to tell. I had a social worker, but in my day, we didn’t get to explain anything to our social worker. It was better for children to be seen and not heard, and in fact they wouldn’t believe me anyway. That’s how society was back then and it is all becoming clear now.
My main carer was my grandmother. She had many problems of her own and had to deal with my violent grandfather. The other rapist was Alexander Peters. He would wait in the foot path where I would walk down. He would grab my arm and pull me as far as he could into the flex bushes. He made sure that no one could hear me screaming for help. There was never anyone around to hear me, or rescue me for that matter.
Sit down for a moment, and think about your children, think about your daughters and your grand-daughters. Imagine a little child like that beaten, raped and abused like I was. How would you feel? What would you do?
I realize that mental abuse is bad, in fact it can almost be horrific for many people. Many times, people live paranoid lives and think everyone is evil or out to get them. They use any chance they can to pathologically lie and destroy a family. This is all a form of abuse, however, living through physical abuse, it has not only the physical element but also the mental element as well.
These two men took everything from me. The only thing that ironically helped me or saved me so to speak was when my beloved grandmother died. I was happy, because I could move away from those nasty, evil rapists.
I will never get over this ordeal because I see them in my dreams every day. I wake up in a sweat , crying and screaming re-living every moment of every time I was abused in those flax bushes.
The only thing I can do is forgive them. I don’t want them in my life anymore. I need to leave them behind in my mind I need to move on.
The detective in the case told me that they were arrested and questioned.
Arrested and questioned, what exactly does that mean?
While Alexander Peters and William have sat and lived the good life, raising their families in the sun, I have had to constantly fight my demons. I have awful triggers and nightmares. I see them constantly in my dreams. I have images of them knocking me over ripping my clothes off at ten years old. Horrible, devastating and disgusting that is exactly what it is.
At ten years old I couldn’t do my times tables or read a clock, however I could tell you in graphic detail what it meant to be raped, abused and mutilated and manipulated.
I wanted to tell the detectives that they are giving the wrong message by releasing these men back into society. To live on an island full of young people and young girls. It almost condones that rape is ok let alone the rape of children is ok.
The only good thing, is that Saint Helena now has protection for women and children. There is a place that the battered and abused can go to seek help and safety. If only I could have done the same.
They were released. Why? Because of lack of evidence and because it happened so long ago there is nothing that can be done. I would have liked to have some justice to what happened to me. They destroyed my childhood. They destroyed my dignity and stripped me of my innocence.
I would watch my children playing with Barbie and Cindy dolls and think to myself what was I doing at this age. I would be screaming and pleading for those nasty evil rapists to stop.
In reality they should have been tried and sent to prison as my whole life has been like a prison in a way. I often write about falling down into a bottomless pit. However, on a bad day I would like to put all my abuses into a bottomless pit, put a concrete lid on the top of it and walk away so that I can start living my life and not letting those evil horrible men into my life ever again. I will look to continue my craft of writing but will be writing about the things I love, the beauty in the world and even the occasional story of my trials and tribulations, but for now, let’s close the sarcophagus of those evil mean and forgive them.
Freedom and forgiveness is indeed a beautiful and wonderful thing.
Love to all my fans,
Dorothy Maude