#6. 'He did things.' Diary entry age 15, read by my mother.
Sex, Gin and Chocolate Cupcakes - when the stuffing has to stop
“There’s a name for what I lost that morning in Poland, though it took me decades to find it. The sense that you can be honest without being punished for it.” Magdalena Ponurska
Magdalena hits the nail on the head in the quote above, and in her article My mother read my journal when I was 17. I didn’t write again for 30 years, which has helped me to see the bigger picture of how, when my mother read my journal when I was 15 and confronted me with the open page and what I’d written, and through the response she gave to it, I learned that it wasn’t safe to say what was going on. I stopped writing (and speaking my truth) and didn’t start again for another fifty years.
I learned as a young teen that it wasn’t safe to say what was happening to me, not in a private diary or out loud. The story I’m about to tell you is just one chapter from years of abuse that I learned to keep quiet about. I had no one to tell, no one to talk to, not even a diary, because that became too risky. How happy I am now that I have found a vessel to pour all this into, and through writing these snatches of memoir, am releasing the pain and trauma that was stuffed down for far too many years.
If you have a teenage son or daughter, can I respectfully ask that you don’t read their diary. It is not there for you to find out what is going on. It is their private space.
Nowadays, we know that it is most definitely NOT okay for older men to groom, seduce or have sexual relationships with teenage girls. However, back in the 1970s, when I was a young teen, no one batted an eyelid, and in some cases (and I know from conversations with friends that my relationships with older men were not the exception) it was actively encouraged, especially if they claimed to be a Christian, had a good job and a nice car that they could talk to one’s father about. If you’ve read Lyn Barber’s book, An Education, (which one of my lecturers on my MA suggested I read as her story was similar to mine), or have experienced this yourself, you’ll know what I mean.
Thank you to all those who have upgraded their subscription and, in doing so, are holding this space so I might speak my truth and leave shame in the dust. I’ve recorded a voiceover, as speaking this stuff out loud helps with the healing of shame.
