This is an unedited, raw journal entry I wrote speaking to my younger self. To help her heal.

As I re read this 6 months down the line… I realise how jarring and raw this peice was. But it was one of the most healing things I have ever done.

Although written in incomplete sentences, random ramberling. It is the first time my younger self got to say to the world what happened. Not in detail but enough to say something.

From this I have managed to become stable, work and become as much of a reasonably normal person.

Telling your storey is so important in whatever form that might be… even if nowone listens or reads it.

See below my entry I hope it helps someone to tell there’s.

Im so proud of you and thank you for getting through all of that. And yea it was bad! If you are doubting it. It was terrible and we will tell it soon! But just know deep down that you are safe now. Nothing can hurt you. You are an adult with boundaries and the ability to walk away from any hurt. Unlike a child. Like you were. Nowone is going to hurt you. So feel powerful for today. Because you deserve peace for today. I’m proud of you. And you will have your day! Your okay. Don’t worry. You are safe. If you need to feel it I’m here to feel it. If you need to cry I’m here for you. How do you feel? Sick, scared sad, I feel sad that and embarrassed. Embarrassed that I was made to act like that. How do you feel? Frustrated. I can feel the sickness it my shoulders. It’s okay you are safe now. I feel panic. Scared. Like I can’t do anything right. Alone. Hungover, worthless, what were those nightmares about? The way that I acted back then. I feel embarrassed. I was kicked out of the market multiple times for being on drugs. The way people used to look at me. The way people used to treat me. The way that men took advantage of me in that state. I feel so embarrassed if I was made to to ever go back there. I was never allowed to be part of that town. I was an outsider. Someone that girls hated and men saw an opportunity to use for sex. I remember dancing around in the market and being asked to leave. How did you feel then? Like I didn’t care, like I wanted to forget everything. But I also wanted attention because I wanted someone to make it all stop. To make them stop. Stop making me have sex with them. I wanted them to like me. I wanted to be part of them. But the only way was to have sex with the men. That’s all they wanted from me. The way they all looked at me. Like I was dirt, a slag, a piece of shit on their shoe. I can see their faces. The disgust in their eyes. The face of looking at me like I was a piece of sex meat. I wanted them to like me. I wanted someone to like me. Truly. To see me for me. But all they saw was a slag and a sex object. Going to Brixham and it all happening again. The men just taking advantage of me. Like it was already planned. I was being passed around. Used. Going into the pub and everyone looking at me. I felt embarrassed so I drank and did drugs to block it out. Nights in the avenue gardens just being on pills. With school the next day. Just this whirlwind of chaos. Seeing Rory and him truly seeing me for who I was. The odd friend trying to guide me. Kirsty saying you don’t have to go with him. But I did. What would happen if I didn’t. By that point I had no choice. My body didn’t belong to me. It belonged to them. Simon waiting for the pub to close to take me home. I made sure I was as drunk as I could get and as on drugs as I could get. I remember a time mum came out with me and she was crying and she went home. I’m unsure what that meant. Why didn’t she help me? That mum didn’t know how to help. Or didn’t have the capacity in her way of thinking to help me. Else surely she would have right? I just feel sad, so sad. But without crying. Back then I didn’t cry. I just used pills and vodka to get through it. If I slept with them and did what they wanted maybe I would eventually be accepted. Accepted as a human. Or seen. Or looked after or cared for. But al that happened was it made them hate me. It made them look at me like I was dirt. Hate me so much they would scream and shout things and even punch me. I was hated. Truly hated. And i felt that hate like an arrow to my heart everyday. With every look I felt it. The disappointment in their eyes like, Tara why are you acting like this? Why are you doing this? I was numb and angry. And I just wanted to feel like someone liked me. And in those moments when I was sleeping with them or just before, I felt special. I felt like they saw me and thought I was special. When in fact the just wanted to sleep with a little girl. It was their chance to. A girl who had no boundaries. No morals and nowone to protect her. The way the men in Brixham treated me was awful. They used me then blamed me. They asked who I liked as I was sleeping with multiple men. The truth was I didn’t like any of them. I didn’t make any decisions. I was 14. But they were treating me like it was a choice. In the back of a taxi when I tried to leave in broad daylight I was groped and fingered by a man in his 30s. When I was out clubbing at 14 I was taken outside and raped on a grass dog walking park. With people walking past, whilst I was on a lot of ecstasy. I was picked up and used al the time. Taken back to house party’s. Taken to a room and raped and then left afterwards. Nowone to take me home or anything. I remember woundering around at 4 in the morning in Brixham alone after being raped crying on a lot of pills and drunk. I was staying at my friends house. Who was also being abused and beaten up by her mum. I fell up the stairs when I got in. I was a complete mess. Nowone came to help. I was alone. Not only being taken advantage of but also being blamed for it. Every Saturday night after a week of school I would go out clubbing being able to get into clubs and pubs at 14. Given 8 ecstasy tablets and I would dance and get taken advantage of by men in there late 20’s and 30’s. But I was just trying to be seen. I was trying to feel special, like I mattered. Like I was a human being enough for someone to see what the hell was going on! But nowone came. I remember coming out of a club at 4 in the morning falling asleep on a bench along the seafront and weirdly my mum coming to pick me up. So strange. Like why would she come and get me at that time. But not talk to me or help me from doing it. Not once did she ask me about it. Or try and help me. It was almost like she facilitated it. Like she liked that I was like that. Maybe because she didn’t have a childhood like that. She was very cut off from the world. Granny wouldn’t let her out at all. So the opposite to the parenting she gave me. She would say later when I asked her why that she wanted me to be free. Which I can kind of understand as she wasn’t allowed to be when she was younger. But not to care that much for al of that to be allowed to happen to a child is mind blowing. How can you truly not care, when you are picking up your child from A seafront at 4-5 in the morning on drugs. Whilst she rolling around in the back of the car off her head. How can you not even ask what you are doing? How is this happening? Not once did any ask? I look back and think how I would be if I saw a young girl be that naughty as they would say or as mum would call me a nightmare child. How can they not ask themselves is she okay? 

But they didn’t nowone did. All of the teachers, police, the parents the of other kids the pub owners, the bouncers at the club. The actual adult men. The neighbours of the men’s houses that I used to go to. How did nowone say a word? I was ferrel. I was mad. I was out of control. But most importantly I was a child. A child of 12 a child of 13, a child of 14,15,16 even 17 and 18 when I was with a drug dealer who was in his mid 30s. How the hell was that allowed. I had car accidents with him. I was arrested with him. He fed me drugs. He knew I didn’t fancy him. He took me to a house and left me there. Whilst he went to deal drugs. He took me to a big dealers house. He was so much older than me. Even the other abusers would try and put me off the other abusers. Like one would say you don’t have to go with him ya no. Looking back I thought oh he is protecting me. But he was the abuser as well. But it was the only bit of care I had experience so I would take it. 

There was lots of different groups of abusers all taking advantage of me. We would go to the castle or camping and suddenly a guy who I didn’t know would make sure I was alone and take me trousers down in broad daylight and start licking my downstairs and I wouldn’t know how to say no. Then when people came back I was the bad person. Because I would say I wouldn’t even want it. I was looked at as the bad person the one who made it happen. But at no point ever did I ask for it, flirt or try it on. I was a child. I was a child I was a child.

So many people took advantage of me. So many. I was set up, taken away, picked up in cars. Given drugs, anything to be used and abused by men. Men in their 20s and 30s when I was a child. Nowone said a word. Nowone. A whole town… nowone came to save me and others like me in that town/county where it happens so much

If you managed to read to the bottom of this….

I hope you get why it is important to let your younger self speak. To tell their storey. To just simply say words.

After years of pushing her away she now has a voice. Tell your storey. They deserve a chance to tell it xx

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