When I was born I was an average baby according to my mother. In fact my behaviour, up until I was three years old, was the same as any other child's. We lived with my lovely grandfather and I was very close to him. One day he went out to work and never came back. He had a brain haemorrhage whilst at work and died. I remember it only vaguely, mainly my mum crying and not really understanding why. My mum told me for weeks after I would walk around the house calling for my grandfather. She said that this was when she noticed a major change in my behaviour.
My dad was an alcoholic and regularly smoked Cannabis. He had a friend who would come to our door and threaten us with a knife. My dad had this habit of making friends with the wrong sort of people. Most weekends my dad would put these horror films on TV, I was only three when I saw, the film, Poltergeist for the first time. Since watching that I have never been able to sleep in the dark. He would also put films on that involved graphic scenes of violence. I believed from a young age that murder was very common and was scared of men as, from watching the films my dad put on, I believed that men would kill women easily. I was afraid of my dad, I genuinely thought one day he lose the plot and kill us all. I was put on the At Risk Register by Social Services shortly after my grandfather died.
About a year after my lovely grandfather died, my mum went in to hospital, she had to have tests as she had tumours in her womb. Luckily it turned out she Fibroids and nothing more serious. Whilst she was in hospital Social Services insisted that I stay with my other grandfather, the most vile person I have ever known. I came back from there and my behaviour was worse.
My mums sisters started proceedings to get us evicted from my lovely grandfathers house. They wanted to sell it and we had no where to go. None of us wanted to leave that house and as my dad had not worked much we had no money to buy some where else to live. We were evicted and the council gave us a house on this terrible housing estate when I was six. We lived there for two years.
My brother was very traumatised by moving. He was fourteen years older then me, he was never able to handle my dads behaviour. We would go out for walks on Sundays to get away from him. My brother my very shy and insecure. Growing up, watching my dad drinking, he mimicked my dads drinking. It got worse in nineteen ninety four when my mum went in to hospital to have her fibroids removed. He thought she would die and drank more. When my mum was in hospital my dad gave my brother a hard time. When she came out of hospital, she was very weak. In December that year my brother had an accident. He was in a coma for about two weeks. I was sent to stay with my aunt and uncle, I had no idea what was going on or how serious my brothers condition was. One day I was taken to the hospital where my brother was. When I was there a doctor took me in to a room and genitally told me my brother was very ill and might even die. I chose not to see him in a coma. But this was the first time I had been told he would probably die. I was eight and it was a huge shock. I went back to stay with my aunt and uncle again. A few days later my dad came and took me to my cousins room. He sat me down and told me my brother had died. I was numb at first, I didn't cry. My dad didn't take my reaction well, he thought I didn't care. But when I got in to bed that night I cried myself to sleep. In the end we had to go home and stay in that terrible house. I had the worse time of my life. My parents were both drunk and I was dreadfully frightened. I believe to this day that Social Services should have stepped in and put me temporarily in to foster care, but they didn't, in fact they didn't even bother to visit. It was Christmas and nobody visited us. I would have nightmares and no one to comfort me. I never grieved for my brother, I couldn't, I had to cope with surviving.