Maria’s story
Video Transcript
Maria:
I wouldn’t describe it as sexual abuse.
I’d call it rape.
He did it loads of times, but I do really remember this once. Really clearly. I remember the day. It was 31 March.
I was seven, and there was blood on the bed afterwards.
I was so confused. I didn’t know. I just didn’t know. So as I grew up I’d do everything I could to try to avoid it. I’d wet the bed. Wouldn’t wash. I didn’t brush my teeth. My teeth were green by the time I was 12.
But it didn’t ever work.
I think I thought I was weird, because I didn't like it. I couldn’t tell anyone. How could I? Then when I was 16, I saw a programme on TV and it made me understand. I wasn’t the odd one out and it wasn’t normal.
That’s when I decided to call ChildLine.
When I first got through, it was like…that first time, I can't even remember what I said to be honest. But there was someone at the other end of the phone who was prepared to listen.
That’s powerful stuff, you know. Just having someone listening to you. Because it can be a very, very frightening thing to say, “This is happening to me.”
And then I said, “Do you believe me?” That counsellor was the first person I told, ever. She said yes. And I cried and cried and cried.
But I’d always feel better when I finished.
I started talking to them a lot about all sorts of things.
“Am I odd? Am I crazy?” “No,” they would say.
They never tell you what to do, it’s all you and as you're speaking, you work out what it is that you need to do.
But talking to ChildLine, it really was the start and I’ve come so far. I’ve changed my life.
I’m thinking about taking my dad to court, it’s giving me the confidence to do that.
They just listen and that’s important.
Who knows what I would have been, had they not been there?