All My Fault: The True Story of a Sadistic Father and a Little Girl Left Destroyed (14 page)

About four months after Ma first confronted Da and he moved out, he decided to return home.

This prompted my brothers to leave the house straight away. They slept on sofas and floors in mates’ houses as none of them had the money to pay deposits on houses.

So Da was back.

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. I felt so worthless and felt that he was getting the upper hand.

When Da moved back into the house in Castleknock, he contacted a counsellor who dealt with sexual abusers.

Ma then paid for me to see a counsellor. My counsellor was a nice woman but I wasn’t yet ready to confront my past so I got fuck all out of it. Except for the inconvenience of having to travel all the way from Celbridge to the south side. I’d come home feeling raw.

I never told the counsellor the intimate details of the abuse and in time I started to wonder if it was all worth it. Had I not been better off before I confessed the abuse to anyone? Had Ma and my brothers not been better off too? Maybe if I just pretended everything was okay and that I’d prefer to sweep it all under the carpet, everyone would be able to get on with their lives without this dark cloud hanging over them.

*

I was still in the middle of the counselling when I found out that I was pregnant. It was unplanned but I was delighted. But the counsellor recommended that I stop the sessions. She didn’t think it would be good to go too deep into things as the stress of it all could harm the baby. I was happy to stop anyway.

I was very low at this point. I remember I was crossing the road in Celbridge one day when a truck came hurtling around the corner at breakneck speed and for a split second I wanted to step out in front of it and put an end to everything. It would mean my family would be able to close the can of worms I’d opened. The only thing that stopped me that day was my unborn baby. I knew that I had to struggle on for its sake.

At some stage or another, Da’s family were told about the abuse. A chosen few were selected and all was revealed to them and them alone. The only member of the family not to be told was Nanny Delaney. It was agreed that at her age the news could kill her.

I loved Nanny dearly and I didn’t want to upset her, so I went along with this decision.

None of us had a manual that gave a step-by-step breakdown of what to do. We were all just stumbling along blindly, colliding with walls and doors and all sorts of other obstacles as we tried to find some way out of this situation.

It was arranged that I would go to a meeting with Da’s counsellor. Da wouldn’t be going, though, as I refused to be in the same room as him.

I didn’t find the meeting helpful at all, and I continued to feel hopeless and depressed, more convinced than ever that I should have continued to keep my mouth shut.

*

Back in Celbridge, what had briefly brought me and
Joseph
together was now sending us further apart. We argued non-stop, and as I was the one with the problems, I felt that I was an easy target. The truth was that we were just not compatible.

I suffered with terrible anxiety and it got to the stage where I was barely able to leave the house. Stepping outside in daylight hours gave me the feeling that you get in dreams when you find yourself suddenly standing naked on a street full of people. I just couldn’t brave it unless I absolutely had to. I wouldn’t go shopping until every last morsel of food in the fridge had been eaten.

Da had hurt me over and over again and would continue to hurt me for the rest of my life. He had admitted to it too.

As far as I was concerned, Da hadn’t lost his family—he had thrown them away. I wasn’t responsible for destroying anyone’s life; again, Da had done that all by himself. It was all his responsibility.

It was inevitable that my relationship with my mother would be affected by what had happened. For a while, I struggled to keep a relationship of some sorts going with Ma. I’d ring her up but if Da answered my heart would skip a beat and I’d slam the phone back down again. I’d ring back a few minutes later, hoping Ma would pick up the phone on the next ring. We were both caught in this impossible situation.

I just plodded along, feeling more and more angry and hurt all the time. I knew it was only a matter of time before something or someone hit the switch and caused it to boil over.

Around this time, my parents decided to sell the huge house in Castleknock and move to another slightly smaller house nearby. So with the money left over from the sale, Ma gave me and my three brothers a couple of thousand pounds each and told us that it was from her and not Da. She was doing her best to help me.

Nothing could compensate me for what Da had done to me, but because Ma gave it to me, I accepted the money as if it was rightly mine, a kind of early inheritance, and one that wasn’t coming from Da. To be honest, I didn’t think twice about taking the money. My car at the time was on its last legs so I used the money to buy a new one.

But the money didn’t bring me any feelings of justice. I had told my family what happened in order to bring some cleanliness and control into my life, but I still felt sullied, and even worse, I still felt that Da had gotten away with it.

Chapter Eleven

Joseph was delighted when he found out I was pregnant. But within a few weeks, our relationship had gone back to being a struggle. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Da had gotten away with everything—his life appeared on the outside to be exactly the same as it was. The only difference now was that he had been exposed as a child abuser to his family. I kept thinking about going to the police and making a complaint, but I’d had some problems already during the pregnancy and the doctors were warning me to take it easy so I certainly didn’t feel ready for the gardaí just yet.

My relationship with
Joseph
eventually broke down, and he moved out. Looking back, I guess it was inevitable. The pregnancy was a very lonely time for me. My best friend Mary was the one person who was there for me. She really became a support structure that I clung on to. I really needed someone in my life at that point who just accepted me for who I was, and she provided that and more. I took comfort from having her around and from the feeling of my little baby growing inside of me. I cut out drugs and smoking altogether and my only weakness during the pregnancy was a couple of glasses of wine to help me sleep on the really bad nights.

After we spent time apart,
Joseph
came back for the birth of our son. If I’m truthful, I was glad to have him back, because I was frightened at the thoughts of what lay ahead. When I found out my baby was a boy I thought this might gel us all together.

I can’t explain the feeling of complete and utter unconditional love that welled up inside of me when I first laid eyes on my wonderful, gorgeous baby boy who I named Tyrone. I remember lying in bed and feeling his gentle breath on my cheek and with each breath he breathed I suddenly knew the meaning of love and life. It was the most fulfilling emotion I’d ever felt. I had my baby now and nobody was going to take him away from me. I was completely consumed by him. Me and the little man were the only two people who mattered in the world.

Joseph
was equally mad about his son, and we tried to make our relationship work. We plodded along happily enough. He adored the baby and he was great with him.

I breastfed Tyrone for about six months after he was born so I didn’t go out very much. I didn’t mind though. I was happy to spend the weekends with him. I really bonded with Tyrone during this time. I didn’t even find it too hard taking care of him on my own. I’d get up to feed him every night and when I’d put him back in his cot, I’d sit and watch him go back to sleep. I just didn’t want to take my eyes off him.

When Tyrone was a few months old I started to drink wine in the evenings to help me sleep, as I started having more and more nightmares. This time I remembered the details after I woke up. They were all pretty much the same. Da would sneak into Tyrone’s bedroom and steal him from his cot. I couldn’t move in the dream so I wasn’t able to stop him. I felt so helpless. He’d bring him off and introduce him to little girls and teach him how to humiliate and abuse them. I’d dream that he was taking my son under his wing and trying to pass this disease on to him. My son would fall under his spell. Then the guards would burst in and arrest them both but my baby would get the death sentence while Da would walk free. I’d toss and turn in my bed all night with these bad dreams and when I’d wake in the morning I’d be exhausted and tearful, and the memory of the nightmare would linger for the rest of the day.

*

When Tyrone was one year old,
Joseph
proposed to me. Divorce had been legalised in Ireland so he and his ex-wife were now divorced. We were in a lift in Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, heading down to Dunnes to do some grocery shopping, when he turned to me with a nervous look on his face.

‘Will you marry me, like for real, as soon as we can?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I stuttered, completely caught off guard. Me and
Joseph
had been up and down and generally all over the place for the last few years but I did love him and I knew Tyrone needed a father figure in his life. Plus, as an added bonus I would be able to get rid of the name ‘Delaney’ that I hated. Even though I loved my family, I still couldn’t help but associate the name with being dirty and my father.

I had a few drinks with my girlfriends to celebrate the wedding. But, with all the drinking and the craic, things got out of hand during the night and I somehow ended up shaving my head. I loved a bit of craic but it wasn’t till the next morning that I realised what I had done. I wouldn’t have minded so much only I had the wedding looming. One minute I had long blonde hair down to my bum and the next I had a mousy brown number-two cut. I felt like someone had died when I looked in the mirror the next day and saw my bald head staring back at me.

*

A lot of work went into planning the wedding. The first thing we had to do was make sure that everything was finalised with Joseph’s divorce. The divorce law had only recently been passed in this country so the system was still catching up with itself and a lot of paperwork had to be filed.

We decided to get married in England as the registry offices over there were a lot nicer than the ones in Ireland. Since
Joseph
had already been married, a church wedding was not an option. It also helped with my own family situation to go for a minimal wedding. That way I didn’t have to worry so much about who knew what and who had to be kept apart from who. It just made life easier.

So just eight weeks after
Joseph
first proposed, we got married in England. Ma, my three brothers and a few close friends came over. Depending on who was asking, I had different excuses for why Da wasn’t there.

My dress on the day was floor length and ivory. It wasn’t my dream dress but I hadn’t any money at the time and wedding dresses cost a small fortune. I looked everywhere for one that I could afford and, eventually, I found a dress in a sale for £100—a bargain.

The ceremony in the registry office was very emotional.
Joseph
even shed a few tears when he saw me and Tyrone walking in. Tyrone looked so cute in a top hat and tails.

We spent the honeymoon in
Joseph
’s Ma’s flat in the centre of Bristol.
Joseph
and I spent most of our honeymoon apart from each other, mixing with different people.

It didn’t take me long to realise that our wedding wouldn’t have a fairytale ending. But at least I knew
Joseph
inside out by now—the good parts and the bad. And that, if nothing else, was a source of comfort.

*

After the wedding, as the months flew by, I found myself getting more and more over-protective of Tyrone. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone harming a hair on his head. I would have killed for him.

At this point I got a book about the subconscious mind—it was all about how to train your mind to think more positively. This started giving me the strength to get through the really bad times.

I started studying different religions and positive thinking, and I formed a technique that had a common denominator with most teachings. My children and I use this technique today. God is at the centre and we train our minds to pray for what we want and we get it. It is full of love and thankfulness, and is non judgemental. It has taken me about eight years to learn about using your subconscious and your soul. But it worked right from the beginning when I started.

The concept made me more determined than ever before to put the pieces of my life back together. And playing happy families with Da was not the way to do that.

I wasn’t playing happy families at home with
Joseph
either. Our relationship had started to breakdown once more. When we weren’t fighting, our house was deathly quiet which was nearly worse.
Joseph
and I could go for weeks without exchanging any words at all. The only thing that made it bearable was the odd weekend visit from my friend Mary. We would go for a few drinks and have the craic and it reminded me of the life I might have.

It was only when I fell pregnant a second time that I decided I had to leave
Joseph
. My best mate helped me fill the car with clothes, and myself, her and my big belly left the house in Celbridge. The breakup wasn’t anyone’s fault. The relationship between the two of us just didn’t work out.

One of my brothers put me and Tyrone up for a couple of months. I made sure I kept to myself and stayed out of his way as much as possible. But it was hard not to feel in the way when you’re living in someone else’s house and I began to miss my own place in Celbridge. I made an appointment to speak to someone in a women’s support group about my situation and to find out what my rights were in relation to the house. The woman I met with advised me that if I wanted to retain any rights at all I would have to move back in and stake my claim.