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Coping as the son of the victim

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  • Coping as the son of the victim

    Right this is going to be a long one and i appreciate those who listen and can advise on how to control myself.

    I'm a Brit born bloke in my 30's and i'm second generation Pakistani. The story is about my Mother. MY dad had never came to the UK so we lived at my grandparents house.

    My younger years (upto the age of 8) were spent pretty much watching my mum and her sister get battered by my grandad and i was thought it was just part of normal life. Then one day my uncle threw a bunch of keys in my face causing me to bleed which made my mother pick me up and get out of there.

    She got herself a council house, she got herself a job, she started English classes and driving lessons and i made new friends in the local area and we lived life like a normal family. I no longer had to see my mother get beaten up over something like the 'daal' was cold or the tv has stopped working. Basically she decided to improve her life and we were happy.

    That was until one Friday evening of June 1992. As it was a Friday my mother gave me 50p for fish and chips (remember those days). By the time i got back from the chip shop i noticed my mums brother (call him x) had turned up. He was talking to my mum whilst i was watching cartoons and tucking into my lovely cod and chips. Then brother x came to me and told me that we are all going shopping shortly. I acknowledged what he said with a nod and got back to my cartoons. He went to speak to my mum and then came back to me and said that only me and him are going to the shops.

    So i left the house and didn't even say goodbye to my mum. He took me to the shops, got me some chocolate and then took me to my grandads house to stay the night. Now this is not a strange occurrence as some weekends i would stay the night at my grandads house. However whenever i stayed at grandads house my youngest uncle who was was 19 at the time would stay with my mum as she got scared by herself. I asked brother x will mum be okay as she's by herself and he told me she'd be just fine.

    The next day at approx 1800hrs brother x took my back to my mums house. I opened the front door and the first thing i noticed was that last night chips are still on the table and the house is a mess. Basically mum did not clear up after me! Then i noticed the cat had not eaten it's food and was not in the house meaning nobody let the cat back in overnight. So me and brother x walked up the stairs and into my mums bedroom.

    There she was! She was in bed. Only issue was that there is a load of bloody handprints on the wall and blood pretty much splattered all over the room. Brother x took the quilt off her head. Her head was caved in, there was blood and white stuff everywhere. She was dead!

    I was only nine at the time. Brother x then called the police and ambulance and everything started.

    Basically brother x decided to rape his sister and murder her.

    He was sentenced to life for the rape and murder of my mother. I mean she was only 26 at the time of her death and very pretty. The pee taking thing is that he alrteady spent a six year sentence for murdering his own wife in the 80's!

    I went into foster care and after some years just as i was about to take my GSCE's i met my mums sister who had run away. She told me that when i was younger my mother had been raped many times by her own father and had five abortions. I didn't believe it was true to i asked my fostered father who called my social worker in who confirmed it was true but they didn't tell me as they thought i won't be able to handle it. Well, they were right. I couldn't handle it. I went pretty much loopy. I could not speak to anyone for weeks and anyone who would look at me would be met with either tears or abuse. GSCE's went down the pan.

    Nevertheless my foster father then with the involvement of social services decided that maybe it's time i found out who my father was and i should go and meet him. So we found out who he was and where he lived. We then took a flight to Pakistan and we got in a car with three guys introduced to me by my foster carer as just call them uncle. These guys were very nice, later on i found out they were armed to the teeth and were hired to get me and my foster carer out of trouble if any breaks out. Anyway i met my real father and all was lovely. So the next year i decided to go and spend a few weeks with him as i always wanted a father and he was fond of his long lost son.

    So the next year i went to see him and his new wife and all these step brothers and sisters he had with her and all was happy families. That was until one night i woke up with thunderous heartburn and saw dad and his new wife getting a bit jiggy. As a teenager i thought the right thing to do is listen in so i did. At this point i realised she didn't want any of it. He was actually raping her! I was enraged with anger, i wanted to stab him there and then. I could hear her crying and begging him to stop, he was just an animal. Now i realised why my mum always hated my dad.

    Anyway i was a week and a half from getting back to my foster parents house in Pakistan which was a safe haven for me as everyone knew me and were prepared to protect me if need be. My issue was that i could not stand that rapist and i wanted him out of my sight. One day my dads wife came to me crying, i knew why she was crying and i done the thing most Brit lads would do to a crying woman. Arm round the shoulder and a bit of comforting. Dad saw this and felt very insecure. That night i woke up and he was kicking the living **** out of his wife, i lost it and went for him but missed and hit a wall which pretty much screwed up my hand. He was ranting about 'our' affair and was shouting for his shotgun. I grabbed a maglight and got ran out of the house. It was around 1am and i was in a rural village in Pakistan trying to get to the 'safe' house which was 700km away. Fortunately my foster carer gave me two lumps of money, one for spending and one for emergency. I had enough money for a chauffeur driven car and three star hotels all the way home. I think i made it 200 yards before i felt some villager literally pick me up by my arm and put me in the back of a pickup. Now i'm dead or so i thought. Stranger and my dad drove me 700km back to my foster carers place had a word with my foster carer and then went home. Foster carer looked at me in a disappointed way, i asked him what's the problem and he told me my dad told him i had sex with his wife three times. I burst into an anger laugh. I told my carer the guy is a rapist and i never screwed his wife.

    Nevertheless the word got out that i apparently had sex with his wife three times. The word even came back to Britain before i did and the local community basically laughed at me calling me a mother, well you can guess the second word.

    Now the problem i have is that i'm a grown man, with a fit wife, my own business and a lovely child. However i constantly feel like i'm trapped in this life as i feel that i would love for it to end so the punishment can be over but i cannot do so due to my family commitments. What brother x done to my mum ruined my life and it still does affect me. None of my friends or my now adopted family know how i feel. I feel weak, hurt, my confidence still has not recovered and everytime i try and forget it i might go for 6 or 8 months then something will happen or i will see a tv scene where things will start coming back to me. This time it was that 'how woman are treated in India' program which got me going again.

    I don't know what to do, this life is punishment. What can i tell my son when he asks about his grandparents which no doubt he will do so. The killer of my mother is due to be released soon. In all honesty i'm scared to face him. Will i snap and try to kill him or will i just crawl into a ball and turn into a nervous wreck? I've got no idea. In the hero world i would grab his neck and rip his head off but in the real world the sighting of his face will just bring back memories and i will go cookoo again.

    Oh well... that's my story...

  • #2
    HI 3d Pool. Welcome to the forum.
    I think you're extremely brave to tell your incredible story on here. I hope it's done you some good. These are real scars, from the most horrendous experieces that probably will never go away, but can be lessened. I'm not sure what advice to give you. I think some therapy and support would be really benificial, but not nescessarily phsycotherapy - there's nothing wrong with you, just the world that surounded you in your childhood. Talking can help but so can writing, creative arts (ceramics) in particular and sport , or a combination of things. Something to allow you to express the intencity of anger, sadness, whatever it is you 're feeling.

    I think you have to learn to nurture yourself as though you'd been through a war, which in some ways you have.
    There must be support groups especially intended for people of an Asian background who have come across such problems, or one with particular expertise in severe traumas . Rape Crises may also be able to help.

    I can imagine that you are very concerned about your mother's murderer being released and 'catching up with you'. Perhaps you can make your fears known to the probation services - you might be able to get details by getting in touch with the court he was tried at or the prison he's in. I'm just guesstimating.

    I wonder if your wife or anyone else close to you knows about your experiences?

    People do turn themselves around from the most traumatic situations, I hope and pray you will too. Keep coming back on here, I'm sure others will come and add thier grains of wisdom and support.

    All the very best
    WGO

    Comment


    • #3
      Hi,

      The important thing to remember is that none of this was your fault, at nine years old you were in no position to influence adults actions.

      I suppose with hindsight you may not have gone to visit your father but that is easy to say with hindsight, it could equally well have been a wonderful experience for you.

      The best legacy of your awful experiences is to give your present family the family life and childhood you missed out on; after all you know only too well how it should not be done!
      'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger'

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Casehardened View Post
        Hi,


        The best legacy of your awful experiences is to give your present family the family life and childhood you missed out on; after all you know only too well how it should not be done!
        There's wisdom for you!

        Comment


        • #5
          3d Pool

          Oh bless you - you have come through horrors that I wouldn't even watch in a fictional film. How can anyone possibly know how to cope - there's no blueprint for the dreadful events you have suffered.

          To protect the precious life you have now, could I suggest that your first stop is your doctor? You have obviously learned some way to 'box in' your experiences and that is a coping strategy most of us couldn't manage given the extreme suffering.

          I do think some professional help would be a good way to back up your coping skills and keep you and your lovely family safe.

          Comment


          • #6
            I read all that and I could literally 'feel' your story.

            You have a way with words and are able to create images relatively easily. I found the reading easy and very thought inspiring. I don't know if anyone has ever said this to you but I would highly recommend that you take up writing even if only in your spare time.

            If you felt able too then you could even base your writing on your true life.

            Have a think about it if you haven't already done so. Your life in a book would truly open doors for the ignorant masses that have everything too easy and it may also help prevent others from the hurt and anguish that you have been through.


            That would be my recommendation for how you should deal with your feelings and stresses. You should be super proud of yourself for having been able to drag yourself out of all the horrors and have what on the face of it is a normal life with wife and kid and job and all the other little things that come along with it. People go through far lesser tragedies with far greater consequences. You are clearly someone special and someone that we should all inspire to be as strong as.
            Wow... A signature option!

            Comment


            • #7
              That's a brilliant suggestion - I go along with everything that L1 has said. I'm sure you have very black moments, but you are an inspiration in survival skills.

              Comment


              • #8
                Thanks for the responses guys.

                Please accept my apologies in getting back to you so late. I wanted some free time away from the wife so that she doesn't spot the thread. My wife doesn't know how i feel and although i have tried talking to her before she just doesn't seem to connect.

                I am not scared of brother x coming for me or anything along those lines. Prison has not been kind to him and he has had a fairly large number of accidents whilst he's in there. My fear is what my reaction will be when he gets out. I know a lot of my real family will be pretending like nothing has happened and how they have missed him etc but what my fear is my reaction. Sometimes i feel i will be a raged maniac looking for revenge, other times i feel i will just crawl into a ball and go loopy. I don't know. He has destroyed my childhood and my life. What he done to my mother is a lifetime punishment for me.

                Moving onto my real father i understand why my foster carer wanted me to meet him. He thought that just because my mothers family was bad, my father should be much better. The journey to my fathers house in Pakistan was pretty ironic. The closer we got to his house the villas just got bigger and bigger. I thought my old man must be very rich and then the mud huts started again

                I've been looking for Asian support groups but they all seem to be exclusively for women. Us blokes ARE the baddies literally.
                I've thought about setting one up myself yet i'm scared of people knowing about my past and to top it off reading the experiences of other people gets me going again. Furthermore i can't seem to find support for the people that are often left behind.

                Take Lee Rigby for example. Poor fella was butchered. However in my eyes now i don't mean or intend to sound offensive but he is resting in peace now it is all over. The people who are left behind (his family) are the ones that are going to have to go through mental torture for years to come. They won't ever get over it and who knows in twenty years time they could still be crying out for help but showing a brave face to the world that they have moved on. That is what i do. Everyone knows me as a funny guy, i wouldn't call myself Mr Popular but i have a lot more friends than enemies and i will bring a smile to any gathering of people. However it is all fake as inside i'm burning with hatred for my mothers killer and memories of my mother are killing me.

                I would really like to know why he done what he did. I don't think i could cope with the answer.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Hello again. I can understand you being scared at the thought of having to see this murdering rapist again, both revenge and submission would be highly damaging to you. I do think you need professional help on this one , I'm sure the feelings you express are not unusual .

                  I've looked for sites which help victims of murder. This is a helpline which has a list of links. Granted, several seem to be aimed at women, but not all.

                  http://www.healthtalkonline.org/Livi...divArticle3767

                  One I thought looked particularly helpful is Escaping Victimhood. 'The Escaping Victimhood programme aims to support those suffering the long-term effects of the trauma of a sudden and violent bereavement. ' They seem to have quite an impressive professional staff. They have short residential workshops around the country with specific groups. For example they're running workshops for those affected by murder or manslaughter from the 12th-15th August 2013 near Birmingham, with a follow up day on the 18th September.

                  www.escapingvictimhood.com

                  In parallel to this , you might consider getting help from an Asian support group with the difficulties family ties can bring.

                  I really hope you find the right thing for you, please stay in touch.

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