TwilightsomniacSenior Contributor
Tw: rape/sexual abuse and suicide HARD DAY/STILL GRIEVING
Hi all,
So I struggle at this time of year because out of everything I've been through the experience when I was nine is the one that still affects me the most.
My best friend and I went through a park one afternoon to get back to my foster carers house which she came to most afternoons because her parents worked.
We weren't supposed to go through the park but we were 9 and it was like 15 extra minutes to walk around it, also we were never told why we weren't allowed to go through the park. We'll we were jumped and r*ped by 4 boys late teen/early 20s.
Give my history, I had already developed the strategy of retreating inside myself till it was over but my friends screams kept bringing me back to the surface.
When they took off I helped my friend and we snuck into my foster home through the back and went my room.
I knew she was in a bad way but she made me promise not to tell anyone, so we kept it secret and after a few days she seemed back to herself but 2 weeks after the incident she didn't come to school and because her house was pretty much across the road from the school I snuck over there during lunch. I found her in her bathroom, she had 'hurt' herself bad and it didn't look like she was breathing, but what got to me the most was her eyes were still open glassy and unmoving. I ran back to the school and borrowing another friends phone I called her parents but I just told them that she hadn't come to school, I didn't want anyone to know I was the one to find her first.
So to this day 20 years later everyone still believes her mother discovered her.
But what is the hardest part is that the ambulance report said she had passed in the 40 minute period, I was there right at the beginning of that period and instead of helping I ran away. I struggled with guilt of she was probably still alive when I was there and the last thing she would have seen was her best friend running away.
I found out 2 days later that she has written a note to her parents telling them everything, which they told to the police but despite them trying I never said a word to them. I stopped eating and drinking so after a few days of having to physically force me to have water my foster carers took me to the hospital and told the social worker they weren't taking me back. I missed her funeral because of that and today is 20 years since she left the world and I still can't even bring myself to visit her grave or talk to her parents who still live in the same house.
