Why didn’t they ever try to save me? (12/73)

We would stay at the WIN House for a little over a week. During that time my mother and I would spend our days seeing the counselling staff on site. Then at night we slept in what looked like a college family dorm room but I didn’t care. We could have been sleeping on a cold hard floor and I would have been happy to be there. I felt safe at the WIN house. I knew Jack could not get us there. We were protected. I would be able to sleep those nights with the comforting thought of knowing that I would not awake with him in my room foundling me in my sleep as long as I was there. The first peaceful nights sleep I think I truly had in all the months since Jack first sexual abused me.

There were other children and mothers at the WIN house too. From time to time all the mothers would sit together and talk while the children were taken to play in other parts of the house or outside. Some form of therapy I suppose. Playing with the other children was comforting and helped to forget why we were there in the first place. I would also get to spend time with the counsellors too. In the play room. Just one on one. My mother was never in the room with us. 

The lady who assessment me numerous times over the time we were there was very nice. I really wanted to tell her about how Jack had touched me and how he had forced me to do things to him. Sadly, I stopped myself. The very reason I was talking to this lady was because Jack had beat my mother so badly that we had to be brought her for help. Well then he surely could do the same thing to my Dad and Grandparents. We were safe in a house guided by security with only authorized access, but they weren’t safe. They were not safe at all, Jack could get to them and hurt them or worse kill them. They were all I had I was scared I would lose them and the thought of that terrified me.

Even as the counsellor subtly questioned me about sexual abuse, she assured me that I was safe and would continue to be no matter what I told her but she never mentioned that anybody else would be safe. In my young mind I took that to mean that nobody else would be protected if I told, even though looking back today I know we would have all been protected if I would have just said something but I was crippled with fear. I wanted to tell her but I didn’t because the fear overwhelmed me. I did my best to lie through the tricky conversation and focus on the domestic abuse. Knowing the consequences if I said just one word I tried to carrying on with our time there by focusing on the peace and safety of the situation.

Towards the end of our stay my mother would leave quite often at night time. I never knew where she was going and it always made me wonder if she was ever coming back. By morning see always did, she would be by my side when I woke. Eventually we left the WIN house and returned home. I was sad to leave, I felt out of danger there. I did not feel the same way at home. My mother had done her best to assure me that Jack was not coming back into our lives. She even went as far as to get a restraining order against him so that he could not come any where near our home or us. She seemed serious this time.

Friends and family would offer their emotional and financial support to my mother Eileen. They all were hopeful that she was going to follow through with keeping Jack out of her life. From a far they had seen the abuse that had been happening since the beginning of their relationship. This was now the second time that it ended in blood shed. I’ve always wondered why none of the family ever stepped in, why they left me there in her care when the knew how wretched the things were that I was seeing. Why didn’t they ever try to save me?