#i have no problem reporting shit to social services or the nspcc or calling the police if i hear a child being treated like shit constantly

[illkeepyourbrittleheartwarm]

Sometimes, I wake up with such a bitterness in my heart that I cannot help but go downstairs and eat as much sweet food as I can. I'll feel so sick, but I need something to comfort this bitter pain in my chest.

I eat and I think about every adult who failed me as a child. I think about my mother letting me down so many times that when she read my texts telling my friend how my dad had kicked me, I didn't even try to insist that it was true, because she said that she would go down to ask him. I said that he didn't kick me, because I knew that she would eventually believe him and drop it. Because I knew that if my mum sided with me for even a minute, he would be even worse to me than usual. So she made me call my friend right in front of her and apologise to her for lying. She then made me go downstairs and apologise to my father for lying about him.

I think about the teachers who read my stories and poems, who had other girls going to them saying they're worried about me, who demanded I showed them my self harm scars in a crowded corridor, scoffed, walked away, and never did anything about it. The teachers who would call in my parents after my counsellor had to report when I told her that my dad hit me, and tell them everything. Who broke safeguarding procedure, who contacted my parents, didn't call social services, and never paid any attention to what was very clearly a child in distress again.

I think about the grown men who saw a little girl desperate for love, and took advantage of that in the sickest ways.

I think about my 'friends' who I know I can't be bitter towards, because they were children and they didn't know any better. But I am bitter, because I KNEW BETTER. I knew better than to bully someone. I knew better than to be cruel and unkind and use someone. I knew better than to assume someone was stupid when their life was falling apart and they were too depressed to do school work. I knew better than to slutshame a victim. I was younger than them, yet I still knew better. So how come they didn't??? How come they didn't know better??? How come they couldn't be decent human beings? You don't have to be an adult to understand that people suffer and that just because they try to see the best in you and give you more chances without expecting an apology, doesn't mean you get to treat them like shit but still claim to be their friend.

I think about all the neighbours who heard everything, all the crashing, yelling, screaming, daily, and did nothing. Who were the first at the door when my mother got home to tell her that they heard me shout at my younger brother when I'd snap from him constantly hounding and abusing myself and my baby brother. When I was left alone to watch them as a fourteen year old. When I was left alone to watch the middle brother when I was ten, before my baby brother was born. But when it was my father screaming and yelling and threatening us, they suddenly didn't hear. That was never a problem for them, when he would be yelling at us every day into the early hours. When he would drive home drunk. When he would be outside yelling and banging stuff or beating his workers up. All of a sudden, that didn't matter. Only if I finally yelled after trying to raise children as a fucking child with more patience than most adults have, only if I was kissing a boy somewhere, only if they saw something on my social media, like the stories I'd write, to gossip about.

I think about the social workers who got mandated reports a few times and did nothing, and sexual health clinic workers who would treat me for STDs several times, hear about the older men, test me for pregnancy, and never even tried to say anything. I'm glad they didn't report it because I'd be the only one to suffer for it, but i wish they hadn't just smiled and nodded.

I think about all the family members who saw and heard what was going on at home, but didn't care, and sung my dad's praises. But when I cut my father off, suddenly it was a big deal, and "he's your father, he did everything for you, you need to forgive him, he's such a good man, you're exaggerating, you've always had a tendency to tell stories".

I think about my mother insisting that he is a good man, a decent man, who just got lost along the way.

And the chocolate I was eating suddenly feels like tar in my mouth, difficult to chew, to swallow, to digest. Suddenly, my stomach and throat burn with bile and tears.