Opening Up

A story for a happy family.</u>



As any family should, this family started out with a Mother and a Father, there were 3 sons, and they all lived in a house in Norwich.
As in the case of any family, arguements broke out in this house.... some serious, some not serious, but eventually the arguements got too much.
You see, this family was different, the Father commuted long-distance to Peterborough, was only seen at weekends... rarely
The Mother was very ill, not physically, but mentally, looking after the kids on her own, she found the stress too much to take.
Her illness started to come out, and the Father decided not to come home as often.
With no venting point for her illness, and with no-one noticing, the Mother got more and more out of control.
With anger directed largely upon the youngest, a wide range of abuses filled that small semi-detatched house.
Hours in locked dark cupboards, and a swollen face became common place in this disfunctional house for the youngest child.


With the two brothers taking the Mothers side, the youngest started feeling like he really was in the wrong.
Inside him, he felt such a pure hatred for himself, for you see, he "ruined everything".
After coming in to infant-school so many times with bruises and cuts, the little catholic school in Norwich got in touch with Social Services.


The wonders of the child-protection schemes of Britain came into force with the great idea of "Lets talk to them"
Real genius that was....
They talked.
Nothing.
Child Psychologists brought in.
Nothing.
But one day, this familys Aunt and Uncle came down, preceeded to watch carefully what was going on
And one night, the youngest happened to hear a heated arguement between them.


The next few months were a blurry of psychiatrists and young women who thought they "Had a way with kids"
With the Father homeless living with his friends unable to take these three sons in
The option of care came up. A foster home, Britains answer to eveything
Luckily the Father pulled his finger outta his ass and married a rich chick


They moved in and finally the kids had a place to go, they moved in with a family of 4 in a remote house in Cambridgeshire, which they moved out of shortly
Things were looking up
When going to visit their Mother with supposedly "supervised visits", abuse still carried on. Although the abuse of the past was often talked about, the current abuse was still going on, unsaid.


Then the kids didnt see their Mother for a while, she was being seen by a wide range of counsillers with thoughts to being sectioned.
When finally seeing their Mother after this, she was a stranger to them. Long awquard silences filled the times which they met. She was no longer regarded as a Mother.. but as "Rosie", she was a woman, a woman they all used to know.. but that was long ago, and times had changed


But things weren't ok at home either, with their Fathers second marriage reaching an end, the youngest who had always found social-interaction hard due to his childhood, started being bullied at school, a year came to an end with a divorce and insults ringing in his ears.


His Father then went through long periods of dating many women and getting engaged to a few, the times between women were the worse though, with his Father unbearable
The youngest, called Joe was then in secondary school, bullying still continued, but he had grown used to that
A new woman came into his Fathers life, her name was Arwen, a teacher from his Fathers college that he was headteacher of


She later joined Joe's secondary school as a teacher and got married to his father. Joe got on with, and respected, this woman, she had become a motherly figure to him
But secondary school life as a whole was getting worse and worse, mid-way through secondary school, the bullying reached its peak


Although Joe had many friends, he also had many enemies and eventually bullying got to Joe, as it does to many a kid,. He had never been very able to cope with situations such as this and so on frequent times whole packs of pills and razor blades went missing round the house
Out of lack of abilty to handle the situation, Joe tried on many occasions to cut his life short, he tried overdoses, and was a frequent self-harmer
Joe's secondary school found out after seeing his arms, and reffered him to the schools counsiller, which Joe rarely turned up to after getting into many arguements with him


But after that peak of bullying, life started getting easier... the last few years of secondary school Joe found himself fitting in more
He was happier, life was going better, he rarely got hassle, and when he would, he'd just respond back with an insult, it no longer bothered him


He found weed, he grew a lazy attitude, and no longer these things bothered him
Walking around school with long hair, with a faint smell of something "herbal", he had found his place, he had a lot of friends, he very rarely saw "Rosie" and was now too old to be controlled by the past.


A crazy few years included his Father getting involved in a murder trial near the end of secondary school, after hiring a very famous murder to his college in Soham. His Father was often in the paper and tv
He just saw this as another crazy event happening in a eventful life
Sixth form college started, some close friends left, a wide range more were made, and life was good
With the exception of the occasional divorce scare happening now and again
Life was good


The rest was all.. future, still to be written