An average child abuse PSA in the United Kingdom

 Having survived physical child abuse this PSA makes me shudder. Most of this content happened to me and more. Somehow I survived!
Being YELLED at continually. Being beaten for being in the wrong place: not making through the night without wetting the bed: eating to fast: speaking when other adults are around (but after they've gone).
I lived; but have had a life long disability as a result. Don't let any unfair treatment of a child go unreported.
https://youtu.be/P1m1VTQTNfk

Any Abuse Of Any Child Has Lifetime Effects!

Let me tell you exactly what damage I have in my back before I go further.

L3 had a hairline fracture. L4/5 has a retrolithsesis ( Wikipedia = Retrolistheses are caused by injury and resulting instability of the connecting soft tissues especially ligaments, discs, muscles, tendons and fascia.)  All major nerves from L3 down spent 35yrs at least partially pinched before surgery released them. The scarring on the impinged nerves is visible to the naked eye according to the surgeon who did the work. He also said that on some nerves there was so much scarring, that there is little neuro-pathway left. He advised me to never do a full body stretch again; because as I age that pathway could break. He was amazed at that time that I could still stand let alone walk even my short distances.
That operation was just over 10yrs ago. Some time a couple of years ago I awoke to a loud internal popping noise. As I came to awareness I realised I was in that dreaded full body stretch. My hands were up the headboard pulling, and my legs were pressed on the foot of the bed. I'm barely 5'4" so it was a good stretch. I thought I'd got away with it when I got out of bed that day; although I knew I'd inflamed the nerves as the pain built through the day. The nerves feeding the legs became excessively painful, and every step has been like walking on broken glass. 

Jamaican Dogwood at 5-8 drops a night has been the only thing I have found to keep putting my feet on the floor each day. Every time I leave it off for a few days that awful sensation comes back.
Last winter the same thing happened again: I woke in a full body stretch and that loud internal pop woke me up. My left leg has through this year lost about half of it's lateral muscle mass, and my right leg has started with the deterioration path my left leg took before the wasting.
I was using a manual wheelchair to get about outside; but now have to use an electric one as any pushing my chair up any incline put enough pressure on my lower back to cause the inflammation to rise.
Why am I telling you this now? Well child abuse has been in the forefront this year in the UK; but only sexual abuse. It has felt to me like physical and mental/emotional abuse no longer exist, as sexual child abuse is now referred to as plain "child abuse". 
Any abuse of any child, of any nature has lifetime effects! I am passing my 60th year soon and still have things affect me. I was in my early 30's when someone finally believed I had been abused, and I was offered counselling. That was weird in the extreme for me. It was like I left my body and someone else was telling the story. I felt no emotions, it was just a list of facts that had happened to me. 

In the short term it was a release to have told; but nothing more. My fears, presumptions of people in authority etc. remained in place. Age 49 I had the operation that revealed all, and I felt vindicated. I could no longer be called a liar, a hypochondriac, a drama queen: yet the fears persisted, as did trigger words that would put me in ultra defensive mode.
In my early 50's I got some specialised psychotherapy; which was mind blowing. Two thirds of the way through I had to take a break for a few weeks because I no longer knew what motivated me. My entire life had been based on anger, and suddenly it was gone: I'd done everything up to then to prove the proverbial "them" wrong. I had to learn I could do just because I wanted to, not to prove anything. 
I thought my psychological journey through was done, until this year. Seeing such prominent child sex abuse cases defined under the broad name of "child abuse" and no cases of any other type of child abuse coming up has left me angry again. This summer I also came face to face with a television visual trigger that sent me into a state of panic. I was that child again, in that moment of intense pain, and I was all but physically sick.
Please remember, child sex abuse is not the only child abuse that goes on, and we the physically and emotionally/psychologically abused, also have a lifetime of dealing with the past ahead. Never knowing when it will have an affect on us again, or what could trigger that affect. I am not in any way down playing sexual abuse. I can't imagine what that must be like; but I do know about the effects of the other types.
Children Matter. Below is a link to my story
http://www.amazon.co.uk/YOUR-FATHERS-DAUGHTER-Early-Years-ebook/dp/B007S9XB7U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447424634&sr=1-1&keywords=Your+fathers+daughter

Book Review

Today  has been brilliant! I received a personal review on my book from someone who has read it. It is so amazing I have to post it here.


"hey. I got your book on monday.i have just finished with it. what a great read.you did a very nice job and it flowed wonderfully.i thought due to subject matter it would be emotionally difficult to read but you wrote it in such a way that what you went through was hard to deal with but endurable to the reader with some lighthearted moments.it left me wanting soooo much to know the rest of the story! what a wonderful woman you turned into despite what life threw at you.i applaud you.with all my love."


This is the book being referred to:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Your-Fathers-Daughter-Martina-Anne/dp/1475199708/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343242225&sr=1-2   Paperback

http://www.amazon.co.uk/FATHERS-DAUGHTER-Early-Years-ebook/dp/B007S9XB7U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343242225&sr=1-1  Kindle edition

Introduction

I have reached 55 yrs old. In those yrs I have had plenty of time to contemplate the things that affect our lives.
Somethings we choose affect the rest of our lives; but at other times it is something totally out of our control that affects the rest of our lives.
The reason I have had so much time to contemplate, is disability that was inflicted upon me at the age of 14.
I managed to work for just a few yrs before my 1st child arrived. after delivering her, I started tiring to exhaustion and losing my legs from under me. After my 2nd child arrived, MS was diagnosed, even after I had seriously challenged a test result. "No that can't still be affecting you after this many yrs," the consultant declared.
I would be 49, and undergo a back operation before I could get at the truth. By then the perpetrators were either dead or dying.
I am writing a book about my childhood that will fill in the gaps.
In future blogs I will be airing my opinion on various subjects that affect entire lives. I will intersperse it with my family of cats and their antics.