Dear Diary,
I was 5 years old when my father told me he would show me how to make babies. For the next 11 years I would become a victim of physical, psychological and sexual abuse. My father abuse and raped me until I turned 16. It wasn't just my father though. His army buddy also sexually abuse me from the time I was about 10 years old. And there's big blocks of time that my memory erased with occasional glimpses that last for a fraction of a second and leave me shaking.
My parents were mean. Although my mother rarely raised her hand to us, she would constantly yell at us, call us names and threatened to tell our father when we misbehaved. My father would hit us with his belt, threaten us and would lock us in our rooms and tie door handles together to prevent us from leaving while they went out.
One time when I was about 6 years old my father came back from work early while I was alone at home. I hid in the basement because I was scared he would abuse me again. At one point I had to go to the bathroom and I tried to hold it in a long as I could before I was forced to run upstairs to the bathroom. Unfortunately I didn't make it on time and had an accident in my pants. When my father noticed he took my pants and poop ridden underwear off and proceeded to rub my dirty underwear in my face, telling me I was no better than a dog and therefore had to be trained like one!
One Friday I decided to risk talking to a social worker at school and told her I was being abused.
Next thing I knew is that the children's aid was taking my younger sister and I to their office where they recorded our statements individually. Then they had my parents view the recordings, while we were put in an office next to them.
Both my sister and I ended up in a temporary foster home. Shortly after though, they put us back with our mother with the condition that my father would reside at the cottage. My mother was very mad at me. She kept saying that I brought shit to our family.
One weekend our house caught on fire while I was alone at home. I was sleeping at the time and barely made it out on time and we lost everything.
Children's aid then decided we should go back to live with our abusive father at the cottage, 5km into the woods, no phone, no electricity and you can only travel the 5km with a snowmobile in the winter.
When both my sister and I reported the abuse from my father's buddy, children's aid decided that they wouldn't press charges, but simply have him sign a document saying he would stay away from us. He didn't. When I was 18 he found my apartment and raped me. I brought him to court where a third victim came forward and he was sentenced to 2 years in jail for sexually abusing 3 minors, and raping an 18 year old.
When I finally brought my father to court, he was sentenced 1 year minus one day (served 3 months) for abusing and raping me for 11 years!!
There is so much more to my story, like my godfather and his neighbor also abusing me, my cousin standing my my rapists side in court, (the rapist had married his aunt,) being thrown from one foster home to the next until I became a single mom at 18.
I had many abusive relationships after that and eventually I did 3 years of therapy to try and get myself back together. I had severe self-esteem issues and at 50 I still struggle.
3 years ago I left a 13 years abusive relationship. I had relapsed and put myself in a situation where I was working for his company without salary, just the promise that is eventually be a shareholder. After 4 years of working without a salary I decided to leave him. I couldn't take the abuse anymore. As soon as he realized I was serious he backhanded me in the face, emptied our joint account and made sure I had access to zero money. He also forbade me to use "his" car (we lived in the country, no bus), he took my computer hard drive out and erased all emails so that I couldn't show I was working for him. He locked up all the documents pertaining to the house, the company.... Etc.
I went to legal aid, got a lawyer and tried to get some spousal support. First, my legal aid lawyer was brand new and kept making mistakes. He was really bad! But not only that, he would yell at me and when I would ask a question, would often refuse to answer. Eventually, my lawyer decided to quit and that was the end of it. Legal aid would not even give me another lawyer.
At that point, I had no job, no support, my ex purposely let our house go for foreclosure, he lied to court over and over again and he even told the court that he had paid me $140,000 in dividends in a period of 2 years, which of course was another lie to get out of paying support.
I found a job, moved and despite the damage he did on my credit rating and my life, I moved on. I decided not to pursue support because I couldn't afford a lawyer and I needed to move on.
It's been 3 years since I left him. I thought by now it would be over. It's not. He filed T5 slips with the CRA saying that he paid me $140,000 in dividends. I received a reassessment of my taxes and they entered those and now tell me I owe them tax money. I disputed the T5 slips immediately and provided every proof I could think of. Here's the thing though, apparently it's up to me to prove that I have never owned a share in his company. The agent admits that proving a negative is pretty much impossible but that's on me!!
The CRA won't even ask him to prove that I am a shareholder and show the transactions he said he made!
I'm so sick of the system being crooked! Everything protects the abuser and us victims are made a laughing stock out of and told in so many ways that our voice doesn't count!
Exhausted and disheartened