Shame, and Solo Navigation

It feels very relevant to talk about how services respond to parents and their children affected by child criminal exploitation because what is said by professionals or friends and family in the moment, lives on. Even when as a family you’re not in the thick of it, there are all these loose ends still. Child criminal exploitation is like a boulder thrown in the pond of all you are – your family, your home- and the ripples of this just keep on.

I don’t talk about what happened to my child, except in safe spaces because at the time when my child was being harmed by an organised crime group, there was no real help and support. I was trying to help my child, hold down a job and navigate services and the things that were said by the services, friends, family were like a weight of blame and shame. I couldn’t collapse under that weight, not when I was trying to save my child’s life and future. I had to push the blame and shame out of my child, out of me and keep on. So, I just stopped talking to people.

There’s a lack of recognition that the children and parents of the children affected by criminal exploitation are human beings and that human beings have emotions. As a parent you are going to feel strong emotions when your child, whom you love so much, is being harmed by this crime. In the work that I do I’d never take power from a parent, but I experienced this frequently when my child was affected and it’s given me an even deeper conviction that services need to respect what parents are telling them and there needs to be accountability.

I remember ringing the police when there was a risk to life. I’d weighed up my choices in a very unsafe situation and it seemed like the safest thing to do. The response I received was, well can’t you deal with it, we’re a bit short staffed? As if my attempt to prevent a death or serious harm was a petty annoyance. The message was that it wasn’t that serious, that I was over-reacting and in that moment of feeling really terrified and continuing to think rationally and consider the best option, the response of the witnesses, the police that I’d turned to for help, kind of belittled what was a serious situation and it made me doubt myself and my actions.

When you feel so vulnerable and scared, the messages you get go straight to your nerves and you create meaning to be able to survive a frightening situation.  For me, I felt as if I hadn’t made the right decision, as if I was wrong.

When I reached out to a friend who didn’t have any experience of the situation and she was probably out of her depth and didn’t know what to say, but she did say something. She said, ‘you just need to calm down, it’ll be fine.’ For whatever reason, she couldn’t accept the kinds of things that were happening to my child and to me and she just tried to deny it, to make me deny it. She couldn’t tune into me or be with me, she tried to shut me down.

There were things that were said and done that made things worse. I remember a social worker visiting and what she was saying was so out of touch with anything helpful. She was talking about curfews as if the issue was about parental boundaries, or my child being a bit naughty and she just didn’t understand the death threats that can be carried out against a child or his family if he doesn’t respond to an organised crime group. She couldn’t see my child’s head getting lower and lower, how he was shrinking into himself because he was already feeling hopeless.

I could see him disappearing in front of me and I wanted to shout at the social worker, ‘stop it, get out’, and when I ask myself now why I didn’t, it’s because in the middle of the crisis that is child criminal exploitation, when you are so scared and exhausted, you have to pick your battles.

There were so many situations where I was unheard made me just stop talking and it drove everything underground and that was really tough to stop reaching for support when I felt so scared and vulnerable and really wanted help and to feel less alone, but I just didn’t and still don’t trust it will be there, because it wasn’t and it isn’t. Everything goes underground like a secret and in that loneliness and disconnection I carried shame. I just wanted someone to believe me.

The legacy it leaves is that I don’t talk about it, except in safe spaces, and I fear people knowing because I expect the responses to be damaging to me. So, I push things down and it gives me this feeling of ‘what’s the point?’ It’s like a weight. I just feel so tired, even now when the situation is safer. I still live with the ripples of how it has affected our lives and a fear that it could all change in an instant and the nightmare could return.

I suspect I have PTSD because I was terrified a lot of the time and just trying to find my way day by day and trying to push all these feelings down to function. Yet, I have started to think about what healing could look like for me.

I think I need some validation, just having Ivison Trust hear me and believe me helps. I think talking about what happened with a person who understands helps. To know that what I was doing to try and keep my child alive was not unreasonable, and that actually the services could have been better and that they have the capacity to learn to be better.

I think about what I need now, which is something I haven’t been able to do for a very long time. I think about how I can push all the shame out of my child, who was the victim of a crime and out of me. I want something gentle- to take the time to think about what healing could look like. I tried to access personal therapy, to try and make sense of it all and to discover healing. Unfortunately, this was not a success and I have decided that this is not right for me. The generic questions did little to gain any real insight as to why I find myself needing support. I had to ‘tiptoe around’ the facts as I sensed a lack of understanding and as a result, I didn’t feel comfortable to share.

It would seem that life beyond CCE is a lonely place – dealing with feelings, worries and trauma without any appropriate support. By appropriate, I mean an agency that truly understand. I googled to see what may be out there for parents like myself and Ivison Trust was the only service that came up.

Nobody talks about after. What happens afterwards for children and parents when they try and rebuild their lives and deal with all these emotions like fear and powerlessness, or how a child can get a job or go to college or no longer have nightmares. As far as I’m aware when the danger passes, all the services leave and I’m left as my child starts talking, about terrible things, trying to process everything that happened. I listen, and I want him to talk, I want him to be okay. I want to hold him through that and I don’t want him to see how it makes me feel, that it’s really tough for me, because he needs someone to listen. I’m left thinking, who is holding me.