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I decided then that I needed a change and that the corporate world was not for me and felt a strong desire to go to Nanny School and become a Nanny and travel the world. I had several jobs and some live in and just casual and during this time I was asked out by a guy who was nice enough and no real attraction or spark but thought that everyone else had a boyfriend and settled down so I thought it was the right thing to do and longing for connection.

After a period of time we got engaged to be married and he was Greek Orthodox and from strict religious background and things progressed forward. I had spent a lot of time at their home as my live in Nanny Position allowed me to have weekends off and I had no other option. Wedding preparations began and it was a very exciting time and I had longed for a family and felt a very strong connection not just to my fiance but to the whole family and they were my world. As they were very strict I had to sleep upstairs and my fiance slept downstairs and after going into my bedroom one night I heard the sisters talking to their mother and arguing about the fact that I was going to wear white on my wedding day and that they knew I was not a Virgin because they knew that I had been in their brothers room with the bedroom door closed several times. This broke my heart and destroyed all belief in the relationship with his family and I again felt such a strong sense of shame and not being good enough. When I told my fiance the next day he didn’t believe me and the family denied it. I instantly reverted to my coping mechanism of withdrawing and isolating myself and never saw his family again. We tried to maintain the relationship and he moved out to stay in the relationship but became very angry and bitter in the process of having to choose between his family and me which was his choice not mine.

There became a period where the only interaction or relationship we had was sexual and I resisted this but he felt was his only aspect of control to hold onto the relationship and I had already emotionally and psychologically disengaged but again went into auto pilot and went through the motions to be compliant and do as I was told. It was during this time that I felt triggered following his demands for sex and would have horrific night terrors and flashbacks and could not make sense of what I was experiencing. Throughout the time I started to experience my body changing and those old issues resurfacing where I was anxious, couldn’t sleep was raging inside and knew that my body was telling me something that I needed to hear but I kept pushing it down and fighting it. It got to a point where I couldn’t keep it contained and I had to face it head on and I went to see my mother and asked her the question, did my father sexually abuse me, and she said yes and that was it, now I knew.

Nothing more to be said or done and I told her I didn’t want her to tell my father that I knew and that was it.

I left the relationship and searched online for a job overseas as a Nanny and left the country within weeks. After a couple of years I met up with friends did some travelling and headed home. By that time friends had started to settle down and get married but I had difficulty trying to settle and find my place in the world. I didn’t know where I belonged I was always the single friend, the third wheel and felt completely alone even though I had friends, I never felt a sense of belonging or connection. I drifted again and went on a two week holiday to North Queensland with family friends from my childhood and stayed, found a job and settled into Tropical life. It was fun and everyone was single and escaping something and felt very connected to a tribe of kindred spirits or misfits escaping reality.

During this time I had a few love interests from males who were unavailable but led to destructive consequences for me because I fell in love, one was gay, the other married and they both played with my heart and promised me the world to let me down again. Heartbreak is one of those things that just shatters from inside out, it never starts out as tragic, it starts out at a fairy tale and they promise the world and follow the script of the greatest romance but somewhere in the process decide that I am not worthy or deserving of love and belonging so they leave.

I decided at this stage I would return home as the lure of the party lifestyle had taken its toll and relationships had become too much to bear and I returned home. At this time I learnt that whilst my father had been in hospital receiving treatment and diagnosis he had reconnected with my mother and my sister and from their accounts had been such a wonderful and beautiful experience for them both to reconnect with him and heal before sending him off to the place where he would spend his last days. I also learnt that in the reconnection to his loved ones my mother had convinced my father to rectify his wrongs and to make her his Executor of His Will and include her in the proceeds even though they had financially settled their marriage years ago and he had been very generous over the years, she was also in a long term relationship and living with a man at the time. She also convinced him to include my sister in the Will as well even though she had previously cut him out of her life. Money never meant much to me I was never motivated by it I just always seemed to have what I needed to get by and always financially independent and had my own money. I think that what distressed me most about this situation was that they were only motivated to reconcile and love because my father had dangled the carrot of financial reward for the love and affection of his family reunited as he had done to me many years before. I hated being part of this financial transaction and gave my mother a huge lump sum to free myself of her stronghold of financial connection to her with the inheritance of property.

This was a very difficult time for me emotionally and psychologically and trying to deal with the grief and loss of losing my father but also the flipside of freedom on the other side that awaited and the struggle was real. Again I withdrew at times and just drifted but had to keep up the facade and go through the motions. I recall my sister telling me the story in great detail and she was so passionate about telling me of the scene at the airport that she had witnessed between my parents when they had taken him to the airport to go home to his family to die. She described in great detail as they were in the airport like some sort of romance movie my mother and father clinging to each other and declaring their undying love for each other and my sister had been so moved and such a deep and beautiful connection to our father that she had been able to resolve all of her issues and conflict and tell each other that they loved each other. It was like she was recalling the greatest love story of all time and a beautiful memory that both my sister and mother would have forever.

I remember feeling so utterly betrayed at that moment and my world shattered, my mother and my sister had been able to embrace and love and declare undying love for the man who had destroyed my world and they were both aware of the abuse yet it never made either one of them aware of how such an act psychologically destroyed me, ultimate betrayal.

During this time I had a call from my mother to tell me that my father had been diagnosed with end stage Cancer and had 3 months to live, I had not had any contact with him for a few years and just couldn’t cope or deal with it and refused to go home to see him. At this time I started to get very hopeful and excited about what this meant and the freedom with the upcoming death of my father. There would be no more maintaining this facade of fake love and family relationship for the sake of my father’s emotional wellbeing, it took a huge toll on me at times and overwhelming sacrifice to keep pretending like he was my father and I was his daughter and only family connection when I knew the real truth of such a betrayal. My father’s health deteriorated over the coming months and my mother told me that my father had decided that he wanted to return to his hometown to die so that he could be buried next to his mother, his brother still lived there with his wife and he would go and stay with until his end of life.

At some point over the next couple of weeks my mother had a call that the relationship between my brother and his wife had broken down with my father and my Aunt refused to have my father stay at the house but I was never told the reason why and I had no desire to know what had happened but knew it was significant. He was in the Palliative Care Ward at the local hospital however was not actively dying and therefore had nowhere to go and needed to be cared for by someone and no one was available or willing to take on the care. The situation was difficult someone had to go to provide care for him and find somewhere to live and become his carer until he died and my mother and sister both adamantly refused and not their problem. My sense of duty and daughter responsibility kicked in and I knew that this was the last time that I would have to summon the strength and courage to play my role. There was no option to leave him at his time of need so I flew to where he was with the intent to care for him until he died, because that was my responsibility and the only one he had.

It was an emotional journey returning to a place of so many good and painful memories of childhood, reconnecting with friends of my parents and hearing all the good stories and having to live a lie, having to make up a fake and happy family dynamic with my father. I remember travelling to see him after getting off the plane and he was lying in the bed at the hospital and we just looked at each other without speaking. I remember him telling me he was glad I came, and then he just spent long periods of time sleeping and a strong sense of calm. I don’t remember how long I would travel up to the hospital to see him but it was probably only a couple of weeks after I got there and once I arrived it was clear he wasn’t leaving the hospital and over the next couple of days his condition deteriorated rapidly.

I remember just sitting there when I visited and he would drift in and out and smile when he saw me, a couple of times I would make the trip with some of his friends but it was painful for them to see him like that. The great and heroic footballer that they had idolised so frail and dying. The day before he died he woke up and looked and me and started to apologise and I knew what he was going to say and I couldn’t bear it, I couldn’t have that conversation, I couldn’t have him say the words out loud because for me I knew once he had confused and put spoken the words I would never survive and my protective shield would not serve its purpose. I just stopped him before he could continue and told him that it didn’t matter and it would be okay and to just go to sleep and I told him to just let go and that everything would be okay. He died that night and part of me died with him, I thought the pain and suffering would be over when I was finally free from him in the real world but I was so wrong, it lasted a lifetime.