A life rebuilt after years of pain
Repressed memories of being sexually abused as a child haunted Natarsha. Then she fought back. Tara Shaskey reports.
For many years Natarsha Giddy thought her nightmares of being sexually violated as a toddler were just that – nightmares.
But she grew to realise that she was actually being haunted by real memories.
‘‘He would take me to the hay barn and sexually abuse me,’’ the Taranaki woman recalled, through tears, more than 40 years on.
‘‘It was very painful for me... I remember crying and telling him ‘no, it hurts’.’’
That pain stayed with Giddy long after the abuse at the hands of a trusted family friend ended. In New Zealand, it is estimated 90 per cent of sexual violence is committed by someone known to the victim.
That abuse infiltrated every part of Giddy’s being, shaped how she viewed the world and dominated the parenting of her five children.
No-one was going to hurt her kids like she had been hurt – she became fixated on keeping them safe.
‘‘I’d have to set out all these structures and plans...my girls always had to wear bike-shorts under their skirts,’’ she said.
‘‘I had to explain to them why it was this way for me.’’
‘‘Crazy and exhausted’’, she’d had enough and so, about 15 years ago, she began her fight for peace.
Working with psychologists, she learned to accept her past and, for the first time, began to see her worth.
‘‘I feel empowered knowing that I’ve come through this stuff,’’ she said.
‘‘I feel like this woman who has a lot of positive knowledge, a woman who can give advice, a woman that can nurture, with a real deep understanding for life and life’s issues.’’
She was 3 years old when the sexual abuse began, and it went on for years.
The family lived on a farm in Drury, a rural town near Auckland, where the man took every opportunity to be alone with Giddy.
She remembers having baths with him and how he would rock her on his knee ‘‘for hours’’.
Her mother would die if she told anybody, he warned, and so she kept it to herself.
By the time she moved to New Plymouth the man had left her life and Giddy, then primary school aged, had blacked it out.
But it was never gone. She was distracted, couldn’t read or write, became violent and had a growing disdain for herself.
‘‘I was just spiralling down and down and down,’’ she said.
Her mother decided it was best for Giddy to leave the family home and handed her over to child welfare.
Giddy, now 47, embraced the move – living with a foster family was a welcome relief.
‘‘I didn’t feel loved by my mum. I still don’t.
‘‘I wasn’t raised with cuddles... I was the black sheep of the family.’’
However, she was later returned to her mother’s care and was soon sexually assaulted, again.
She was 12 and offered employment at a New Plymouth takeaway shop.
Excited by the thought of all the treats she could buy at the school tuck shop with her wellearned money, she took the job.
But before long her employer became controlling and sexually abusive.
It came to an end when his offending was reported by another of his victims. He was jailed for his crimes against other teens but not for the abuse endured by Giddy.
She was asked if he ever touched her but she said no. She thought she was protecting her family.
At this point, memories came rushing back and Giddy soon realised the ‘‘dreams’’ were actually a horrific reality.
She began piecing together the puzzle and at 18 she shared with her mother what she remembered.
But her mother didn’t want to hear what Giddy had to say. She felt betrayed and worthless.
‘‘I wanted her to be sorry that I had to carry all of that.’’
It was not until she became a mother herself that Giddy declared the abuse would no longer control her life.
She could see the effect it was having on her children, particularly her girls.
For only the second time in her life, she revealed her childhood traumas.
Telling her children was difficult but she needed them to understand what drove her paranoia.
At this point, she knew she needed professional help, if not for her, for her children.
Then came years of appointments with counsellors and psychologists.
Giddy threw herself into her recovery, often leaving sessions a ‘‘cold, shaking, traumatised mess’’.
But telling her story became easier. She began to go deeper, really peeling back the layers.
Giddy needed to be heard and understood in order to release the chains of abuse. And in doing so, she saw a weight lifted from her children.
‘‘I put all of my burdens on my kids – it was horrible to do as a parent.
‘‘They were innocent... I wanted them to have the life that I couldn’t.’’
Giddy now too has the life she never knew she deserved.
She never reported the crimes to police, and is at peace with this. One of her abusers has died and the other was brought to justice by other victims. Reporting of sexual violence in New Zealand is very low, with an estimated nine per cent of incidents reported to police.
Life for Giddy, a grandmother to four, is now brimming with love, family, loyalty and promise.
Nestled in her Waitara home, she is surrounded by her many creative projects, all of which serve as a form of therapy. She is happy.
‘‘There was a reason why all those things happened to me. It happened to me, and it hurt and I didn’t understand any of it.
‘‘But now I see the world as beautiful... and I love myself in a natural way.’’
‘‘I put all of my burdens on my kids – it was horrible to do as a parent.’’
Natarsha Giddy