Battered by life, now Cuddles is her only friend
DEBBIE Röhl’s bedroom is her safe haven. Two single beds and a small dressing table crowd the little room, which she shares.
Röhl, 45, is deeply shy, withdrawn and wary of strangers. Her only source of comfort is Cuddles, her favourite white teddy. She has been living at Gordonia for 15 years, since being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and deep depression.
She said she suffered years of abuse by a relative, starting when she was only seven.
She will not say much about the abuse, except that it forced her to leave home and move to a shelter when she was 22.
“I was living at the shelter near Cresta Mall and then I started working there.
“One afternoon I was taking a break and went to the ladies room at Cresta Mall and I saw these five guys standing nearby, but I didn’t think anything of it.
“I went inside the bathroom and they followed me in . . . one of them kept guard at the door while they all took a turn raping me. All five of them.
“When they left I was lying on the ground, bleeding . . . I was so disorientated I couldn’t remember where I lived.”
Röhl was raped again a few years later, in 2004, while walking in Bertrams. “I want nothing to do with men . . . I feel rage and anger around them.
“The therapist told me not all men are the same, but it’s difficult for me to understand the way other people see them.”
Röhl was admitted to hospital late last year. “I was deeply depressed. I was suicidal. I just wanted to end it all,” she said, clinging to Cuddles.
She refuses to join the other residents for lunch in the dining hall. Instead, she takes her own bowl, collects her food and sits outside in the sun with Cuddles on her lap while she eats.
“I can’t cope in crowds,” she explained. “I don’t want to be around men. I feel like I want to stab them. I don’t even want to eat off the same plate.”
Unlike some of the other residents, who have no income except a R1 350 monthly disability grant, Röhl has a supportive family.
“My mom visits me once a month and I go home in December, and we sometimes go to Durban for my birthday, where I swim with dolphins.
“I don’t want to always live here. I want to live with my mom some day,” she said.