As a small child, you learn to accept whatever treatment is dished out to you. You never really know until later in life — when you begin to question the facts presented around you, analysing constantly — whether what you had experienced was at all correct and what a family is supposed to be. The propulsion of birth as you're crushingly pushed from the loving embrace of the soft, warm womb, imagining that, in reality, should not this be the worst of the pain you have to endure from this life in this family as the contraction of life squeezes you out into the cold new world? Your tiny body is held in the hands of others, and you are slapped into this world; the screams of realization to life spring forth. You have no control over any decisions that will be made, for your physical well-being is now held cradled in the arms of another.

My first real, significant dream was one of breathless terror. My sleeping moments were tormented nightly with visions of nil escape as the vivid images danced in my mind and stayed there for some twenty-five years — a life sentence of sorts. The same images played over and over, only slightly changing as the years went on. This was one of just three significant dreams that made up my existence and gave my life a structural scaffold to rebuild. What is the meaning of life and did my being born have a significant role in anything in this world? Or was I just a mistake, a cruel joke of such, meant to be tormented and left with little or no answers? I felt left isolated to endure the behaviour being dished out on a continuous basis. Was that all my life was going to be, a constant barrage of shitty episodes that would somehow sum up my life? Or was this a little different? Was I different? I was to discover the constant small images that made my nights difficult were the beginning of a journey of a thousand steps, all of which led to this one spot on which I now stand. I was about to embark on the final steps to this situation I found I was born into, but I was never really privy to the true family secrets held in this family vault.

I am staring into a society that says, "Do something," but even if we do something, will anything ever really change? Or is that just meant to keep us happy and held in suspension so we do not totally get out of hand? I now question the accountability of everyone as my journey of a thousand steps is coming to an end. I stand here with the realization that this world in which I live seldom holds anyone to any true accountability. No one truly makes amends, and we are just fodder to keep someone in a job. The whole thing that is life continues like nothing really matters in the whole goddam mess. The fingers of those social justice keepers are forever stuck in the proverbial dyke of mirrored, disillusioned bullshit we call life because we don't really wish to fix this mess and deal with anything. Is it that hard to fix the mess, or are we just all cowards refusing to look into the deep- seated heart of truth?

A span of fifty years of life — and really, what did it amount to? A life of struggle. Or was this a test to see if I would have the sheer guts and determination to place my life into the hands of the universe and see what was in store for me if I allowed the universe to mould my life? I have spent most of my life being on my own — truly on my own — even though people around me were saying they love me; but in my case, they never did; still I was left physically feeling alone. So alone is a funny word, considering we are surrounded by people. But really people like us; we are totally on our own in all this shit? This shitty existence of sorts begins with the question of why I was born at all, if all I got was nothing but a horrible feeling that there was something very wrong with me. This happened slowly at first — the not really talking to me and the separation away from the whole conglomerate that was family. Cruelness that comes from being subjected to punishment for a crime you will never commit but which you are held responsible for persecuted for the rest of your life. Physically, the response of such carefully manoeuvred behaviour is of such slightness that over the years, one conclusion was reached that seemed logical: there must be something really wrong with me!

The setting of your foundational generational pillar stones that you will stand on for life takes place before you are even aware that you have a body, and the tiny fingers are set on a course of destruction that takes years to escape. The family — as I was encouraged to believe I belonged to — was the only thing that really mattered. As the years passed, the attitudinal differences would become more and more prominently brought to my attention as my attitude being so very wrong. A comment here and there, with no real comprehension, goes unnoticed, but as the years of deliberate layering of false accusatory mud sticks and the rusty decay sabotages the foundation on which you stand, the years start to take their toll. The digging, my relentless search for answers in this foundational quicksand, would eventually bring this crumbling house to ruin. The realization of the corrupting hand for which I was born to rest in that day of my birth would be made oh so very real. The cleverly crafted words and the deliberately withheld affection would all be held under a magnifying glass of analysing until the final piece to my life's puzzle would be placed in the cavernous erosion in my heart and the whole picture of my life could be looked upon. The meaning of life ... What does it means to be treated so mean?

The small blank canvas of my body was unblemished at birth. The supposed loving hands of the artists who are your parents begin to sculpt the essence that will comprise your self-esteem. Through your mind's eye, you now hold this image of yourself, the guiding light of whether you're held special, true, and deserved within the boundaries of this family. The caressing of the body in the arms of loved ones fills the heart and helps to develop the first chakra foundational point in this person whole life as they hold in their hands the ground you stand on.

The holding of a baby is of special significance, as it's here that the moulding of the person and his or her significance in this world begins. Are babies special enough to behold love and be shown real, tender heart care? Or has this one unblemished small child been assigned another fate? Experts say a child will die if he or she is not shown affection or held in loving arms. This comes to mind now regarding the way I was programmed. I was constantly told of an experiment done by scientist's years ago. Was I also being experimented on by my family for a similar purpose? Was this a way to self-discriminate as having no real accountability for the path they had set for me? Was this the reason I was not cherished as a sacred member of this family?

Physical love for children is important. It gives them a sense of boundaries regarding what is right and wrong. It shows that their tiny bodies belong to them, and it shows how others should behave and treat them as they're taught and developing the boundary proximities that others should respect. They are developing a sense that they are special enough to warrant some protection under the cloak that is this family. The strong bonds of protection are created and instilled upon children while they are so young. They are trying to understand just how precious they are to this pack of people bound together in supposed love.

This results in the image these small people have of themselves, and whether they are worthy to have a place in this special world we call family. The physical touch — the patting, brushing of the hair, cuddling, sitting on laps, snuggling while bedtime stories are read — shows signs of someone being accepted into the fold and being allowed the special, significant place of family and being loved.

When the dreams started to appear, I was a mere child of eight who was not able to comprehend the significance of where I fitted into this tiny world of my family. The faceless figure was standing at the end of my bed. Knowing that there was no real escape, I think, was the first real knowledge of this dream. The small, helpless young girl was sitting on this bed in a room of a house, trapped and all alone. Knowing the helplessness, she woke up! It was not even my house; it was nothing like the house I grew up in but one conjured up in my dreams.

The small heart races as the disturbed sleep immobilizes you on your bed, the waking memories of the dream echoing the realization that you're alone. Within the cold and impersonal darkness of this lonely room, you hide under the covers, begging the covers to be enough to keep this formidable shadow person from harming you — until sleep once again leads you into unconscious thoughts. The integrated complexities of this dream are incomprehensible for many, many years to come.

The intermingling of the self-esteem with the physical appearance is all too much to understand for an eight-year-old girl whose hallowed existence in this family had already begun to be something of a scapegoat-like dilemma for her. From such a young age, I had already been subjected to the cruelness of my somewhat older brother. Physical scars can be easily seen and fixed up, covered over as just childish fun gone wrong. Everything is fun until someone gets hurt, which was usually me. It was supposed to be quickly forgotten, with life moving at such a fast pace that we cannot stop to hold accountable anything that we should. The family carpet begins to be woven as the dust of corrupt thinking blows in, sweeping it out of sight and forgotten. We are to move on. But what if the physical scars you have are ones that you were encouraged to bury, forged when comprehension of such experience has been savagely ripped from one's ownership control, never to be enjoyed by the person's growing mind, gone just such a precious thing, lost and forever vanished? It is forcibly buried deep in the foundational existence of your life and continuously affecting everything thereafter, prolonging the pain long after the prison wardens of your childhood release you from their superior clutches.

I try to keep in my mind a vision of an elegant woman who holds herself with such grace and poise. I wait in the lounge in my apartment on the floating ship, wearing an elegantly designed white outfit that streamlines my shapely body perfectly, waiting for my partner to pick me up for dinner. I sit waiting for my man who adores me to escort me to dinner on the exclusive cruise ship where we are privileged to own a private suite. These ever so delicate loving hands cradle my cherished heart forever, vigilant not to drop it or hurt it. He tenderly takes my hand in his and gently escorts me to my seat as I hold myself with such poise and grace.

The memories of my childhood existence are a faded wisp now that only occasionally appear if triggered, but they are quickly dismissed as now being wrong, as my image of the once-tormented girl's eyes no longer stare back at me from the mirror. I think this is one of the reasons I never gave up in my search for true answers and self-worth understanding, for I was waiting for this version of myself, as the elegant woman dressed in white, to appear when I looked into the mirror of life. This is how I would like to see myself now in my mind's eye of self-esteem, rather than the once-held mirror image that stared back at me from behind tormented eyes. The small girl of tender years damaged, ugly, and unloved, disregarded by her family as nothing more than a sexual play toy for her older brother to experiment on. The image of my persona I held in my mind, the one that I had held on to for many years, burned indelibly in my heart and got closer to becoming a reality the deeper I healed from my incestuous hell.

After many years of working on myself, the results now show a person with confidence and poise, one who knows that she is of top-shelf value. This is a far cry from the imaginings my mother was trying to instil with her words of "clean up your brothel," the words still ringing in my mind of this phrase intended to mould my tender character to match the illusion instilled in my mother's mind by my father and brother — that I was to blame for being abused sexually by her oh-so-beautiful boy. The courageous fight fought on the social battlefield of life was to obtain my image I had of myself and not be tricked into the prostitutional wanting of my family, which would allow them the clear conscious persona they held of me. They were forever blaming me, claiming that this was my fault and not a result of their own disgusting behaviour that allowed this to take place under their roof. I was triumphant that I had turned out the way I intended and not the programmed cheap whoring woman, drug dependent on men, persona intended by them.

The image was so carefully crafted and moulded to represent them as pillars of the community, which is what they wanted the town to think they were. These were false representations of what was actually there. I sit here knowing that not many will ever really know what it was like to live in a family such as mine. But then there were those who held this illusion of my family in high stead, the ones who still think that my father was a good man. My God, this must be wrong — she has to be lying — and well, it's just preposterous to think this was going on under his roof; he must not have known!

Still, to this day, forty years later, fully knowing and going through the experience myself with the court case pending, I still cannot get my head around the fact that they knew! They knew exactly what was going on and chose to say nothing but to simply ignore the goings goings-on under their own roof! The cherished illusion was a better fit in their lives than to stop and face what was actually happening within the confinement of the family. Their son, their precious son, was allowed to sexually abuse his sister, with no family boundary restraint voiced. There was no comprehension of the secret laws broken and the free hand flippantly waved of consent as their blind eye blinked in approval. I can still hear the police constable saying to me, "What a complete dickhead — he knew from almost day one what was going on and did nothing to stop it." The disbelief in his voice was evident while he was struggling to get his mind around the fact that both my parents knew exactly what their outstanding son was doing to their daughter, held down from grace, and did nothing to stop it!

I started to write this almost at the end of the saga, which for me, as you now know, started, when I was quiet young. But it has spanned my lifetime, the sheer betrayal, hidden forbidden truths, as well as prolonged trained self-deception, which is when many turn to drugs or alcohol to help cope with the crippling confusion from which most never recover and escape. Some choose to turn to the blissful comfort of suicide, to escape the mind torture spinning uncontrollably in their memory banks day after day. Some choosing to go down the path of least resistance and accept the path chosen for them and prostitute themselves in life, I did not. I was born under Chiron, the deep wound healing planet, and I was never allowed to go down that path of self-destruction but edged ever so confusingly and sometimes forcefully into a situation that gave me back my self-respecting personal power. This is my story, something that no one can ever steal from me.

The physical scars are all but hidden from the world now, only due to the fact that they are not seen or understood by the seer. I will try to explain the affect it's had on my life and how the skills I have had to develop helped me to cope and deal with all my abuse still lingering in my cell memory to this day. Wrapped up within the fabric of three dreams which helped me unlock the aspects of my soul, allowing me to take possession once again, my clawing back to the light from the blackened abyss in which my family shoved me. I find that people don't care much unless something unbearable is happening to them, and then they are all ears so they can get a glimpse of how to speed up their healing so the pain will go away, forever thankful that their pain is made easier from the pain of struggle I endured. But alas, when it comes to this type of affliction scar, it is difficult to see how it affects this person. But to the inherent recipient, the guilt we try to hide screams out from our bodies in crying shame.