The second In this series of posts I want to talk about is the people that have supported and inspired me and how speaking out has helped me even more.

At first I struggled to speak about my abuse because I was ashamed of what had happened to me in some way I often blamed my self I was like it must have been something I’d done wrong to upset my abuser, I just couldn’t understand it. But I came to understand that it wasn’t my fault and I shouldn’t feel this shame, I often felt dirty and would have to run to the shower after everytime I was abused and scrub my self clean like I was trying to scrub away the dirt that I felt. 

I also often believed no one would ever believe me and that I was alone and had to deal with all this my self. This often left me depressed and alone wondering what I could do to escape so alone even considering that not being here anymore could be a better option but I dug deep with all my strength and got through it but I couldn’t have done this alone.  

This wasn’t easy by any means but talking about my abuse allowed me to start to begin my journey to getting my life back. I’ve talked about my abuse quite a lot but I want to come away from that slightly for the moment to talk more about how I felt, how I got through it and the people that supported me.

In the first few months and even years after my abuse I struggled to talk about it to any one close to me. It took me many months to open up to my counsellor. Here I came to understand my feelings more and deal better with them. I had so much anger and my cousellor could see this in me but under that anger was fear and anxiety. 

I was lashing out at people and losing my temper often cause I was angry at my abuser but at the same time I was still often scared to leave the house, scared walking down the street, walking past groups of people. I was scared to trust anyone, I felt that there wasn’t one Person in the world I could trust but my self so I was trying to keep my feelings bottled up. I didn’t want anyone to know I was struggling, I was trying to put on a brave face and pretend like I was fine. This wasn’t the case, I started to suffer from serve migraines like someone was hitting me repeatedly on the head with a hammer. This because I was trying to deal with too much my self, too much anxiety, I needed to let other people in to help and I knew without this I would not be able to move on. 

I was struggling to make friends because I couldn’t trust anyone and didn’t want them to know what had happened to me cause deep down I was still ashamed. 

It wasn’t until I came to university that I really began to get my self back together. 

For the first time ever I opened up to people I told my flatmates that I was living with in first year what had happened to me this was mainly because I was struggling as my abuser was just about to be released from prison and I needed to tell them so they could be aware why I was anxious. They were so understanding and reassuring and for the first time I started to feel a little better, telling my friends who had only known me a couple of months this big part of my life was a big deal but their reaction and support reassured me knowing I shouldn’t feel ashamed. 

After this I never really spoke to anyone else about my abuse barring my flatmates and one or two other friends who I had started to trust because I never felt the need. I was finally starting to make close friends and beginning to place some trust in them. 

Over my first 3 years at university I opened up to maybe 10 of my closest friends. They were all so supportive of me and were there whenever I needed anything and I couldn’t have got through my time without them, I would have felt so alone, they gave me confidence, they helped give me a new life, I was enjoying my time and felt happier than I ever felt.

This then leads me on to when I really opened up to everyone, telling the Athletics team what had happened to me was hard, many of them had known me for years and not known anything about this. But I had built up more and more confidence over my time at University and the support my friends had given me so far made it easier and I knew it was the right thing to do. 

They were so supportive and fully behind what I wanted to do in fundraising for Embrace CVOC and raising awareness. I couldn’t have got through this last year without them. They have been there thought and often helping me even when they haven’t realised it. I have to give a special mention to one of my closest friends and member of the team who has supported me so much over the last two years when At times I’ve been struggling and felt like I couldn’t speak to anyone he was there to Listen and get me through it and without friends like him continuing to support me I would have struggled so much more. 

It’s people like him and others who I’ve met throughout my time at university and working at camp in America that have given me the strength and confidence to be able to speak out so openly today. They gave me the strength to use my voice to help others who have suffered like I have. They made me realise I have nothing to be ashamed of, I should be proud of who I am and how far I’ve come. They inspire me everyday to do better So I want to thank them.

Knowing you’ve got friends there to support you is what gets you through in life and everyone needs support and friendship. 

I want everyone out there to know that no matter what there will always be people who will listen, who can try to understand and help you.

If your struggling in life use your friends and build a support network around you and seek help. You feel so much better when you speak up and speak out. 

No one should ever have to suffer alone and I will continue to do all I can to ensure people’s voices are heard. We are able to support each other, create hope and friendship. 

As my journey at the University of Lincoln draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my journey to how I got where I am today. I want people to realise that no matter where you come from, no matter what has happened to you in life, you can’t, you mustn’t give up in pursuing your dreams and creating a better life for yourself. At times it can seem impossible but with strength, determination and the right people around you giving you that support you need anything is truly possible.

By now most people have heard parts about my childhood abuse and the impact that this had on me, but my story really does start before that and with the diagnosis of my father having paranoid schizophrenia. Years before my abuse I had to grow up with a father who wasn’t around much, a man I knew loved me more than anything in the world but through his mental illness couldn’t be the father he wanted. Much of his mistakes were through his own choosing drugs and alcohol, as much as he wanted to get better and be a better father he just couldn’t. As a child growing up seeing your father in and out of psychiatric hospital is devastating. Growing up other kids would always ask me what my father did as a job and I would struggle to find an answer I would always try and avoid the question as best as I could, at the time I didn’t really understand let alone trying to explain to my friends. It wasn’t all bad at times my father would have good periods and we would be allowed to see him but these would often be too and far between with his strong medication not mixing well with his alcoholism.  

As I became older, I often became embarrassed of my father and what my friends would say about his scruffy appearance and wild haircuts at time. Being a young boy growing up and often being ashamed of your father is heart breaking. Your father is the man you look up to and helps guide you and give you advice when your finding times hard, takes you to your football games and cheers you on, on the side-lines but I didn’t get to experience things like this growing up. I have and always will love my father to the end of the world no matter the life choices his made as he is my father, but his absence caused a great impact on my childhood even before my abuse.

This brings me on to my abuse now, my abuser was a man I trusted, a man I thought could be that missing father figure in my life. At first, he was a lovely man who loved my mother and who seemed he had good intentions. The first year I knew him nothing raised suspicions but all of a sudden there was a change this man we thought was loving and caring soon started becoming aggressive it would start with him yelling and shouting more and more then he moved on to threatening us then finally he started getting physical. Punching me in the arms and stomach when he thought I’d done something wrong then it became more and more like it was fun to him. He would torment me once pinning me down with a duvet while I struggled to breathe and was screaming for him to stop. Another time he chased me around the house with a gas-powered BB gun shooting me and laughing while I scream and cry. At this point I was petrified of the man, Once he had this control over me, once he knew I was scared the sexual abuse started, I can still to this day very vividly remember the first time he sexually abused me, asking me to come up stairs and do a job for him, once I got upstairs he started touching me where I didn’t want to be touched and undressing me and then pulling down his pants and making me do stuff to him. It made me feel sick, I just remember crying and wanting it to be over, time seemed to go so slow and then after he told me I couldn’t tell anyone. At this point I ran to the shower and sat there crying not knowing what to do. This happened several times in the next days and weeks until he raped me. I remember just being frozen, crying and in so much pain, I tried to run away from him but he pulled me back and pushed my face down into a pillow so no one could hear the noise of me screaming. This carried on for several years with varying degrees of sexual abuse sometimes a couple of times a week. Throughout this time, I lived in constant fear with him still physically and psychologically abusing me aswell. On many occasions I sat crying deciding if I could build up the courage to tell someone and even if I did would they believe me. Other times I debated just running away and hoping no one would find me and then I wouldn’t have to live this life. Twice I even thought about ending my own life, I felt I had nothing to live for and I couldn’t just carry on how it was I couldn’t take no more. This is when I finally found the courage to tell my mum, it was the hardest thing I had to do to tell my mum what had been happening to me all these years by a man she loved and that she trusted with her children. With all my strength I managed to tell her everything that had been happening to me and it was the biggest weight off my shoulders being able to finally tell someone and to know the abuse was going to be stopped. After I told my mum we went straight to the police and I gave them my evidence and was just hoping, praying that they would help stop my abuser. My abuser was then arrested, and we awaited the trail. However, while my abuser was remanded in prison the police had information that he had taken a contract out on my mothers life and that we were in danger, we were picked up and taken to the police station and then moved to a location that no one would know us, this happened for the next 5 weeks moved around so we were never in one place too long. This was one of the scariest moments of my life, not knowing if I would ever be able to return home, not allowed to speak to friends or family. Finally, after 6 weeks they said that we were safe to return home again. Returning home wasn’t easy though with my friends at school and teachers asking where I had been for the past 6 weeks but I couldn’t explain it to them as I would also have to explain my abuse and I didn’t want any of them to know cause I didn’t know if they would judge me or see me definitely and talk about stuff behind my back. I was still ashamed of what had happened to me.

Then came the court case and having to relive in every detail what had happened to me, it was so hard but I knew I needed to do this to put my abuser behind bars for what he had done to me the pain and suffering he had caused. I cried so much reliving the experience telling people what had happened to me for all those years but at the end when the guilty verdict was returned there was a sense of relief, a sense that now maybe I can start to move on with my life and build a happier future.

This is where my real journey to where I am today starts after all of these painful and traumatic experiences throughout my childhood that left me growing up in constant fear and even questioning whether life was worth living I began to try and rebuild it with counselling and support from Embrace CVOC.

My family and I were nominated to Embrace to go on a family support trip to Disney world Florida with other families whose children had suffered as victims of crime many of these were child victims of abuse. This trip gave me hope, gave me time with my family to start building happy memories and to also know that there was other children out there that had suffered like me and I was not alone on this journey.

Once I got back I started 3 years of weekly counselling, I had so much built up anger towards my abuser but also fear, I was often scared to leave the house constantly looking over my shoulder at who was around me, I couldn’t trust anyone, I had anxiety and was often depressed at time. Isolating my self at home not making friends worried people were going to find out what had happened to me a judge me for some reason. I would lash out at people at school and get into fights and my grades weren’t very good.

However through my counselling I began to release this anger and understand my feelings more, it took time to build trust with my counsellor but once I had I noticed improvements this wasn’t a quick process and it takes time and support but you eventually start to get there.

I went off to college to do A-levels many people thinking I wouldn’t make it and even doubting my self at times, but I worked hard, I had a motivation stronger than anyone to succeed. I began to make new friends something I struggled to do in a long time, I gained an interest in studying law and knew this was something I could use to one day help others.

Even as things were improving, I was still struggling with making proper friends and I still often had fears about going out and a lot of anxiety. This is when I decided that going to university would be the best thing for me. This was a big step and people doubted that I could do it but with strength and determination I got the grades I needed to come study law at University of Lincoln.

This was probably the best decision I made in order to better my life and achieve what I want. At uni I instantly made friends and joined the athletics team which over the last 5 years has become like a family to me. Through out my time at university I have met some of the most incredible people around that have become lifelong friends of mine. Gradually my anxiety began to ease, and I didn’t have that fear anymore, I was growing more confident and beginning to trust people more. I even began to tell a few close friends about my childhood abuse something that I had often struggled to speak about to many people.

I got more passionate about studying law and what I could do to help others and I found the opportunity to go and work at a summer camp in America through a programme called CCUSA. This was another big step in my journey to becoming who I am today. Working at an American summer camp over the last 5 summers has given me so much opportunity to grow as a person, it provided me with experiences like nothing else and I’ve made friends across the world. I’ve travelled many parts of America and been given Tours of the Pentagon, Capitol and The White House. Most of all though it allowed me to help others and to use my time and energy to ensure children that attend camp have the best possible time as I know growing up I could only have dreamt of experiencing something like an American summer camp.

I’ve gone on to achieve my undergraduate degree in law and am finishing up a master’s in international law. I have done so much while I’ve been at Lincoln it allowed me to grow into the person I am today, providing me with so many great opportunities and that brings me to the final and perhaps the biggest part of my journey University of Lincoln Athletics team.

Over the last year I found the courage to tell the entire team about my childhood abuse as I wanted the team to support me in fundraising for Embrace CVOC one of the great charities that helped me when I was suffering. I had never told so many people about my abuse and never been so open but I’m so glad I did the support they gave me was unreal and we have gone on to raise thousands of pounds for Embrace CVOC but also most importantly awareness of Child sexual abuse and male rape.

Since October when I first decided to speak up openly about my abuse, it has given me more strength and determination to help others who have suffered like me and create a brighter future for all of them. I never imagined the impact that my story could actually have on people I just thought that we would raise some money for a very worthy cause but I have realised that we can have a greater impact than this and I hope by me speaking up and explaining more about my childhood and how it made me feel then other people that have suffered now or in the past can speak up aswell.

I know just how hard it can be and to this day I still struggle with things, especially relationships and trust and this year has been especially hard at times speaking about my abuse and reliving different moments in my head, but what gets me through everyday is the people I have around me and the support that they give me. It takes time but I know that together we can create change and a brighter future, not one person on their own is able to achieve this but when we come together we have strength and determination like no other to ensure that no one should ever have to suffer and those that have and are suffering know that you can speak up and we will be there to support you.

Thank you for Reading PLEASE consider supporting me and Embrace CVOC in supporting young victims of crime and giving them the brighter future they Deserve. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rhys-dickinson