[lauren18uk]

i was sexually abused by my dad as a child, but i had something called "infantile amnesia" where basically if something happenes to someone so young that is really traumatic your brain can just choose to erase it untill you are strong and healthy enough to remember. I always had flashbacks and hazy memories of him abusing me but as a 10 year old who adored her dad i convinced myself i had imagined it all.
At 16 after he went to prison for assaulting someone else, i decided it all had to have been true and went to the police, it IS the scariest thing you will ever do, and court is even scarier, but i was fortunate, because after a year of waiting for it to go to trial and him saying he was innocent, on the day i was due in court the coward pleaded guilty ONE HOUR before. He got sentenced that day and it still in prison - he is never allowed contact with me again. I advise you to go to trial, you must be finding it very easy for people to say " go! you cant let him get away with it" but please listen to someone who has been through it, if you can please try and keep others safe, if one person just one had had the courage to report my dad for assaulting them ( there were many others before and after me that he harmed) i maybe would have been spared what he did.
Court is not a plesent experience, but people will look after you, you are safe now and thats all that matters, believe me the amount of pride, and bravery you will feel after the trial is finished whether the verdict is guilty or not will reward you so much for all the trauma you have been through with this. Its not about revenge uts about justice.