The Nightmare Of Lauren Sullivan

Unfiltered Stories

Today on Unfiltered Stories, our guest Lauren Sullivan shares her story with us. Her nightmare starts after reuniting with her dad, who provided her with numerous this in order to manipulate her. After having her first child, she began going to therapy to start her healing process.   #Survivor #TrueStory #Inspiring    You can find Lauren here:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/just.loz/  E-mail: http://www.lozcreates.co.uk/   Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.   Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.  By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.   🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅  Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB  Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT  Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN

Transcript

00:00when i was younger my dad wasn't in the picture at all when he found out my mom was pregnant

00:07he made the decision to not be involved and it was only when i turned 11 he decided to get

00:15back

00:15in touch and reached out to my mom basically saying that he would like to be involved in my

00:20life she had always been like quite open with me and said that like should he ever get in touch

00:26that it would be up to me and she would support me kind of whatever i chose to do like

00:31whether i did

00:32want to see him or didn't at that point i was just like super super excited that my dad was

00:37back in my

00:37life so like straight away i was like yeah like want to see him absolutely so i met my dad

00:42for the

00:42first time after like quite a few months of my mom and him speaking to make sure he was actually

00:48serious about wanting to be present again and at that point i also found out that i had a younger

00:53brother so that was like really great for me as well um yeah like over time i started like spending

01:00more and more time with my dad it got to the point in the end where i would spend like

01:05alternate

01:05weekends at my parents like one weekend i'd be at my mom's one weekend i'd be at my dad's and

01:10it was

01:10pretty kind of normal at the beginning and it was until i was about 14 that abuse started happening

01:17when one night i had fallen asleep while watching a movie with him in his bedroom and i woke up

01:24to

01:25his hands down my trousers and at that point i was just really i guess frozen and just complete and

01:31utter like shock had no idea what to do and it wasn't until he i started crying and he realized

01:38okay she's not actually asleep that he stopped and yeah that was the first time that any of the abuse

01:44happened um there were multiple incidents the first time that he sexually abused me he the next day he

01:53was very apologetic saying that he was a monster and that like he never should have done what he did

01:59and it almost became kind of a cycle that he would apologize for what he'd done but then it would

02:06just

02:06continue to happen again and again and again and i think that was part of the manipulation as well

02:13like i held so much kind of guilt for the fact that he was saying to his 14 year old

02:19daughter like

02:20oh i'm such a monster um like i'm an awful person and things like that and although i never should

02:26have felt guilty that he was feeling those things like i definitely did at the time and as well like

02:31he would do things like he at one point he stopped taking his hiv medication and like told me he

02:38didn't

02:38deserve to take them he shouldn't have access to them because of the things that he'd done and again

02:44it just almost piled on that guilt for me and i felt like it was my fault that he could

02:49potentially be

02:50getting sick or even die and like looking back on it now i can see that the like grooming probably

02:57was

02:58going on a lot longer than i probably realized just like small things like he was very manipulative in

03:05trying to turn me against my mom like a lot of the time he would say things like she didn't

03:11understand

03:11what it was like to be a teenager and that she was strict and overbearing and then when you pair

03:17that

03:17with the fact that he was more than happy to give me and give me alcohol freely as a 14

03:25year old i was

03:26thinking okay great like my dad realizes i'm not a child and obviously at 14 i am a child but

03:32as a 14

03:33year old you kind of want to be treated like a grown-up and you're pushing boundaries and things

03:37anyway to then be given so much freedom it just definitely added to the grooming and i realize now

03:45looking back as well like he would tell me that the was to help me sleep and things because i

03:51used to

03:51have issues with um my sleep and as an adult i realized it was probably nothing to do with trying

03:57to help me sleep it was so that i would fall asleep so that he could do what he wanted

04:02to me and i would

04:03have a very hazy memory of it same with the alcohol as well i i remember him giving me a

04:11bottle of

04:12and i kind of asked him like oh how much am i allowed to drink and he was like well

04:17you're 14

04:17you're a big girl you know how much you can handle and obviously as a 14 year old you definitely

04:23do not

04:23know your limits with things like alcohol so i drank the entire thing couldn't go into school

04:29the next day because i was just so ill and have no memory of what he potentially did that night

04:36this went on for around six months or so before my mum discovered text messages on my phone just by

04:43chance she'd happen to like pick up my phone and have a look at it when i'd fallen asleep and

04:48she saw

04:48messages from my dad basically apologizing for what happened and straight away she phoned him

04:55and confronted him about everything and surprisingly he admitted to everything and agreed to stay in the

05:03flat until police came which he did i'd gone to like my work experience had no idea that like my

05:11mum

05:11knew or anything and i was picked up early from my work experience being told like you need to come

05:16home

05:17but i'm not really kind of knowing why until i got home and saw like police cars and things and

05:23at that

05:23moment just knew what had happened he was due to serve 12 years in prison and that got reduced to

05:31eight years because he pled guilty from the beginning and then in the end he served four of them in

05:37prison

05:38and then the rest out on license which is now finished yeah so it was similar to house arrest but

05:45in the uk when you're on license you can still like you don't have to stay on your property you

05:50can go out

05:51and do things you have like certain conditions that you have to agree to so like he wouldn't have been

05:56able to be in like a house unsupervised with under 16 year olds or um like stayed overnight where there

06:03was someone with children um but he was still free to kind of go about his day-to-day life

06:09and yeah he lives in a completely different area now like the police aren't allowed to disclose that

06:15to me um so i have no idea kind of where he is in the country uh and he's also

06:21legally changed his name

06:22as well so for anyone that kind of gets to know him now like they would have no idea of

06:28his past or

06:29anything like that unless they kind of knew from before so it's almost as if he's got his own

06:34new life now and then as well as the abuse that had been going on he there was also the

06:40element that

06:41he had hiv and he was like fully aware of it and he still chose to put his daughter at

06:47risk of that

06:48like surprisingly i managed to kind of continue with school and like after he was arrested and

06:54everything like i still i still did my exams and then went to uni afterwards i think part of wanting

07:00to do that was that when he was around alongside like trying to make my mom seem like this awful

07:06person he was very much like oh you don't need to bother with school and things like that i think

07:12after he was arrested i think i really kind of wanted to i guess prove him otherwise and say well

07:19actually no you don't get to tell me that i don't want to do well in school and finish my

07:25exams and

07:26things and after he was arrested and things as well i i didn't really want to speak to therapists or

07:32like people that were assigned to me like social workers and things i think i just focused on school

07:37because it was something that i could focus on without having to open up and talk to all these kind

07:43of people about what happened to me i knew that he was hiv like from when i first like had

07:50contact

07:50with my dad and like i kind of knew what it was but i don't think at that age i

07:55had kind of a full

07:57understanding of the implications of contracting hiv and my dad had never like lied about it or anything

08:04like he me and my brother both knew that he had it but it was it was something that he

08:09didn't really

08:09like to speak about i think i almost tried to just completely push it out of my mind because i

08:17didn't want to even consider like the implications if i had contracted hiv let alone to have contracted

08:24that from my dad i think that was one of the most kind of stressful things after he was arrested

08:30um having to go through like the testing and everything because it was like police officers that

08:36took me to the hospital to be tested yeah i was definitely very very relieved to have a negative

08:43test result it did also kind of raise more questions for me afterwards looking back because

08:49like after the court case i realized that any all the abuse that happened he had used protection and

08:58i'd kind of never really even given much thought to that but i it kind of stuck with me because

09:03i was like

09:04he is not something that's like happened in the heat of the moment and then he's regretted it it's

09:10been meticulously planned and he knew what he was doing to have that protection there and then know

09:16what he was going to do my relationship with my mum is like really good now i think like as

09:23i've gone

09:23into adulthood i've understood a lot more what actually happened to me but as a teenager like

09:30especially just after he was arrested i was just very very angry um about what had happened and i hated

09:37the fact that it had come out and that people knew and i feel awful for it now but i

09:44definitely

09:45directed a lot of the anger towards my mum and now as a mum myself like i can't even begin

09:51to imagine

09:51how kind of heartbreaking that would have been for her to a find out that has happened to your child

09:57and then to have them hating you for it when she was the one person that had protected me through

10:03it

10:03all as a teenager like i didn't cope the best um i already mentioned that my dad was giving me

10:11cannabis

10:11and alcohol after he was arrested i continued to smoke like very regularly and as i got a bit older

10:20that

10:20then progressed into harder drugs and i was already suffering with depression and i think that

10:26definitely spiraled a lot like i was self-harming on like nearly a daily basis and a few months after

10:34my dad was arrested i tried to end my life and again like i hold a lot of guilt for

10:41doing that because

10:42my mum had already been through so much and then to find me after trying to end my life

10:48i don't know what i would do if i ever found one of my daughters in that position so my

10:54brother was

10:55the same as me he stayed there every other weekend and spent the rest of the time at his mum's

11:01i think

11:01he was one of the main reasons that i never told anyone what was going on because i knew that

11:07he didn't

11:08have the best relationship with his mum and i knew that if i was to ever tell anyone like what

11:13was going

11:14on that it wouldn't obviously just be me that it affected and i knew that if my dad was arrested

11:20he

11:20would then be living with his mum full time which i knew he didn't want at the time and so

11:26i just kind

11:27of thought to myself that if like i can deal with this and like i will be okay and that

11:34way he doesn't

11:35need to be suffering but i also think that a lot of that was again my dad's manipulation like i

11:42i have

11:42contact like with his mum now and i every child and parent goes through like times where they're like

11:49oh i hate my mum but my dad definitely presented her as this awful mother that was no good for

11:56him and

11:56things like that when in reality i really don't think it was like that at all and i think i

12:01think he knew

12:02that it was a way to keep me quiet without physically saying to me don't tell anyone so when my

12:07dad was

12:07arrested he continued to stay with his mum i think it did like quite negatively impact him as well

12:14because he had obviously known him for his whole life um it's a big thing to suddenly have your parent

12:22ripped away from you yeah i'd say we have like a good relationship i think i find it difficult

12:28sometimes like i love my brother to bits like but he also looks exactly like my dad so that can

12:36be

12:36quite difficult sometimes because sometimes i just look at him and see my dad which is quite conflicting

12:42because obviously he's not my dad and he's nothing like my dad but that doesn't stop the like negative

12:48emotions and things coming in anyway so i've got two little girls one of them is three and the other

12:54one's 18 months i fell pregnant with my first daughter like it was a complete surprise um it

13:02wasn't planned at all um when i first like found out i was very conflicted on whether to keep her

13:11or not

13:12i was i was quite young when i had her i was 19 when i fell pregnant and i was

13:18still like studying at

13:19university as well but i did make the decision obviously with my partner to keep her and that

13:25was definitely like the best decision that i've ever made as soon as i found out like i was pregnant

13:30and was keeping her and everything i haven't like touched any drugs since then having my own children

13:37it like as soon as i held my eldest daughter i just it was like a almost like a breakthrough

13:43i just

13:43couldn't understand how someone could do that to their baby and it really pushed me to actually get

13:50help for myself and begin like having trauma therapy and things not just for me but so that i can

13:57then

13:57be better for them i started going to trauma therapy and did like a course for like helping to deal

14:04with

14:04like symptoms after being diagnosed with um complex post-traumatic stress and um after i kind of

14:11completed those sessions i'm now like still in therapy um doing uh dialectal behavioral therapy

14:18which again is just to really kind of help me like manage my emotions a lot better because i've also

14:24been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and that's like one of the main things for me like

14:30my emotions will go from zero to a hundred a hundred times a day so it's just trying to learn

14:36how to

14:37manage them more effectively so that i'm very kind of hyper aware that i don't want that to affect my

14:43children

14:44as well even after my dad was arrested i held on to so much shame and guilt for what had

14:51happened and i guess i would

14:53just say to anyone else experiencing similar things that that shame and the guilt and all the other negative emotions

15:00that come with it that does not belong to you in the slightest it belongs to the person that's hurt

15:07you

15:08um they're not your feelings to hold on to

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