I have popped a link in the sidebar because of this post The Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) is an online organisation made up of police forces worldwide. When I worked as a moderator on the chat site we often had to deal with chatters who’s behaviour was suspect in regards to the youth section on the site. Inappropriate conversations, mainly geared towards grooming or sexual chat with underage chatters. The VGT is a global taskforce which aims to prevent online abuse and exploitation of children, there is also a wealth of information for adults and children to protect themselves against child sex abusers.

I feel helpless to a point to do much on my own but with the help of sites like this it empowers people to be diligent. You are able to report suspect behaviour, images etc through the site. Children are curious by nature, they will create accounts to access sites just to see what’s on the other side.

If you are a parent please take a look at the site and see how you can protect your child online. Adults target children through a variety of means – through member profiles in their Instant Message accounts, which often hold personal details and indicate their ages and which can be viewed publicly if a child hasn’t requested otherwise.

They will also ask young people who they have met online – for example in gaming sites, to add them to their friends contact lists so that they can chat to a children’s network of friends. They also go to child-specific chat rooms and forums, to engage young people through deceit or flattery. From this public area they would then encourage the child to talk more privately through texting on mobile phone, or in instant messenger.

Some abusers will send hoax letters via email to young people, purporting to be an organisation which they are interested in – and then hope that the child responds. Adults who want to contact children can do so quite easily online, since personal information is often not kept private in the same way that it would be online.

In my experience they generally lie about their age, they find things in common with the child’s age and use them as talking points, they frequent many social networking sites and generally hide behind a bullshit name, age and use other peoples photographs off other sites.  Be aware, if an adult’s behaviour is concerning you do something about it NOW. All it takes is for you to have a voice.

Most kids I hung out with at school had pretty normal lives. They sat round the dinner table, mused over the day they had, love, cuddles and that whole family atmosphere. Camping trips, holidays, games and fun, adventures. Sometimes I joined in the fun but there was always a part of me that felt like I didn’t belong there. That I wasn’t allowed to just enjoy being a kid.

I had to grow up pretty fast. I had no idea what was normal as far as family life went. And the looks on some people’s faces when I did share a little about my home life tended to make me shut up pretty fast. I spent most of my childhood trying desperately to go unnoticed, under the radar, because it was much safer to be invisible, than face the man I called Dad. He came into my life when I was two. I don’t know my real father. He made sure that the small keepsakes mum did keep for me when I got older and wanted to know, vanished. Burnt. He also reminded me on a daily basis that I wasn’t his by showering the other two siblings with love and attention and ignoring me.

It was okay for a few years, but as I got older it got worse. I was never good enough. Nothing I did was ever right, I was constantly told I was stupid, useless, fat, ugly, lazy. As a kid those words etched themselves inside. He used to continually berate me, kick my ass with steelcap boots so hard my tailbone ached and I couldn’t sit down. Mum would yell at him for hurting me, most of the time he made sure she wasn’t around when he started at me. The rest of my family never said anything but I could see the look in their eyes, they knew but they didn’t want to know.

My dear Nana was the one constant, the one rock in my life that was always there, she would take me away and the happiest times in my childhood were the holidays at her house. She knew what he was doing and she was angry at mum for allowing it to happen. Sadly she took her anger out on my siblings and treated them differently because they were *his* children. I felt like all these problems were because of me as a child. No child should have to feel like that. I felt like I was the problem and that if I went away maybe things would be okay. The people pleaser, always trying to keep the peace.

Over the years he subjected me to verbal assaults, humiliation and psychological abuse. Thankfully never sexual. I was an unruly shit by the time I got to college. I wagged school alot and still managed to get high grades,(fuck knows how lol), I ran away or disappeared for 2 week stints and became a ghost at home, locked away in my room. We never knew if we were going to have xmas because sometimes at the last minute he would decide there was going to be no xmas. He belittled me infront of his friends. I never bought friends home in fear of being humiliated in front of them or them seeing the shit I had to put up with and never wanting to visit again. I started drinking and the drugs and I self sabotaged alot. I had a nervous breakdown at the age of 17 and tried to commit suicide.

I was so broken down inside I had no idea who the fuck I was anymore. But underneath all the angst I knew that I had spirit and a fire and I simply refused to bow to his crap anymore, I woke up one day and thought fuck this, I’m outta here. I sat them down and I told them what they had put me through, how much it hurt and how badly I was fighting hating them both. They cried. I sat there still and cold. I left the next day.

I then spent the next ten years of my life trying to find the person I once was, that happy kid that just wanted to smile again. Because of the emotional abuse I suffered I had difficulties socially and with relationships, sometimes I still do. I find it very difficult to trust someone fully. It’s not them it’s the fear of being hurt I suppose. I haven’t quite figured that out. I am well aware that his abuse and his drinking have moulded me into the person I am but one thing he didn’t expect was that I came out on top. He didn’t break me, just about but not quite. He made me determined not to follow in his footsteps. Even now I react badly around extremely drunk people.

I spent alot of time trying to understand why he did what he did and began to see it wasn’t about me. Mum and I even found out a little about his childhood which put major pieces of the puzzle together. He was emotionally abused and made to feel like an outsider from a woman I can only describe as a bitch. And what happened to him, he did to me. On top of that hes a manic depressive alcoholic and refuses to seek help.

Things have been rather tough lately, he’s been really bad with the drinking again and isolating himself from our family. My sister had a baby last month and Dad has refused to see her or the baby without any explanations and she’s crying inside because she is and always has been Daddy’s little girl. She went to visit him the other day and he simply walked inside and locked the door on her. This behaviour doesn’t surprise me, he’s done it to me for years but now I have left home and distanced myself from him, the other two are starting to get it. Sometimes I want to go up to him and literally slap his face and tell him to wake up. You don’t treat your own children like that when all they want is love and they want their Dad back.

I am a grown woman now and he knows those silly little mind fucks don’t work anymore. He’s infact created a very resilient daughter who will not take his shit anymore. What I won’t stand by and watch is him doing the exact same shit to my brother and sister. I have spent the weekend talking to my family and supporting the decisions this week. A crisis meeting has been set up and we are going to try and get him to make the first step and get help. To be honest I doubt it will make any difference, we’ve been down this road before. But for their sakes I hope something changes this time.

Me, I stopped having a Dad a long time ago. And it’s okay I made my peace with it. Does it make it any easier? No. Does it allow me the space I need. Yes. I still do the family thing when need be but very rarely these days. Moving up north will allow me to spend more time with my sister and brother and Mum will have the support she needs emotionally because the other two were too young to remember alot of the bad stuff, I am the only one that knows what he is like and I am the only one Mum can confide in completely and know’s that I understand. When people ask me why she stays, I simply reply with one word. Love. He’s ill. Underneath all the bad, there is a good man but he’s slowly disappearing into that damn bottle that consumes him.

So yea, I could prolly write a damn book on all of this, maybe one day I will. There’s not enough support for children living with a parent who is alcoholic and has a mental illness.We don’t want sympathy we want understanding. I have spent years growing up watching people’s eyes glaze over, the look of sadness and the “I’m sorry”. If more people stood up and said “hey this is not okay, you need help”, then maybe more children would have the chance of having a happy childhood. Friends and family need to be more proactive and step in. It’s not easy but it can be done. One day I will find peace with it all. For now as always, I will come to the aid of my siblings and shower them understanding and love and remind them I am always here and I know. I didn’t have anyone to cry on as a child, and being the big sister, I will give them that shoulder cause that’s what big sister’s do.

Well orgasms and my oral fixation with lollipops help take the edge off giving up smoking hehe. Everytime the chance arose to go and play I did yesterday and by god my general mood combined with that and the good old homeopathic remedies have kept me nice and calm. Went out for the afternoon yesterday and enjoyed a walk about and window shopping with a nice big cup of Starbucks coffee and then decided to go to the Art Gallery we have here, with a friend. It’s not a big gallery at all but still it was an enjoyable afternoon, and my friend kept me at a safe distance from all the bookshops lol. I have a problem … everytime I am near a bookshop I have a habit of walking out with a book. It’s great but not so great for my wallet.

New compie is ordered and paid for now, should be here middle of next week, so I have until then to try and get through all this work I have at the moment and sort this thing folders wise and do some backups, all time consuming crap. My son’s Dad flew in this morning at about 4am and I’ve not heard from him so I am assuming everything is okay.

Mastersvixen has now been completely removed from everywhere, Fetlife was the last place for it to go. Still a vixen just not Master’s anymore, plain old nilla impaired instead hehe. Somebody already had vixen

I have to learn to say thank you more often. I am really shit at taking compliments regarding my looks. I don’t think of myself as pretty, Jay used to get so fucked off at me but he understood that for me beauty isn’t external, it’s internal. I am one of those people who grew up with abuse via a stepfather, not the physical kind but the emotional abuse which apparently a psych said was able to have a more far reaching impact than physical abuse had, I don’t talk about it on here because it’s personal and something I will only discuss with people on a close friends level. Also the reason why I have major limits and are very wary of humiliation play and degradation.

Either way it did have an effect on my growing up, reasons behind decisions I made, I was one of the lucky ones, I got out okay, I knew it wasn’t me, it was his illness that caused me so much pain as a child BUT it does have a lasting effect, one which I continue to battle, little coping mechanisms, reaction triggers. A close friend of mine was physically abused in a relationship for a number of years, its been 7 years since she left him, but the scars remain, little triggers such as mine that set us off on a tangent, but we ARE aware, we know these things are no fault of our own, just something so deeply ingrained. With time and love these things fade. Hence the little stupid issues I have with compliments in general. I suppose a sense of disbelief and yes I know it’s completely stupid.

Alot like my spiritual stuff, most people who know me don’t have any clue I am pagan, my close friends know I am but its not an outward thing, the only things they notice is my mantlepiece has aquired alot of bits and bobs and my “star” as my son calls it, around my neck are the only visible signs. They know I sometimes act a little weird or sense things but thats it and they are used to me going off on little tangents or suddenly telling a spirit to sod off and leave me alone lol. It’s my thing. I had a Dom mention he and I wouldn’t be compatible because I was “metaphysically” minded… lol what does one say *sigh*… funny how people make such decisions without getting to know someone first, I wasn’t actually interested in him in that way, more an “intellectual” friend. Friendships can bring so much richness to someone’s life.

I grew up as a tomboy, I am a jeans and t-shirt girl. My skin reacts to make up, at the moment it is clearing up after the last time I wore the damn shit. I love dressing up, make up the works, but it’s not cheap to do so lol. One reason no more smoking, I figure if I can spend that much on ciggies all the time, that money would be put to better use in making me feel good. Well that’s my theory, and I won’t even start on the whole smoking thing. I am giving up for me and I refuse to be one of those “non smoker that gave up preaching type fucktard”, that holier than thou attitude gets up my nose. So what you gave up smoking like thousands of other people because why? … because its fucking gross and one day if something else doesn’t first, it will kill you. There, easy wasn’t it. Now shush.

Gawd I am getting really good at rambling shit. I will try do some decent posts when I have a little free time. At the moment its not happening lol. I jump on here, write like a madwoman then bugger off to work again, today it’s work and I have people popping in and out today.

Dating update: meh

Smoking update: now day 2, mood great, no cravings oddly, walks around saying “I am a non smoker”