Support after abuse - Support a young girl after abuse

Hi. I am Lily’s mum.

Lily was always a beautiful, smiley, happy, energetic child. Even though she grew up without a dad, she had a loving mother, grandparents who’d always be there for her, and a fun, caring uncle. We are Italian but have been living in the UK for many years.

Lily had lots of friends, was liked at school, did lots of sports and loved to travel with me. we made a pact to travel to a new country for every year of her life. Just around Europe and with Ryanair, but it was great. I thought we had a good life.

When Lily was 14 she was feeling lonely. The lockdown, not being able to go to Italy to see her grandparents, uncle and friends, and on top of that she’d been bullied at school by a girl who isolated her from her best friends and introduced her to drugs. Lily started veering off the right path.

An older man (38) approached her one day, right in the village where she lived in the UK. They sure know who to target and how. He made her feel special at this very difficult time and after a while, when he’d earned her trust, he offered her drugs and alcohol… and raped her.

She didn’t tell me – the man had threatened to hurt her and me if Lily told anyone - so for a while she kept everything inside. School broke up and Lily went to stay with her grandparents in Italy. This was in July 2021.

Soon Lily started showing signs that something was wrong. At first she stole her grandad’s sleeping pills. We found her a therapist. Then she started self-harming more and more severely. She stopped eating. We didn’t understand what was going on, why the sudden change… Until one day after therapy, the doctor decided going home was too dangerous, Lily had become severely suicidal and she was planning to end her life. She was admitted into a psychiatric ward immediately, in Italy.

She still hadn’t told me what was going on and she’d asked the doctors not to tell me. This was incredibly painful and confusing for me, I felt so left out, and seeing her suffer like that was almost unbearable. Eventually it led to me losing power of attorney. She managed to report the assault to the police in Italy and the UK, which was a very brave step.

I was so worried, it was as though Lily had disappeared, leaving this angry, raging, suffering soul in her place. Lily didn’t want to be with me, she was too angry and ashamed, but I had to stay with her in the psychiatric ward as Lily is not 18 yet. We spent 4 months in the psychiatric ward, but Lily was not getting better… The ward was like Dante’s inferno, the suffering indescribable. It was not a place for children, but there were no alternatives, as Lily was waiting to be taken to a children’s mental health care home.

In January 2022 we found her a place, but Lily was too unwell to cope with the relative freedom of the care home. Her arms, by then, were completely covered in cigarette burns, cuts, scratches. She’d started hitting her head against the wall so hard she had a scab on her forehead. She started scratching her beautiful face. She ran away several times, and tried to kill herself several times, too.

The only positive was that the doctors tried to mend our relationship and Lily started opening up. She realised she wasn’t angry with me, she was angry with the man who’d raped her and with herself (very much with herself) for “ruining her family”, for being so stupid. This led to more self-harming.

The situation now, 19 months later, seems to have slightly improved, Lily is still in a care home, a different, better one, where she is more protected and is learning to live again one tiny step at a time. I hired a lawyer, appeared before a judge and was given full power of attorney back.

I am trying to keep my job for as long as possible. We lived in the UK, so my job is there. It’s my dream job. The company is incredibly supportive, I had to take 5 months sick leave to stay with her in hospital. I have to take time off for meetings with psychologists, psychiatrists and care home managers. As I am the only one supporting the family financially, I am commuting to and from the UK and Italy so that I can work during the week, and travel every other weekend to go see her when allowed. This is the pattern for the moment, but it might soon change and one day Lily will be discharged. When this happens, I will have to leave my job. She has no intention of going back to the place where she was raped. I’ll lose our only income and my dream job and all the support of the company I am working for to go back to Italy, where finding a job is so hard and very little flexibility is available for employees with issues like mine.

We will have to move from the house Lily grew up in. I’ll have to find a flat near her doctors, as they are doing a fantastic job and I don’t want to change them now that she’s found the right ones. I’ll need to pay for Lily’s tutors, as she has not been able to go to school for 2 years now and will need help to go back. I’ll need to have funds ready to give Lily whatever support she’ll need. I will need therapy in order to be able support her and to get over all the trauma myself.

I am overwhelmed by the thought of the difficulties we still have to face, with the move, leaving my beloved job, my friends, the home and life I built in years. The fear that something will go wrong and Lily will do something extreme. It’s terrifying. Lily has changed a lot, she’s not dreaming of her future with a smile on her face anymore. Will I be able to be a good mum to the new Lily?

All donations will be used towards:

Lily’s care (any alternative care not available on the NHS or other that could work)

I want to make her smile about her future again. To make sure she knows her life can be worth living and can be good.

Knowing that I will have enough money to pay for all those expenses will allow me to focus exclusively on what’s best for Lily, and how to best rebuild her life and our life together outside the hospital.

Please donate.

Thank you