interview with a female victim of child abuse

Frandes, Maria Magdalena, interviewee and victim of child abuse. 7 November 2009

Magdalena is a 28-year’s old half-Romanian and half-Hungarian girl. Her parents both commit suicide when she was eight years old. Then her uncle’s family adopted her. Both her uncle and the uncle’ wife were alcoholics so she lived ten years of physical and mental abuse with this new family. She is going to explain how that felt in her interview.
1. What kind of child abuse/child neglect did you experience in your childhood?
When I was still a baby my birth parents would go to work and leave me and my younger brother in the house by ourselves, locked in an empty room with no water and no food, they would feed us when they got home, which was at least after eight hours of work. They never abused me, but they died when I was nine years old. I was adopted and my foster parents abuse me by beating me with a belt, on my naked body whenever they considered that I did something stupid. Another abuse is them sending be to crapy bars to buy them alcohol during the day time and sometimes at midnight.


2. How old were you when the abuse started?
When the neglect started, I was a baby, probably 2 or 3 years old, and when the abuse started, I was 9-ish.
3. How did abuse affect you then and how does it affect you now?
When they used to beat me, I used to scream and cry loudly and I was ashamed that the neighbors would hear me.
Now, I don’t know how it affects me, I think I am normal, but there was a time when I used to hate them, not for only these things but for more. I guess I forgive them, but still, I am not calling them as often as a normal child should call his/her parents.
4. Did you realize or comprehend that you were experiencing abuse?
I thought that was normal; I was to young to understand these things, and besides, in Romanian society I wasn’t the only one, most of the kids in my city were and still are abused. When I grew some more, I knew it was an abuse, but there was nothing I could do to change the past, but to forgive and forget.
5. Were you aware of any institutions and did you seek help?
The only institution I was aware of was the foster homes, but I always heard and knew that those places were a lot worst, and you couldn’t have the freedom as you could have “home”.