Athaliah Reynolds, Staff Reporter

WHEN 12-YEAR-OLD Camille Tulloch (real name withheld to conceal her identity) felt the blunt, hard force of the rock as it landed on her lower back, she awoke in sudden and extreme agony. She shrieked loudly like a wild animal as warm blood quickly soaked the sheets on which she slept.

Tulloch's adoptive mother had just found out about the abortion she had done two days previously and in another of her angry fits gave her a good beating just minutes after she had stood above her and slammed a rock into her back.

"I bled for days. I basically had to run away again," she said.

Tulloch, now 40, is relating her story of torment, abuse and heartache to The Sunday Gleaner during an interview that lasted for hours at the newspaper's offices in Kingston recently.

Her eyes appear heavy with emotion as she recalls the days of her childhood.

She bows her head and tries hard to hide her torment, but her tears come anyhow, slowly down her cheek.

"Until this day, I have not gotten over the abuse," she says as she wipes away a tear that had fallen on to her chubby, brown hand.

Seeking help

This store assistant has been raped more times than she can remember. After surviving the guilt and shame of three abortions, six miscarriages and the loss of 10 babies, Tulloch felt compelled to come forward to share her story in the hope that it would encourage someone in a similar situation to seek help before it is too late.

Tulloch was sent to live with her adoptive mother when she was just a few months old. "I was told my father didn't want to have anything to do with me. My mother had 16 children and I guess she could not take care of all of us," she relates.

"I didn't know my real name (surname) until I was eleven. I wasn't even sure about my right birthday," Tulloch tells The Sunday Gleaner.

While living with her adoptive mother, Tulloch suffered countless forms of abuse.

"The first time I was molested was when I was just eight years old," she said. "It was the gardener. I didn't tell anyone because I was afraid."

After that, almost all the men who would come around to visit her adoptive mother would have sex with Tulloch, until she finally decided to run away in search of her parents at age 11.

She found her father, who was living in Montego Bay, and what she thought would be her salvation quickly turned out to be just another chapter in a life already scarred by grief and pain.

"I remember one night, my father was sick and my stepmother sent me with some food to give him and I was there with him and he started fondling me. The next day I told my stepmother and she called me a liar," Tulloch says.

Within just a year of moving in with her 'real' family, she was raped by her brother, father and stepuncle.

"When I found out I was pregnant at about 12, I didn't even know who I was pregnant for, whether it was my stepuncle, father or my brother," she recounts.

Finding out about her pregnancy, her stepmother kicked her out of the house.

"I lived on the streets because I had nowhere else to go," she says. "My adopted sister came to find me and brought me back to Kingston and took me to do an abortion.

"Her friend, who was a policeman, bring us to a doctor down by Doncaster at the back of a house. It was a small, suffocating room," she relates. "The pregnancy was so old that I basically almost lost my life. Even the doctor say to my sister that they almost get him in trouble."

Tulloch went back to live with her adoptive mother, until she found out about the abortion two days later and kicked her out again.

Back on the streets, the teenager was raped constantly. "Sometimes I still wonder how I survived," she said. She had her two other abortions at ages 17 and 23.

Finding love

The tide turned at age 30. Tulloch met a man with whom she fell in love. He took her off the streets and they eventually got married.

"We planned to make a better life for ourselves together and started trying to have a child," she says.

But she could no longer get pregnant. Doctors told her her womb had been damaged beyond repair. "They say my tubes look like somebody hold them and rip them up."

She did countless operations in an attempt to repair her tubes, but it was too late.

"After that, I started having miscarriages. The babies just come three or four months, or just as you find out that you pregnant you lose it," Tulloch says.

When her husband realised that she could not give him a child, he went home one day from work, packed his bags and left.

Depression

The young woman plummeted into a deep, dark pit of depression and had to be admitted to hospital for three months. "I was in a state of shock. Only my brain and my heart were working. I was getting feeding through my nose," she relates.

The guilt of the abortions, the miscarriages, and the loss of her husband caused Tulloch to attempt suicide five times.

She is speaking out now as a form of therapy, but she also wants other young women in her position to know that they don't have to bear the pain of abuse alone. She is also now an ardent protester against abortions and advises young women against the practice.

"I feel like I am in the dark too long and too many doctors are robbing women, not just of their money, but of the life of their children," she says.

Tulloch's message to young girls who might be victims of carnal abuse or incest is to find someone you can trust and talk about your problems.

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com