When Dawn Floyd was just 12-years-old she took an overdose which left her hospitalised. Now 63, the mother of two says it was a moment in her childhood which still sticks vividly in her mind.
Fifty years later the businesswoman, mother and grandmother says she feels ready to speak openly about what she says led her to make such a harrowing decision at a heartbreakingly young age. Even now she is haunted by it.
“When I think back to my childhood I am filled with sadness,” she says, speaking to WalesOnline from her home in Chepstow where she also runs a thriving antiques shop. “I feel like I never had a childhood. There was nothing normal about it, no playing with other children, no real love. I moved from Liverpool to Leominster and was ridiculed for my Indian complexion and Liverpudlian accent.”
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She claims she suffered years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of a person in a position of authority and close to her at the time. “I didn’t fit in at Leominster and life was already tough,” she said. “The abuse I received was emotional and physical. I felt completely ignored. That’s how it started. It was at times as though I didn’t exist.
“That then turned to them doing spiteful things like hanging my hamster out of the window by its tail, cutting my books up, and then it turned to physical harm - where I was kicked in the head and had my hair pulled out. To think someone can be so cruel and so emotionally detached is beyond me.”
When she looks at her grandchildren Skylar and Theo she is filled with love and pride, but she says that is often tinged with sadness that she couldn’t experience that closeness. “I do think it’s affected me as a mother and grandmother,” she admitted. “I’m terrible for mollycoddling them and not leaving them alone. I’ve made mistakes, but I try my best. I don’t want my children and grandchildren to ever feel like I felt.”
She claims the emotional and physical abuse came to a head after she began secondary school. “One of the few people who took pity on me was my French teacher, and I think that is why I became so passionate about languages,” she said. “I was so chuffed but no-one else gave me the time of day.”
Dawn says her life became so difficult that when she was 14 she attempted to run away. “All it did was cause more rebelliousness in me,” she said. “It has right up until now. The way I approach things I know sometimes isn’t right. I can be like a bull in a china shop and I do think it’s probably due to my experiences at the time. I lack calmness at times now. Until you speak about it and deal with it I don’t think it ever goes away.”
Dawn claims the abuse became so unbearable that she was driven to taking an overdose which left her hospitalised. “I wanted out,” she said. “It was as simple as that. For two years the lining in my stomach was damaged as a result of the overdose and I still have second grade esophagitis because of it.” Get the latest headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for our daily newsletter here.
She claims she was then hospitalised twice more after being “punched and kicked in the head”. “It hampered me emotionally,” she recalled. “I was told by a psychiatrist when I was 16 that I was emotionally undeveloped as a result of what had happened.”
Since leaving home at 18 Dawn says she has never come to terms with what she claims happened to her during her childhood and teenage years. “In those days I think there was a stigma surrounding talking about things like that, which I don’t think is there anymore. I didn’t know what to do or where to turn.
“I’ve gone through all of these years and carried it with me. It gets me very low, and when I get low it’s not low like other people. I know I haven’t healed. For the last 40 years all I’ve done is try and make myself as busy as possible, with languages, studying and my business. I do it so I don’t have time to think and remember.
“But I realised I was wrong to not deal with it properly, I’ve been wrong not to speak about it openly until now. I’ve portrayed myself as this sort of super person. I’ve tried to put that image across of myself as a super woman because I haven’t wanted people to realise what I’ve experienced.
“I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being so busy too because I feel like I’ve needed to prove myself over and over again. It’s a feeling of needing to be worth something.”
This month, after more than 50 years, she has decided to report the allegations to Gwent Police. She says her grandchildren have reminded her of her difficult experiences and given her a renewed confidence to speak publicly.
“They are beautiful and that is where I see love now and that’s everything to me,” she said. “I see how happy and well-balanced they are and it does make me think back to that time. It makes me wish that I could go back and have it differently.”
