Just Marilee no-one special!

I was born in Henley Beach Maternity Hospital, South Australia in 1955. I was told that it was the worst storm Adelaide had experienced and the Hospital Roof almost ripped off. My mother thought I had been born with 2 heads and that they sedated her because she was hysterical.

Mum and Dad started their married life in a caravan and I was told that I was a mistake. I'm first born female of 4 generations of females born first. My mother went back to the caravan in Whyalla with me, my father after awhile thought she wasn't coping and contacted his sister Dorothy in Adelaide, to see if she could take me.

Apparently I was screaming all the time and I was suffering malnutrition, I was rushed to the children's hospital. You see my Grandmother didn't like children and only gave birth to my mother, so she never helped my mother with her baby. Mum was a child that was alone and one that would come home from school to an empty house because both parents worked.

Mum was strange, never ever made friends she only had her first cousin to play with and would spend a lot of time at her place. Back in her young days there was no medical label for someone like my Mother and in 2015 she was diagnosed with Autism which explains so much of my life.

I never experienced a hug or love from my mother or my grandmother. I tried hard to please them but they were never satisfied. When my brother was born, it was different for him as the sun shone for him. Mum would tell me I should have had eyelashes like him, my grandmother would take me to the hairdresser from the age of 4, get a really curly perm, which I didn't like. We would go back to her house then she would sing a Shirley Temple song ON THE GOOD SHIP LOLLYPOP which I hated. Other times she would tell me I should be like the girl next door to her. In my head I would ask "Why can't I just be me, I must be awful or something!"

Many times through my life I would be told I will die before I am 10 years old, get to 10 then 15 years and I wouldn't make to 21years. I use to think that maybe they wanted me to die. I am 65 years old now and they are all dead, most of the family is dead except 2 brothers I have.

I remember my dad getting real mad at me because I wouldn't eat my mash potatoes and placed the bowl on my head then mashed it my hair as punishment. I didn't eat food like others and they would say I shamed them, sometimes I would be put outside and wait until they finished dinner.

My father's sister was the only who was kind to me and sometimes I would be sent to her in Adelaide, one time I went to school in Adelaide for about 6 months and I loved it. In school I was given a gold star for a poem about snails I had written.

When my two brothers and I were little, my grandparents would take trips to Perth, WA and when they came back to Whyalla we went to see them. My Nana (Grandmother) bought presents for my brothers and kids next door and my parents, when she got to me she said "Sorry I forgot you, here's 2 dollars." I didn't take it and went outside and had little cry. "How could she forget her only granddaughter?" It was always like that. I would be taken to her place on a weekend and wax her lino and clean cupboards out and the whole time I ask myself "Why can't she love me."

When I became a teenager, I accompanied her at Bingo Games and I thought that she would like me. After I left High School at 15 years I started my first job as a machinist sewing leather gloves for industry.

I made my own money and would go out a lot, besides no one really cared what I did. I met my first true love, not just a boyfriend, we went together maybe 2 years or so, he was bit older and we got unofficially got engaged and at 18years of age going on to 19 years, I got pregnant, of course my family disowned me and said I was shameful. I was deeply hurt but back then if you were single you were just like a town whore. I told my true love we were going to have a baby, he was happy, I thought he would be upset for he was from Lebanon and Muslim, he told me that he had to go Sydney for a couple weeks and told his friend instructions that he was to be my escort and where ever I wanted to go, he had to do that.

Sam had only been gone 1 week when his friend tried to touch me up and I ended up walking home in the dark, crying. Sam's friend was not a good friend because he should've been trustworthy. Sam when he came back, he came for me and said he was taking me somewhere special. It was anything but.

He pulled up at a house and we went in, I was escorted to another room and a few Lebanese women were sitting in a circle and a chair was in the middle which is where I was told to sit.

I sat and they all hammered me, accusing me of being unfaithful, trying to say that Sam was not the father but his friend was. It didn't matter that I was innocent, I couldn't hardly say anything and I got up, told them to go hell. I got outside and just ran in the dark thinking at how they could believe that low down liar. I ended up in the cemetery across the road from my Grandparents, it was where I always went to talk to the dead and pour my heart out. It was pretty cold and I didn't care. I was nearly 4 months pregnant, those women how stupid of them, if they listened to me, they would have realised the date and time of my pregnancy.

Sam came over a couple of days later and we went for a drive, he told me he was going back to Lebanon and I thought he was going back because at that time Lebanon was going through civil war. It wasn't that at all for he told me "I am going back to marry a virgin because you are spoilt and no good anymore." I asked him to stop the car and he wouldn't but only slowed down. I asked him again to stop and he wouldn't so I just opened the door and jumped out. Oh! I hurt hand and one foot, few scrapes wasn't that bad. He stopped and told me to get in the car, well I told him what he could with his car and kept walking. Took me a long time to walk home and home wasn't that nice either.

Around 10 days later, on my panty, I noticed a couple of brown spots so I caught the bus and presented at the hospital to ask a nursing sister what could be wrong. Well she got a wheelchair and took to maternity ward, she told me I have to stay in bed for 3 days. My doctor was paged so he cut his fishing time to see me. He said if I rest the baby will be fine, that it wasn't too serious. At this time my mother was in the main hospital having her operation on her hand for a carpel tunnel that was blocked. The hospital sent message to her that I was in hospital too.

That particular night a nurse came and got me in wheelchair, I was wheel down the corridor into a big room. A man who was a older gynaecologist and he was the only one in town at that time. This man started yelling at me and telling me I am as bad as a prostitute because I was not married. He was being so awful and I was in tears, I felt belittled and I wanted to die. A Nurse who passing and heard him screaming me, she came into the room, she yelled at him to stop and he no right to judge someone. She like my savour and she took me back to my bed.

The follow morning it was a Saturday and a nurse came in with a form for me to sign, it was just to let the doctor have look at the baby in the Hospital Theatre she assured me that I would be fine.

The following Wednesday, I was prepped for whatever they were going to do. A couple hours later I was back in my bed, that afternoon that horrible gynaecologist came to my bed and he told me that he aborted my baby and said "Girls like you should never have children." Then he left.

A visitor came and it was my work boss to tell me that they didn't want a girl like me working for them so I was fired. Ok so now things are real grim for me, no baby, no boyfriend, no job and the family didn't want me either.

Thursday morning, I was released but not before that nasty gynaecologist told me what he thought of girls like me. I was going to call a taxi but I found my Grandfather waiting for me. I was really surprised he was there.

I got into his vehicle and he told how sorry he was about everything. I had tears rolling down face and I couldn't speak. Grandpa as we called him dropped me home and I didn't say anything to the others, just went to my room like a piece of garbage. During the night, I was having awful pains and was doubling up, then blood, I didn't want to wake anyone so I waited until morning and got myself across road to Mrs Wilson's place, she open the door and she was very concern, she got the lady next door and the two crossed their arms and they carried me to a car. When we arrived at the hospital, I was rushed into a bed in the maternity ward again. Next morning I was really shocked because this big green/pink/red blob was on the bed sheet and I yelled out "OMG! What has he done to me." A nurse came quickly in and explained that it is what is left of the baby and she told it was going to be girl. I had already chosen her name Vanessa Jane because I knew I had girl inside me, that nasty man murdered her.

After lunch I was listening to Radio and a song that Sam and I danced to MY SPECIAL ANGEL it made me cry my soul out, I took the pull ring off my can of Coke and sliced both my wrists, I had enough of my life then. Just as a nurse came in so did my Grandmother and I told her to leave and I don't want to see her. I tell you, she was shocked. The hospital paged my everyday doctor and he left his fishing time again to see me, I asked if I was insane and he assured I wasn't, that if he was me he would have done the same thing. I have never forgotten him in all my life.

I was finally released again on the Wednesday and that dreadful gynaecologist said to me "Don't worry I made sure you never slip up again!" and he had the most horrible grin on his face.

I left home and moved into a flat, I just couldn't live home, knowing that they all wanted to disown me. I got another job in a bar in one of the hotels. Went dancing most nights and played around. I didn't care after they had told me I was town whore. I just wanted to forget everything and I didn't know what that gynaecologist did to me.

By the time I got to the age of 21 set about leaving Whyalla, saved money and book a bus ticket to Perth, I arrived on my 22nd birthday, had a job and room in the Old Majesty Hotel in the City. Few weeks later, I rented a wobbly house right across the road of a brothel. The deli was next door to it, I laughed at that and I remember what most though of me in Whyalla the place I grew up in between having to be shipped off to Adelaide here and there.

I met my X who I married at 23 years of age only because he wouldn't go home because a drunk driver hit his car on New Year's Eve and I ended up in the Royal Perth Hospital then spent New Year's Day at his mother's place and lying on her bed. All of that year I got harassed about the boyfriend living with me, I just couldn't get rid of him. I was accused of his mother's board money she was missing plus accused of living in sin, by my Grandmother and Fred's family. I told Fred that if he hasn't gone home with in that year then we are getting married. So married we got, I really didn't want to get married but it was the only to have peace.

I was 26 years old when I had to have a Hysterectomy which was done in the Bentley Hospital, I was to have it the new way where they sucked out the Uterus. 4 days later I woke up they had kept me asleep all that time because I ended up having steel clips instead of stitches and the hospital gynaecologist, who was very nice to me said he had to scrape the pelvic bone because I had surgical lesions, then he told me to find out the name of the Whyalla gynaecologist because he had rendered me as good as being desexed and I should sue him.

When I finally left the hospital, Fred took me to see my parents and my Grandmother had just come back from Whyalla. She was busy showing baby photos of the girl that use to live next door to her. I looked at her, I left the room in tears, I heard for the first time Mum told her own Mother to shut up.

I asked Nana who was the gynaecologist in Whyalla. Would you believe she said "Oh the hospital Administration burnt down and all records were destroyed." She assured me and like a fool I believed her. She died a few years later. Fred and I went back to our rental unit, I needed to rest and sleep a little as my operation was hurting. Tried to dose off but my head was also aching so I got to get some tablets. There in the kitchen I caught my husband and the 13 year old girl from door kissing. She rushed out of the front door while Fred ran out the back. He told me I had imagine what I had witnessed. I got into my car really upset and went back to Mum and Dad's place. I asked if I could stay a few days but they sent me back to Fred.

His Parents wanted us to see a marriage guidance Councillor but a Catholic one. Well that person told me I had no reason to stay in the marriage. Of course Fred's father said she didn't know what she talking about. I felt like someone just thrown on the trash heap. I would always be a baron woman, I felt worthless and used, very hard to put everything felt into words.

In 1997 for a personal reason I rang Whyalla and asked if they ever had a fire that burnt down the Administration building. I was informed they did not at anytime. All those years, I didn't question my Grandmother and all those years I had put up with Fred's Family showing off their babies. Not one person in the families ever had a thought for how was feeling.

I would walk past windows with little girl's dresses and other pretty things, Mother's Day was sometimes lonely and now 65 years of age I have no one to watch over and help me when get really old. I know why my Grandmother got her gynaecologist to do what he did, after all they were good friends. You see if I had a family of my own, she figured I might not have time to care for my mother in her old aged which I did care for her, I was her carer until she had to go into a nursing home and died October 2017. My mother was wheelchair bound, she made herself that way because she got attention, in the end she couldn't walk plus she became very incontinent .I understand it was never Mum's fault that she couldn't show her feelings, after all she lived in fairy land and cartoons. Later when she became demented, she really thought she was a Princess because my father always called her Princess. Just a shame if she wasn't diagnosed with Autism earlier, it would have made difference, I thought she didn't love me. My brothers and I could have helped her much early. I have to live knowing life could have been so much more.

To all those women that had their babies taken when they were young but went on to have other children, you are lucky. I could have had a full life with children of my own. It was stolen from me by my own Grandmother.

At 65, I have only my animals and birds but they can't not protect or speak up for me against any wrong doing when I may need care. I do know that when my time is near or have too much pain or just don't want to be on this earth, I shall just disappear as though I never existed.