'My entire life, I had no childhood memories. Age 64, trauma came flooding back.'

This story discusses sexual abuse.

Until she was 64 years old, Judy King's only clear childhood memory was of her mother lamenting her birth. The rest are a blank space, the truth shut out after years of severe sexual abuse at the hands of her father. 

Judy's father first sexually abused her when she was 11 years old. That night, as he became increasingly drunk, he insisted Judy climb into bed with him where he proceeded to touch her inappropriately.  At the time, Judy believed all fathers were good, so she must have been bad. 

"It happened a second time, when I asked him to come to the local baths to see how well I had learnt to dive at the pool," Judy tells Mamamia. 

Behind the changing sheds, he touched her again. Again, she blamed herself. 

Watch: University of Sydney students tear up sexual assault report. Article continues after the video.

"I never went back to the baths. Instead, I went to early morning mass, embracing religion as a comfort."

By the time she was 15, her father was anally raping her. 

"I have one memory of him standing beside my bed, but no memory, at the time, of the sexual act," she says. 

"What I experienced was a sensation of my body levitating up from my bed to join a drawing of a guardian angel that hung above my bed. 

"The knock on effect of my father's sexual abuse was a total loss of the ability to read or concentrate on the written word in any form. I lived in a cloud. Prior to the sexual abuse, I remembered I could read and at one time I devoured books. My opinion of myself descended to the lowest of the low."

After failing her exams and refusing to take up the boarding school place at a convent offered by her grandmother, Judy lashed out at her father.

"After he swung around in the car and hit me with force in the mouth, I suddenly saw the truth in an instant and jumped out of the moving car," she says.

A cycle of abuse. 

Judy escaped to Sydney, but quickly found herself in an abusive relationship.

"We are attracted to what we know and in my case all I'd known was being an object for others," says Judy. 

"I would try and become what I thought people wanted me to be and thus never be myself. 

"Once he had raped me, he told me that I was his possession and he would kill me, if I ever told anyone about us. I was afraid of him, but had no one I could turn to for help, which has been my life story. 

"I was so naive and unworldly, it never occurred to me that the abusive sex, could result in a pregnancy."

By the time she realised she had missed her period and discovered she was pregnant, Judy was so numb from the abuse, she hardly felt anything. 

"What I instantly knew was I had to keep the pregnancy a secret from my parents. 

"With the birth of my daughter, everything changed.  All the cover up, survival and planning melted away. I fell in love with my baby girl and it took all the courage and clear thinking I could muster to sign the adoption papers. 

"Uneducated, with no support, no money, or accommodation, or training for a job, I knew that the best thing for my baby was to be cared for by a loving couple who were unable to have their own child. I was also aware that I was broken inside and thus had no blueprint for bringing up a child."

The birth of her daughter remained a secret Judy never confided to anyone. And after years of poverty, Judy set about making money with a determination as yet unknown to me. 

She landed a job selling houses. She went on to complete a Real Estate course, obtain her licence and open her office. 

"As I took it for granted that my salvation and happiness lay in finding the right relationship, it never occurred to me to examine my part in the choice of partners I made," says Judy. 

Her first husband was an architect, who she considered superior in every way. 

"A similar pattern in my choice of partners followed suit. It wasn't until I fled to Mallorca to escape the second and last abusive marriage, in a terrible emotional state, that I decided to forgo any further relationships and try and figure out what had made me so emotionally vulnerable to exploitation over the years."

A new beginning. 

Over the years, Judy tried multiple therapists, including Integrated Energy Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, but nothing worked. 

When she arrived in Spain, she decided to try again.  At 64, the Spanish therapist told Judy she'd likely left it too late to heal. 

The older you get, the more difficult it is to change, he told her. But Judy insisted, and the therapist ultimately agreed to try. 

"So, my life took on a new form; built around my weekly sessions with my new psychiatrist. My greatest challenge was having to speak Spanish with him, as he didn't speak English."

In the end, this experience is what set Judy on a path to uncover and articulate what lay beneath much of the amnesia that shrouded her childhood. 

"Meditation was the most memorable, helpful and insightful therapeutic activity that worked for me. I followed the Ānāpānasati Buddhist method: using the breath as a mantra," she says.

Judy wrote a book based on her life story. Image: Supplied.

Never too late. 

Now 82, Judy has written a book about her life, called Agnes, A Childhood Betrayed and Reclaimed, and continues to see the Spanish therapist, who she credits with turning her life around. 

"I am grateful to have survived to tell the tale. I am blessed, after a lifetime search to engage with reality, to celebrate my arrival in such an interesting world," says Judy.

"Life for me now is truly wonderful. I surprised myself by speaking with confidence at the Sydney launch of my book.  Apart from some age-related problems, I remain in good health.  I have made peace with myself."

Judy says she hopes her story is an inspiration to any adult child abuse sufferer. 

"I have an ongoing involvement with the Blue Knot Foundation, to whom I have pledged ten per cent of the royalties from the book. 

"It is heartening now how much help there is out there for child abuse sufferers. What is more important than ever, is for family members to exercise the moral strength to, instead of turning away from abuse within the group, speak up and do something about it."

Feature image: supplied.