Mansfield mum's childhood sexual abuse secret revealed in remarkable new book

“I knew something wasn’t right, but I was supposed to trust him.

"I remember saying no. But it didn’t carry any weight.”

The chilling words of Mansfield Woodhouse mum Kathryn Hill, now 35, as she recalls how she was a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

Abuse that she kept to herself through her time at Joseph Whitaker School in Rainworth, and right up to her wedding day.

"I tried to fight it occasionally but, at that age, you aren’t able to verbalise it,” she says. “I was coerced by my abuser into not telling anyone.

"I buried the trauma so deep within myself. According to a psychologist, my brain locked it away because I couldn’t deal with it.”

Given the abuser was known to her, Kathryn, originally from Ravenshead, found herself trapped within her secret.

But now her secret is out. She has committed it to ‘pen and paper’ in a remarkable book that tells of her often grim journey through life as she tried to come to terms with her ordeal.

‘Rebuilding With Rubble’ relates how Kathryn has had to reclaim her identity, and even challenge her Christian faith.

The book tells how she suffered acute depression. How she held thoughts of suicide before going through a mental breakdown. How she finally confronted her abuser.

"However, it is also a story of hope,” Kathryn stresses. “A celebration of refusing to let the darkness win.

"Yes, I had a distressing journey of loss and heartbreak. What happened in the past isn’t pretty. But it isn’t where the story ends.

"As a youth support worker for the NHS, I have a heart and passion to see mental health become a more socially acceptable topic for discussion.

"Especially within Christian circles, where it can often feel as if you’re doing something wrong if things such as depression, PTSD and anxiety are a persistent feature of your life.

"The book is intended to show survivors who are struggling that there is no time limit to healing. I hope it helps them back into the driving seat of their lives.”

The driving seat was the last place Kathryn found herself in as a child, a teenager and a young adult.

The book doesn’t go into the details of her abuse, and she can’t name her abuser for legal reasons. But she talks about the psychological impact on her day-to-day life.

That impact came to a head just after she married husband Tom as a 23-year-old when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

"I started having nightmares and flashbacks,” Kathryn explains. “My psychologist said it was a case of a new trauma unlocking a previous trauma.

"I was so afraid that I daren’t do anything about it. I lived with that pain for at least ten years.”

Making things worse was that she would still see her abuser regularly, including at Christmas 2020 when she said her “depression weighed so heavily on me and the fear was inescapable”.

Kathryn’s workplace mentor urged her to confront him, so she wrote him a letter, asking if he remembered what he had done.

"He phoned me sobbing and apologising, saying he had forgotten,” Kathryn recalls. “He was so incredibly manipulative that I wanted to kill myself.

"He later got engaged to be married and sent me constant messages. My husband told him to back off and we got the police involved.

"At that point, my brain switched off and I had a mental breakdown. For two months, I was unable to even talk properly.”

Kathryn was diagnosed with complex PTSD but, because of the Covid pandemic and lockdowns, she struggled to find the professional support she needed.

"I had to navigate it on my own,” she says. “I felt vulnerable and frightened.

"I spoke to the police again and they said that once I made a statement, I would start to be able to speak again. They were right. It was as if I had handed the burden to somebody else.”

The abuser denied any criminal wrongdoing and, without supportive evidence such as DNA, the police could not take the case any further.

He moved away from the Mansfield area and, as part of her healing process, Kathryn cut ties and began to accept that she had done all she could.

The book came about earlier this year when she received a text message from someone her abuser knows.

"I felt this rage,” she says. “I just threw open my laptop and started to write. The words flowed out. The book might have been more than ten years in the making, but it took me only six weeks to complete.”

A friend edited it, one of her former lecturers provided the foreword and it was published at the end of October.

The book was launched in a special event at Mansfield Baptist Church, where another of her friends, Mark Herd, is the pastor. Priced £9.99, it can be bought on Amazon or from retailers such as Waterstones.

Kathryn is still receiving treatment for her condition, still trying to de-sensitise the trauma. But the book is a tangible source of strength.

"It still hurts,” she says. “But I want to use the evil that happened to me for good, to remove the power of the abuser and live a life without constraints.

"I have a five-year-old daughter, and my goal is to set her the example she needs to survive this world as a woman who can stand up on her own two feet.

"I am not going to pretend I am OK and everything is great. Some days, I feel so low.

"But other days, I feel so thankful that I am still here. At this point in my life, it is about progress.

"I hope my story is just the beginning, showing how you can reclaim a life that was stolen and rebuild the life you deserve.”