My step dad almost made me the most horrific victim of all time.

I posted this on r/trueoffmychest so please spread awareness and all that. Important to note that this happened 16 years ago, I am now a grown woman. Also, please know that I am not shaming mental illness here. This is an incident report that is important for parents and anyone with vulnerable people in their lives.<br><br>My mother was a beautiful, clever, well read woman who was married to my father as an 18 year old in the 70s. My grandparents gave their blessing and actually met my dad (a 35 year old man who was 17 years her senior) only once. The marriage didn't last long. When I was a toddler we were living on the edge of an old council estate and there just happened to be one man on the street who my mother seemed to make a special effort to be friends with - whilst my father continued to live with us. She was beautiful and you could just tell that she was going to leave him and a few months later that's exactly what happened. I always remember my dad coming to the door with tears in his eyes and begging her to stay, saying no matter how she thought she felt about me that she could always contact him and come back but my mum had made up her mind.<br><br>I'm not sure how long after but she married my step dad. Let's just call him 'step dad' for now, I won't name him. He was a man who had married his high school sweetheart who died 13 years into their marriage. He was several years older than my mother and he was also divorced. He was a self employed builder who made enough money for us to live a comfortable life. I was only 3 years old when my parents split but even as a child I felt an instant dislike towards my step dad. I think this was due to the fact that this man suddenly replaced my dad and was living in our house and also because my mother had an instant dislike towards me. She seemed more interested in building another life with her new husband and making me feel like I was an embarrassment that had to be tolerated. I remember the first time she wore white. It was to her wedding, an hour's drive away from our small flat by the sea. I don't remember what she wore for her first wedding but my dad told me it was a huge, lacey affair with a massive train that my gran had spent months sewing. I was the flower girl and I think I was visibly upset over the whole thing but my mum was beaming on her special day and didn't seem to care.<br><br>I was only 7 when my mum and step dad got married but my life was miserable and I actually did ask to live with my dad. I don't know how he managed to fight for me in court but he did. I lived with him for a year but it wasn't the same. I had to be a carer for him because he was poor, diabetic and couldn't work. He had kidney disease and eventually had a transplant because of me. I'm ashamed to say this but I'm not sure if I had a choice but I left dad and went back to mother and step dad when I was 9. My mother did everything in her power to stop me going back but in the end my gran stepped in. When my mum and step dad collected me from dad's flat they didn't say a single word to him but just grabbed me by the arm and ushered me out of the door. I was so sad.<br><br>Well, my mum and step dad came into a lot of money when I was 11 and I was taken out of school to home school. They claimed that I was being bullied but I wasn't. In reality my mother wanted more money for herself and didn't want to be a mother anymore so step dad would get custody of me while she went to Egypt for two years to live with her boyfriend. I know this now but at the time I didn't know why my life had been turned upside down. They moved me out of our flat and into their house, and I was given a tiny room way up in the attic. I wasn't allowed to go past the first floor. They didn't bother to furnish my room or give me a PC to do my school work on. It was shit. I was lonely. I couldn't go outside.<br><br>I don't know how but I started taking an interest in my step dad's family. I started to go downstairs to hang out with him, his sister Pam and his daughter Cally and the extended family. I eventually started going on family holidays and they got to know me. They fell in love with me. They said I was the sweetest girl they had ever met and they asked me why I didn't want to see my mother and why she had 'abandoned me'. I didn't want to see my mother and I had never given her a second thought. But step dad's family helped me and told me the truth - that my mother was living on a beach somewhere with some guy and didn't care about me. They did everything they could for me, even Cally's husband (my step brother in law) used to come and pick me up and take me to the mall all the time, for treats and adventures. The only person who didn't care for me was my step dad's son, Darren. But that's another story. <br><br>I was left alone by myself for a whole year and never had the chance to speak with my mother. I have had no way of contacting her this whole time. She didn't call me. She didn't text me. She didn't visit me. I had no step mum, only step dad and an open door to family and friends whenever I wanted.<br><br>So I tried. I asked my step dad if he would take me to the beach. Pam said there was a beautiful lake nearby and we could go swimming. I said yes but step dad told me no. He said I couldn't be trusted alone with people I didn't know. I cried.<br><br>Well, one day I had some company. The step dad's brother, Steven, stayed in the house for a few weeks while he was working on a project and he seemed nice. He had a wife and kids and everyone seemed to like him. I was happy to have some company and we would talk for hours.<br><br>On the second to last night of his visit I decided to sneak downstairs. I know this sounds crazy but I was lonely. I was on my own 24/7 and you'll be amazed how hard it is to keep yourself entertained without a PC or anything. I just wanted to make another human connection, and I liked Steven so I snuck down to the office and watched him at work. I wasn't scared. I didn't have anything to hide. <br><br>But Steven seemed different. He was looking at me in a way that was totally different to how my step dad looked at me. You know when you have that feeling where you can literally FEEL someone staring at you? It was like that. And it felt good. I know this might sound crazy but for the first time in years I felt like I was a person worth getting to know. And I felt happy. <br><br>For the rest of the night Steven and I had small talk, but small talk was better than no talk. He told me he liked my new haircut, and I told him I liked his shoes. We talked about the weather. We talked about our jobs. We talked about music. I wasn't bored anymore.<br><br>Well, it got to around 11.30. Steven said he was going to bed and I said I wanted to go to bed too. I was so happy to have someone to talk to that I even skipped brushing my teeth. Steven said he would walk me up to my room. We walked the stairs in silence but when we reached my door he stopped me. He said I was a nice girl and he was going to miss me. He said he gave me something for my bed time before leaning in to kiss me goodnight. It felt alive. It felt exciting. It felt like I was being touched for the first time in my life.<br><br>Steven went to his room and I went to mine. I didn't bother locking the door because I didn't see anything wrong with anything he had done. But I did lay in bed with a strange feeling in my chest. It wasn't a nice feeling. It was a feeling of... uncertainty. I didn't know what to make of it. But when I closed my eyes the feeling went away.<br><br>Well, it was about 3am when I heard footsteps outside my room. I was sleeping deeply but someone knocking on the door woke me up. I groggily got out of bed to see who it was. When I opened the door I saw Steven. He had a cuddly toy in his arms and he was smiling at me. He said he wanted me to have the toy because I was so cute when I was fast asleep. I told him it was okay, I didn't want it, and he got angry. Like, really angry. Like how dare I say no kind of angry. He pushed the toy into my arms and told me to cuddle with it and he turned around and left. I was so confused. So confused that I decided to go back to bed and ignore him. When I put the toy on my bed I felt a weird sensation, like something was coming from the toy but I didn't know what it was. I went to sleep.<br><br>When I woke up it was around 9am. I could hear movement downstairs so I got up to investigate. I snuck down the stairs and found the step dad, his sister and his son just... clearing out the house. I don't know how to explain it. There were boxes everywhere and stuff was all over the place. It didn't look like our house anymore. I felt like I was walking into a