PULL UP A CHAIR
I’d like to invite you to sit with me,
not as I am now but with my
10-year-old self.
It’s 1992.
That sound you hear in the next room, is the sound of my
mother being beaten within an inch of her life.
Dad left us 6 months ago for a man called ‘Mark’.
I learned that my dad was gay and leaving me in one-fell-swoop.
The void he left was hastily filled by a violent man.
I constantly want to call the police on him, but I know mum
will get mad.
The police do nothing to help anyway.
I’ll just do what I can do.
Put my earphones in.
Turn the music up loud.
Drown out the violence.
And cry myself to sleep.
I spend most days getting into mischief with my friends.
Kicking over letter boxes and throwing plums at houses
passes the time.
When I return home from venting my anger on the world,
I’m too scared to go inside.
Mum will yell at me as usual. She’ll tell me ‘you’re nothing’, ‘you
shouldn’t have been born’ and ‘it’s your fault that Dad left us’.
I know that she’s hurting.
But I don’t understand why she insists on hurting me.
When at home it’s safest to spend my afternoons sitting on
this garage roof.
Easy to climb, easy to hide and relatively safe.
Adding to my pain, I am soon to experience another
unimaginable grief.
My beloved grandparents both die in short succession.
The two people I loved most in the world.
Gone forever.
I never belonged
I’m 15 now and things are really getting out of control.
My relationship with my mother is toxic.
Her violent relationship, now into its fifth year, is horrific.
One night things get so bad that I recruit Dad and we beat the
shit out of my mother’s abuser until he run’s crying down the
driveway.
It’s bittersweet.
No-one knows how I truly feel.
I lie to protect myself from judgement from others (and maybe
myself).
I can’t feel close to anyone.
I find solace and connectedness by hanging at train stations
with other kids just as lost as me.
They understand. I don’t need to explain.
My hurt and anger is pain I want everyone to feel.
Do I belong here truly though?
I feel the cracks forming in the tough mould I’ve created for
myself.
I know I’m living a lie.
Weekends are spent hustling.
I lie to my mum about where I am and who I’m with.
Sometimes I sleepover at my dad’s house.
Other times a crash at a friend’s place.
As a last resort, I sleep in a stairwell at Belmont Park.
Anywhere to avoid going home.
Despite all this, some beacons of hope and inspiration
sustain me.
Ice T’s - ‘Original Gangster ‘and Ice Cube’s – ‘Lethal Injection’
provide the soundtrack.
Sanyika Shakur aka ‘Monster Kody’ and Luis J. Rodriguez give
me powerful words like nothing I’ve ever heard or read before.
To most, they are gangsters.
But to me, they symbolise ‘making it’, and define a life of
struggle.
They are teaching me to feel something.
Something new and inviting.
Strength.
Running and I’m tired
I’m in my 20s now.
I look back at my life and see destruction.
Many friends dead, in jail or struggling.
I try to find some purpose in this mess.
I work in the music, skateboard and street lifestyle industry.
My work provides status and belonging.
It’s 18 hour days for shit money.
Sometimes its false hope.
Other times I have dreams that provide a glimpse of a
good life.
I’m still trying to be somebody that doesn’t represent the
piece of shit that I believe myself to be.
I’m married now. To my first and only love. My beautiful wife
and friend.
But my past won’t leave me be.
New events open old wounds and bring new trauma.
My father tragically loses his partner and his home in the
devastating Black Saturday bushfires.
He rapidly slips into a deep addiction.
Suicidal and self-destructive, unable to get off the rehab
roundabout.
I’m trying to be a rock, but the cracks are growing.
I’m smoking weed every day.
Weekends are typically spent getting shitfaced and chasing
any drug I can find.
Nothing helps though.
The cracks are opening, and I feel myself breaking.
Out of control…
Years pass.
Every day of my life, I contemplate suicide.
I struggle with the constant thoughts, the feelings.
I’m addicted to planning how and when.
But I’m also a teacher and a youth worker.
I’m praised for my work.
People like me but it’s not enough.
Inside I feel like a fraud.
They don’t really know me.
I’m a liar.
I’m full of shit.
A piece of shit and not worth shit.
Deep down, I feel shame.
I hate myself and I want to die.
Days are plagued with panic attacks.
I wear a mask for as long as I can.
Then hide myself from the world in any convenient
bathroom.
Silently.
Falling apart.
Longing to be home from work, smoking weed until I
pass out.
Weekends are for getting shit faced followed by hangovers.
Lying in bed. Looking at the ceiling for hours.
Watching reruns.
Replaying my suicide plan.
Over and over again.
I see my beautiful wife’s pain.
I’m doing this to her.
I‘m out of control.
Why does she stay by my side?
The night it all changed
I’m intoxicated.
I’m fuckin’ low.
I’ve put my wife through hell for years.
I now have a gorgeous 9-month-old baby boy.
But I’m not the father I thought I would be.
Not the father I want to be.
I want to end it all.
But I still hold on.
To keep myself distracted, I scroll through mindless
shit online.
An online personality test catches my attention.
I don’t know why but I do it.
300 questions later, the results confirm what I had known.
I’m a failure.
I drink some more.
I pick up a pen and write.
What starts as a suicide note, morphs into a letter to myself.
That 10 year old back in his bedroom.
Maybe it’s my substantial intoxication but I’m connecting
to that kid.
I see his trauma.
I feel it.
I tell him he is not a piece of shit.
And neither am I.
It is ok to be scared and to go through pain, as I am now.
It’s not his fault nor mine now.
He just needs somebody to love him.
I promise him, that we can heal together.
The reason was right in front of me
As I heal, I start to truly ‘see’ my wife and son for the first time.
A moment of realisation and clarity.
I learn that I can love myself, the same way they both love me.
If I’m going to be a good husband, father, friend, youth worker
and human being, I know I need to heal.
I need to do ‘the work’.
And share what I have learned, to help others.
Because it’s bigger than me.
My self-destructive behaviour will cease.
I will learn to love myself.
and I did.
The two greatest reasons in my life, were right in front of me.
They gave me space to heal.
They showed me how to love again.
I now look in the mirror and see someone I love too.
I can look inside myself and see someone I love.
I look at you and I see someone I love.
I’m not perfect.
But I don’t want to be.
I am who I am.
So this is me.
At my rawest.
The journey never stops.
I’m here to serve
If you have come this far, I appreciate you taking the time
to sit with me.
My story is the most important part of my life.
I’m glad to have shared it with you.
You have a story too.
We all do.
And they are all important.
Have the courage to tell yours too.
