When I was 7 years old I gained a brand new family. My mum got married and all of a sudden I had a step-father.....for someone who had never really had a father this may have seemed to be the ultimate blessing....I also adopted a new nana and poppa, uncle and aunties...idyllic yes?...not really.....
I had grown up in what seemed to me a relatively peaceful existence....I never heard anyone swear, raise their voice in aggression or god forbid, hit another person....but all that changed on my first night at my new grandparents house. I remember it was about 5 in the morning and I was awoken from a sleep by loud and aggressive screaming....I was frightened and crept out of bed into the hallway where I watched my new poppa punching my new nana in the face repeatedly....yelling and screaming like a madman....I thought he was saying "you poo'd yourself"....I was confused because I couldnt see that she had....it was later that I realized he was saying "you proved yourself"....it didnt matter....all I remember was the shock at seeing it all....her bloody face and him holding her against the wall hitting her repeatedly...this was to become my new life.
My new poppa was an alcoholic, and a violent one at that....all of a sudden my peaceful childhood took a turn down Violent Alley....I watched this man beat his wife for the next few years....I remember sensing when the mood would change and the beating would be around the corner....you could almost smell it...eventually he stopped hitting her and started hitting anyone else in the house.....I used to run and hide on the floor in the back of the car....terrified and wanting it to be a bad dream from which I would awake.....I never did
My step father was a strict and volatile man....he would snap at me for no explainable reason....as I got older the "beatings" became stronger until I reached my teens and then it became punches in the face....kicks, slaps in the head.....I just thought this was how most people lived.....When I was 15 he beat me so badly I ran terrified from the house to a neighbours...he chased me there and proceeded to kick me like one would kick a soccer ball, back to my home....my mum was working and when she arrived home I thought finally she would see exactly what his "discipline" was..
she did...Here was naive me expecting us to pack up and leave....instead it was I who was sent away....like a punishment...she didnt want her family seeing the shocking state of my face....I was black and blue...he had popped a vein in my eye.....my mum had stood there screaming at him to stop....shocked at his behaviour...when I came back home my mum told me I was exaggerating....she informed me he had only slapped me once.....I was devastated....the one person I thought could help me had turned on me...with no regard....so at 15 yrs of age I headed off across the country hitchhiking....I didnt care what was out there...it was no worse than what was at home...
I spent the next 2 years running away from home...sleeping in public toilets and up trees....finally I moved interstate....I was a broken person...I went to live with my father....things went downhill....not violent...but in other ways....I was one big emotional bag....I found myself at such a young age in a chaotic and messed up head space...on drugs and selling my body on the streets because I didnt feel I was worth anything anyway....sex to me was nothing....after having a cock shoved down your throat when you are 7 years old I guess sex becomes this numbing mindless experience.....my stint in Sydney ended with me overdosing and electrocuting myself in my bathtub.....I dont know how I survived it but I did.....it was my 3rd suicide attempt....I had just turned 18....I still have the scars deeply embedded in my wrists today from my 1st attempt....I was only 13....amazing what an abusive life does to your self worth...
I moved back to my mums house to the violence again and sought my escape in a relationship that was too last for the next 16 years.....I decided that anything was better than living with my mum and step father...I told myself that although my new partner was emotionally torturing me....he never actually hit me.....and he didnt.....what he did do in fact was far worse.....the torture went on until the day I decided to leave....the hardest choice of my life.....but after being chased with a loaded shotgun by a psychotic partner....strangled...spat on....screamed at with every degrading and vile insult any person could endure...humiliated beyond description...I had had enough....those years were without a doubt the hardest and most traumatic in my life.....I was scared to leave...scared he would kill me.....scared to think on my own....he shut down every individual thought process I possessed....every day was like living with a time-bomb...waiting for when he was going to snap at me....and how far he would take it.....when I finally made the choice to leave he went into a meltdown....he tried to strangle me again...he locked me in the bedroom and pulled out that gun again...I thought for sure this time it was over....at 34 years of age I left a house...a home....my life....and I went out into the world again...a person scared of every loud noise....every raised voice....waiting....praying that I would make it...thinking that I wouldnt make that same mistake again.....NEVER.....
I spent the next year in a relationship that I thought was very peaceful....until the end.....when the verbal abuse started again....and I tried to leave.....I was locked out of my home....my only means of transportation and communication were taken from me.....I was devastated and was thinking how could this happen to me again....I spent the 2 months secretly trying to find a new home and finally just packed and left.....this person then chased me in his car and rammed in the back of my car.....I was terrified...he then got out and proceeded to punch in my car window....that was the day I decided that I was no longer going to live with violence....the day I decided to live on the other side of the broken door
My sister was killed by a man who she had an AVO on....shows how much a piece of paper is worth....she was 25 yrs old....and now her daughter will have to grow up without a mother because we were taught in a sub-conscious way growing up, that violence was ok....my mum reinforced it with her behaviour and blatant disregard of the violence that went on in our house....I myself reinforced it by living with a partner who abused me on a regular basis and pretending that everything was sweet and wonderful....by doing this we are teaching those around its acceptable...not just acceptable but we condition ourselves and it just feels "normal" we know no other way...this is the legacy we leave behind...
I am now 37....I have the love of man is who isnt violent....I have been able to believe that I am strong....intelligent...capable of doing whatever I want in this world....I still have flashbacks...I still jump at loud noises....I still cry when someone yells violently....I still get scared....I still wait for it all to happen again.....but each day it doesnt it reinforces in me the belief that there is another way of living....one with love, peace, happiness.....one where you can be who you truly are....without violent consequences....without violent punishments....without violence
This page is devoted to woman who have found the courage, those that are unable to...to the survivors...to the ones that never made it....the ones who are thinking about it...but have forgot how to find the path out....
People say "why dont you just leave"....its not that easy....it becomes this ingrained thought process....its so hard to break out of....your self confidence is shot....not believing that there is another way....that there is a better way and that if there is, not knowing how the fuck to find it....and basically terrified of anything other than what you know...it sounds bizarre until you have lived through it....and those who have know exactly what I mean
This is my story....it is millions of womens story....everyday someone is surviving....everyday someone is living on the other side of the broken door...and everyday someone is dying whilst holding a hope that they can make it out alive.....I dedicate The Other Side of the Broken Door to all of you.....may your stories never be forgotten...may your memories always live on...and may we all learn to live in a more peaceful world....do not judge us for what we do...or dont do....for in our own way we are all trying to survive the best we can....
