True Stories

Sometimes hearing stories from other people can inspire us to be better people. In this situation, hearing similar situations from other people can help you to realise that whatever you're going through, someone else has too, and they got through it, just like you can. Below are a few stories from people who have dealt with emotional abuse from family members or bullying at school.

My Story: "I just thought it would eventually end"
After my Mum and Dad split up, my younger brother and I started visiting our Dad every second weekend. As young children, we'd never been that close to him, we'd mainly spent our time with mum. But once we started to see him by himself, things went weird. We saw a person that we'd never met before. My brother and I were terrified of him. He was constantly grumpy about something, always yelling at us for something that we did/didn't do. We were never allowed to speak about Mum, it was like she was a "forbidden subject". He would also yell at us for no reason at all. If he happened in a grumpy mood, everything was against him, the whole world hated him. Anything we did, he said was to "deliberately upset him". We would instantly think we'd done the wrong thing and feel guilty. Even if deep down we knew we weren't in the wrong, he had a way of managing to make us feel absolutely horrible. We would talk to Mum a lot about it. We found out that he did exactly the same things to her as he was doing to us, so she was able to help us a lot. We would often stay up to 2 or 3am talking about Dad. Talking to her probably was the best thing I ever did. Not only did it help me get stress and stuff off my chest, but it improved our relationship so much. We cried together, we laughed together and as a result, we are a lot closer than what we would have been if we hadn't talked about anything. The same with my brother. Because he was with my Dad at the same time, we had to rely on each other a lot for support. We cried with each other a lot. But again, we have a much better relationship with each other than other kids our age. Because we've all been through so much with each other, it's made our relationships so much better. If he had had an outburst that had really scared us, then he would go into "buyback mode", where he would go out and buy us presents to try and "buy back our love". While I was younger it worked, and I would just leave thinking that "no, Dad's really a nice guy, I mean look at all the stuff he just bought me, he couldn't not love me if he just bought me all that stuff". And then he would go straight back into being grumpy and disagreeing with us all the time. But we couldn't stop loving him. I mean he was our dad, and we felt that no matter what, no matter how horrible he was, we should love our dad. I mean every other kid we knew did, why shouldn't we? I hardly ever asked him to stop, I just though it would eventually end. After years of fear, my brother and I finally started to refuse to see him. It was absolute terror to say to him that we didn't want to see him because we knew he would blow up. And he did, and we were petrified. But we kept saying it, and it got easier every time. It was still horrible to do, but it was still a bit easier each time, because we knew that we'd survived the times before. When I was about 12 or 13 my mum said that if we really didn't want to see him anymore, we could apply in court not to see him anymore. Of course, we both said yes at once, but it took ages. I'm now nearly 15 and it still hasn't gone through court. We don't have to see him, and we can now say it and not feel very guilty about it. We still have problems with him every so often, but we hardly ever talk or see him, so it's a lot easier.

Jason's* Story: "I just couldn't stand being at home"
I was about 12 when I started to realise what was happening. I would go to friend's places and their parents would be so different to mine. They were so nice to each other, and their kids. Never any yelling or tantrums. Then I would get home and the fights would start. Dad was always screaming at Mum. He even slapped her a couple of times, but her never hit me or my sister. I felt so terrible because I thought that I was the only one who could stop him. I was constantly telling myself a wimp because I was supposed to be the man who would protect my mum and my sister. But every time I tried to stop him yelling at my mum he would turn around and yell at me. Me getting in the middle of them sometimes did stop him yelling at mum for a while, but a few days later he'd start again. When he started to yell at me I'd run to my bedroom, sometimes away from home. I just couldn't stand being at home. I had an older friend (he was about 20 or so) who's dad was abusive towards him when he was a kid. I'd sometimes spend a night at his place and then run home at about 6am so that my parents didn't realise I was missing. Sometimes I would take my sister with me, but she didn't really know him so didn't always want to go. I would often feel really guilty cause I was leaving Mum there alone with Dad. I was always worried he'd kill her. When I got older I started fighting back a bit more, which meant that he started getting more and more angry at me. It sounds weird but I just kept thinking, "at least it's taking the attention away from Mum". One day I got home from school and Mum was there talking to the police. She had my sister in her arms (she was still only about 7) and was wimpering. Dad was talking to the police in the other corner. I ended up finding out that the neighbours had heard them fighting and called the cops. Mum got an AVO out against Dad and we didn't have to live with him anymore. Things are a lot better now. My sister and I still see him every so often, but it's at my auntie and uncle's place. Mum only ever has to see him when she picks us up. He hasn't spoken a word to her in about 2 years.

Johnathon's* Story: "I hated my friends because their parents got along so well"
Mum was very young when she had me. 17 I think. I never met or talked about my Dad. Mum never explained where he was or why I couldn't see him. I asked if I could meet him a couple of times, but she always said no. I could always remember her yelling at me. Ever since I was really young. I never remember a clear time. She was always angry about something. Anything would set her off. And then she would yell at me because of it. Even if it was something that her parents had done, she always yelled at me about it. I remember that I would sit in my room and cry myself to sleep every night. The only time I was happy was when I first woke up, for the first 2 seconds of every day that I didn't remember who I was or what was happening to me. She just made me feel horrible because of what she said. She'd say that everything was my fault and that was why she was always upset. She'd call me names like "useless piece of sh*t" and "ungrateful moron". It made me feel like crap. Most people would stay at their friend's places but I never had much of a social life. I would make friends with someone, see how they interacted with their parents and then start to hate them because they had it so easy. I hated my friends because their parents got along so well. It was only when a man came to talk to our class about abuse did I realise that something was seriously wrong. He talked about all the different things that abusers did, and I realised that Mum did lots of those things. I was only in about year 4 at the time. All the other kids in my class seemed to joke about it while I sat there and listened. I just remember sitting there feeling "but this stuff isn't wrong, is it?" I then realised that none of my friend's parents acted that way, so maybe it was wrong. My teacher obviously realised that something was up, so she asked me to stay back after class. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her all about what Mum did to me. Afte that she phoned Mum and I'm not sure what went on after that. All I know is that a week or so afterwards, Mum had to start going to see a counsellor called Mark. I'm now in year 6 and mum is still going to see him. Things are much better though, mum doesn't yell at me much, and if she starts to she does this weird breathing thing that I think Mark taught her.