Domestic violence lived in my house and it watched me grow up. Home was not a constant storm, but like living on the Ring of Fire: you’d be a fool not to prepare for the next earthquake. You didn’t know how long you had on solid ground, or if the next tremor would be better or worse, but you always knew it was coming. And it always came.
I diverted questions from teachers, nodded when friends told me they found the abuser warm and funny, shut down if family tried to raise the topic. I can’t remember ever being explicitly told to keep quiet, but I gathered as such from family’s glances and whispers.
Apart from telling one high school friend, and trembling like a dog in a storm on my way home, I helped keep up the pretence of a normal household. The abuser constructed an artifice in order to protect his image and reputation. Instead of unveiling the truth, I lathered on a coat of varnish, I made the lies shiny and I protected his work that threatened my mum and I behind closed doors. At times, it makes me question where I sit between victim and bystander.
After years of silence, I craved to tell some friends the truth. I refined the story, ready to deliver. I selected memories which convey the seriousness of the situation, whilst omitting the ones which are too scary or strange to seem believable. I inserted pauses to check that the listener is feeling okay. I whittled it down to a haiku, a sonnet, or sometimes I prepared to tell a best friend the epic, the mountain range of beginning to end. I needed to lend someone else the text that I’ve been reading and re-reading in search of answers.
After years of editing, proofreading and fact checking the story, why does telling people still feel impossible? Why, why, why, when I open my mouth to bring it up, do I feel like I’m lying? Or that I’m fraudulently appropriating someone else’s story to seek attention?
At catch-ups with friends, I’ll mentally set a time to bring it up, or I’ll text them beforehand to warn them. Almost every time I give up, convincing myself it’s for their sake rather than mine — I don’t want to dampen their sunny work lunch break/Saturday pre-drinks before the party/Sunday morning run. Often I make a limp attempt of sharing that my parents are getting divorced: Yes, it’s okay! Yes, it’s been a long time coming. And yes, it’s mostly amicable, though I’m staying with Mum.
One sentiment hard to shake is that people won’t believe you — an invalidation that reminds you of the layers of denial which cloak abuse. The innermost is self-denial, where you refuse to admit the severity of the situation. Applying language such as “abuse” or “domestic violence” would require action, and you either are or feel powerless, so you borrow everyday euphemisms such as “anger management issues” to laugh the situation away. Then there’s denial from other victims in the household, which compounds your own. Their recollection of the events may clash with yours and can sow disagreement — so it’s better not to prod the elephant in the room. Of course, the largest force of denial comes from the abuser, who in one breath apologises and denies everything in the next.
Since you barely believe yourself, your biggest fear is a flicker of doubt in the listener. You watch for a raised eyebrow or conversation pause that conceals their passing thought: “is that really abuse?”. If that’s what they’re thinking, it would validate your greatest fear — that what has tormented you for years was really nothing at all. Nothing worth worrying, complaining, or having nightmares about.
Once you tell someone, you lose all narrative control. Listeners, without trying, insert their own perceptions of you or the abuser into the story, and project their own experiences onto it. In a situation over which you had zero control, the one time you find authority is when you mentally piece together what actually happened. All of a sudden, once this story is out in the world, you say goodbye to that too.
You also greatly fear how people’s perceptions of you will shift after digesting the story. In one undesirable extreme, they pity you as a helpless victim: considering this issue lived beside you since you were knee-height, a sudden outpour of compassion feels confusing.
On the flip side of the coin, and unfortunately the one which has landed the most in my experience — friends take the snippets you feel comfortable sharing and stitch together the best case scenario. One of a messy divorce, or an unfortunate breakdown of communication between father and child. Often they relate their own, clearly unrelated, experience of familial discord.
Of course, I know the motivations to normalise or even trivialise my experience come from a good place — no close friend wants to presume their loved one is experiencing abuse. However, once I sense that people have set the benchmark of my situation as not that serious, I water the story down to meet their expectations and walk away from the interaction feeling lonelier than before.
All this considered, maintaining silence is deliciously tempting. It’s what you’ve always known. But how could you forget: silence is how you ended up here. Domestic violence feeds on silence and it is only when it is deprived of it that it starves and dies.
One of the most surprising experiences about lifting the lid has been feeling more validated by institutions than the people around me. Famously dismissive and problematic establishments, both the university and the government treated my situation as urgent, even when I was reticent with detail. I was referred to free services I never would have thought I were eligible for until explicitly told — Safer Communities at USyd and the NSW Government’s Victim Services counselling program. My experience with these programs may not be representative of all interactions with these systems, but they were the first forms of validation I received that what I experienced was real and worthy of attention.
The process of telling people has felt hopeless. Faced with lacklustre or invalidating responses, often I wish I had kept my mouth shut. But for every offhand comment, I’ve seen recognition unfold in a friend’s face. I’ve had friends confirm that things were abnormal. That words like “abuse” and “domestic violence” were not exaggerations, but descriptors I deserved to use. I’ve been told that I’m resilient — and I’m starting to believe it.
Support services:
Call Emergency Triple Zero (000) if you are in immediate danger.
Book a free confidential chat with the University of Sydney’s Safer Communities service: call +61 2 8627 6808 or email [email protected]
Call the NSW Domestic Violence Line (1800 656 463) for free counselling and referral services.
The NSW Domestic Violence website can provide you with a wide range of information about domestic violence if you are at risk or are concerned about another person.
The Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service can provide you with information, advocacy and referrals if you or your children have been experiencing domestic and family violence. Call 1800 WDVCAS (1800 938 227).
If you have experienced or witnessed a violent crime in NSW, you can apply for 22 free counselling sessions under the Victims Services scheme. There does not need to be a charge for you to access this support.
