So Why Blog Now?

So Why Blog Now? 

Writing has always been apart of my identity. 
I have always wished for artistic talent or to be able to sing (actually in tune) to express the feelings deep inside my heart.
I have never been expressive in my emotions. I have never really cried, unless I was so broken that I could no longer hold the outpouring of tears. As a child, I was not known to smile, or really laugh, like the kind that is so joyous that it feels as if you have purged a hundred years of hurt. 
I am just not made that way. 
Or maybe I was, but I was broken along the way. 
Now 35, I have finally found peace with the way I was created. I am who I am, and there is nothing wrong with me, I was created this way. 
I have finally realised that writing to me is like a wild stream of emotions, it flows with force, from my broken heart, out to my fingertips, and onto this page of sorts. 
This is my artistic outlet. No, I was not created to be a painter or a singer. But maybe, just maybe, I was created to write. 

So Why did I decide to become a Teacher?

I have always felt a strong alliance towards children. I have always felt as if children were never really, truly valued, and I wanted to change that. 
I don't say this with a hollow heart, but I say this with force. As I truly understand what it is like to be a child who is mistreated, misused and abused. 

School to me was my respite. I remember the teachers who saw me, I mean really, really saw me. I felt as if they loved me, cared for me and wished me well. They taught me that not all adults mean me harm, that there were some who were actually kind.

You see, I was born to a father who was in a cult. And a mother who was cruel and unkind. My birth place was Bangkok, Thailand. I am the second of four children. Well, the second of fourteen (my Dad was in a cult, remember?). Sigh.

So where do I start? At the very beginning I guess. 

I was born to a Thai mother and and Irish father. I was born clouded with disappointment, as my mother had always told me growing up that my father wanted to me to be a boy. But I wasn't. I could not control which gender which was assigned to me in the womb, and I could not control how my parents felt about my entry into this world. It was if I was already a disappointment by simply being me. 

The first four years of my life I believe were tumultuous at best. I was raised by a Thai maid, while my mother nursed her beloved son; the third of the first four of us. 
I never really understood how my mother didn't realise that the man she had married, and birthed three children to, was in a cult. She just thought he had a large 'family', she claimed. Turning a blind eye is what I would more accurately call it. 

The cult that my father belonged to was called The Children of God. It was born by hippies in the 70's, and turned it's free loving hippy beliefs onto spreading that 'love' onto children. Sick bastards. It funded it's existence by sending their women out to work the streets. Is this why they moved into Asian countries, as women in this culture were already vulnerable to exploitation?

I have memories of living in a commune back in Thailand. It had a swimming pool. And it's musical orgies freaked me out, even as a three year old I knew there was something not quite right about that place and those people. 

My mother decided she didn't want to spread God's love to all living men, so they escaped the cult and we moved to Melbourne, Australia. But old habits die hard. 

My younger sister was born in Melbourne, the only one of fourteen children not to have been born in Thailand. My sister was my mother's favourite. How did I know? My mother would tell me this, 'You will understand when you have your youngest' she would say to me. 'They will be your favourite too.' I beg to differ mother dearest, as I have learnt that going hungry while the favourite has seconds, is a cruel motion, and I will never, ever allow a child of mine to feel as I did growing up. 

I have only a handful of memories of my father. He was a hard man, consumed with God knows what. Selfishness? Demond's from his own childhood? He believed in using the belt as discipline. I don't remember him hugging me, or telling me that he loved me. Maybe he did but I just don't remember it. I remember my older sister and I spying on my parents as they fought. My father struck my mother in the face. I remember the blood dripping down from her lips. 

I think he was a typical father of the 80's who didn't spend much time with his children. I don't know what his thoughts were of being a father. I don't know anything about him really. I do remember one time he played with us in the front yard. I was so happy. I think it was his way of saying goodbye. 

When my baby sister was 10 months old, my father said he would take my older sister to enrol her in school. She was 6, I was 4, my brother was 2. My father never returned. I remember waving goodbye to him and my sister as the bus drove away. I remember my mother saying later, that he had taken her jewellery that her family in Thailand had given her, taken all the photos of him and my sister (so she could not show them to the authorities) and we were soon then homeless. With no man to support her, and not speaking English well, plus the fact that her degree that she had earned in Thailand was null and void here, my mother had no career or job prospects. 

We had blessings along the way. Because of our dire circumstances we met a beautiful couple who belonged to the Salvation Army. They became my grandparents. I called them Aunty Audrey and Uncle Reg. They would bring over cupcakes and small pieces of chocolate. Oh how I loved them. And they loved us. 

The catholic schooling system was very supportive of my mother, I ended up missing preshool (my mother was busy trying to find her eldest, abducted daughter I guess), and started in Prep before I was 5 years old. Looking back, I can see that I had developmental delays, perhaps from the trauma of having my sister, my best and only friend, suddenly disappear. And the loss of my father. I hurt so much from not being 'chosen', that he had purposely left me behind. I didn't really talk. I didn't have many social skills. I only played with my imaginary friend, Jennifer. And a little boy named Jayden. He gave me my first kiss when the teacher was reading 'Hippopotamus on the roof'. I didn't even know I had a last name until Year 1. I was scared. I felt lost. When I would cry, my mother would tell me if I wasn't crying for my missing sister, to be quiet. I don't remember her holding me, telling me that everything was going to be ok. I just remember the stinging of her sharp slaps, and how she would push me away. Which only made me more desperate for her love and affection. 

When my sister had been missing for a year, a beautiful nun by the name of Francis asked about us. Maybe single mother's in church weren't too common back then. She single handedly fuelled and funded the search for my missing sister. Our story was in Women's Day, and on the Darren Hinch Show. She liaised with the Irish government, asking them to call her when my dad and sister returned to renew their passports. They did. Almost 5 years after their disappearance, Francis and my mother flew over to Ireland to fight for my sister in court. They won. And my sister was returned to us. 

But happily ever afters do not exist. 

My sister came back severely brainwashed and abused. She hated my mother for taking her away from my father, her step mum and all her(our) younger siblings. My mother didn't seem particularly happy with her return. 

My sister took it upon herself to educate me, who was 8 at the time, on all things the cult had taught her. You know, the important stuff, like how to give blow jobs and please a man. She was broken. So broken. And I loved her. Oh, I just thought the sun shone from her dark eyes. So, even though what she told me made me want to vomit, I wanted her to like me, to be pleased with me. So I allowed abuse to occur within my bedroom walls, by a grown man who took advantage of us both. 

My mother, did not cope at all with my sister's return. She became more and more violent as the years wore on. I brought out rage in my mother, for being like my father she said. She hated me for being outspoken. For being strong, she said. For my white skin. For my long legs and arms. She despised my existence, and told me this through the way she would beat me with bamboo, which she kept on top of the fridge. And hit me over and over again with wooden and wire coat hangers. She would beat me with pots and frying pans fresh off the stove. She would tell me she hated me as she would kick me, stomp on me and slap me in the face. While I apologised hysterically for some childish misdemeanour and begged her to stop. She would not show mercy until she was too tired to beat me anymore. I spent my childhood literally dodging knives which she would throw at me. At us. And then when it was all over I would have to say sorry. And she would pretend that it never happened. 

I spent my childhood being called a 'fucking idiot', 'fucking shit' and being told that I had a 'evil, black heart and would burn in hell for all the sinful things that you have done'. Long term systematic abuse this may be called. 

By the time my older sister was 12 or 13, she was on drugs. Not surprisingly. Our mother was, well, who knows where. So I was left with the task of caring for, feeding and nurturing my younger two siblings. This added an additional layer of brokenness to the complexity of our childhoods. I acted as their mother. A child of barely 10. 

My mother hid her abuse well. But the adults who saw my black eyes, the bloody welts which covered my back and the teachers who saw us come to school day after day without any thing to eat failed me. They failed us. They did not report it to the childhood protective services. They did not offer us help. Instead. When I was 14, by this time we had been going to foster care for 4 years, my older sister and I reported the abuse to our social worker. Oh, and did I mention there was also a wicked psychiatrist by the name of Dr Ola who I showed my bruises to? Nothing. Nothing. And what came of the second time I tried to tell an adult who was supposed to be my advocate. Nothing. Nothing. Instead, we were kept from my Godparents, foster family and anyone else who had 'betrayed' my mother, and moved to Canberra a few months later. 

My older sister had moved out, ran away from home, and begged me to come with her. But I could not leave my little brother and sister behind. They were my life. So I allowed myself to be taken from anyone who had ever truly loved me and shown me kindness, and moved into a small 2 bedroom apartment with my mum's abusive boyfriend. Yay. 

So, this added another layer of abuse to my already messed up mind. He kept porn up on the computer screen, for my vulnerable 12 year old brother to see. He beat and raped my mother. He was cruel. I hated him. I loathed him. So, my mother, preying on the fact that I had an inner protective mechanism, would scream for me to help her. It was messed up. All so messed up. 

By 15 I just couldn't cope anymore. The hardest decision of my life was to leave my baby brother and sister behind. Oh, I wished somehow that I could have taken them with me, found a way back to Melbourne and lived with my Godparents who adored me. But that would have never worked. See, the police, who I reported the abuse to on the night that I ran away, didn't believe me. They told me to go home. My mum told them that I was on drugs and that's why I was telling lies. And they believed her. I had never touched drugs, watching my older sister get high on pot and insect repellents was enough to keep me straight. 

So, for the second time in my young life I was homeless. I lived with friends, in a refuge. I was so vulnerable. Suicidal. Lost.

Looking back, I can see that my mother must have had mental health issues. She still does. And although I no longer allow myself to be subjected to her verbal abuse, and have cut off contact, I love her deeply. I love my father too. I am just deeply wounded from them both, and now need to protect myself, and give my inner child a voice. 

And in the words of Kirk Franklin 

"I forgive you because you didn't know, that the pain was in preparation for my destiny". 

And This is why I believe in advocating for the rights of my (own blood and those who I teach) children. This is not just a job to me. It's an honour and my destiny. Call me deluded, call me anything you want. But unless you have lived the life that I have, you cannot understand what it is like to be a child who's voice is not heard. I intend to doing everything in my power to make the wrongs of my childhood right.