Welcome to my first-ever blog post! 

I have no clear direction for this post. Two specific events in my early life have occurred that I would like to share with you, so I feel like I am being guided to do that today. Everything I write will be as it comes to me. Nothing is pre-planned. I find it better to work that way.

Before it began…

I was born in the mid-1980s. My parents were two teenagers who apparently fell in love at first sight. I say ‘apparently’ because I now understand what it actually was, but we will get to that! In her stories, my mother has told me about how they met. She was fifteen years old, and at the time, Telstra (Australia’s primary telephone company) had a service called Telstra Party Line, where you would call a specific number and be connected to a group chat with random strangers. Through this service, my mother got talking to an older male and invited him over to her house – as you do, right? It was the 1980’s, I guess! 

I know my mother has told me this story many times, but I cannot recall how long it took for this man to come over. I do know that when he did, he had another male friend with him. My mother instantly noticed the friend – probably because he was good-looking when he was younger – and that was the beginning of my parents. My father would have been eighteen years old when he met my mother. Their relationship was rocky. It was riddled with abuse, addiction, trauma bonds, and co-dependency. 

Then came me…

I was born in 1986 to a mother who was two months shy of being seventeen and a father who had just turned twenty. I think it is normal not to recall much of your first years of life. I know that there are people out there who can, which is amazing! Unfortunately, my brain only holds in things that I can later use to defend myself – Hooray for trauma responses! <insert sarcasm>. There are two specific memories that I do recall from that time, though, which I would like to include in this story. 

Memory One

I believe much of the first year or two of my life, my mother and I lived with my grandparents. My grandparents are abusive people. Between the two of them, they have made my mother and her sibling’s lives absolute hell. Some of these events will come out in future stories; however, I do not have permission to share them from the perspective of my mother (or her siblings), so I can only tell you what I witnessed and how it impacted me. I hope that one day, my mother will allow me to share her story and that it will hopefully allow her to heal from her trauma as well. 

Sorry, my brain got sidetracked a bit!

In my head, I can picture myself as maybe around eleven to twelve months old. I could have been younger, but I don’t look any older than that. I was standing in my cot with my hands on the rail, which gives me the indication that I was still relatively young. My cot is against the wall closest to the bedroom door, where my grandmother is standing in the doorway. My mother is across the other side of the room, in front of the window. We are in the front room of my grandparent’s house. They are fighting, but I do not recall what started the argument. They are screaming at each other. I am terrified. I am crying. Screaming. Wondering why no one would come to comfort me. I was just a baby. I used all my strength to shake the railing of my cot to gain some attention. 

“Hey! This is not right! I am afraid! Please stop! You are scaring me!” I would have shouted, if I was able.

I can see the terror on my face. I can hear the fear in my cries and screams. I can feel how abandoned that baby feels right in that moment. I want to scoop her up and tell her that it is okay, she is safe, and she is loved, but I was that baby, and none of those things were true. 

Memory Two

From the stories that my mother told me, at some point, we moved out of my grandparents’ place. My mother was granted a flat through government housing. We lived in this flat on our own – just my mother and I. I do not recall my eldest brother being born at this point. From my memories, I believe we had moved into a trailer park when he was born. I was almost three and a half years old when my brother was born. My brother would have been conceived around the time of this memory, so I would have been just two years old – keep that in mind. 

I can picture myself in the kitchen of the flat. I am standing on a small portable stoop, but I still need to stand on tiptoes to achieve what I am doing. I am making myself toast. It is morning. The man who is apparently my father, who I feel like I barely know, is here. He is in the bedroom with my mother. They are both asleep. I do not want to wake them, so I attempt to make myself something to eat. I put the toast in the toaster. As I am reaching up to take the pieces from the toaster, I feel the stoop slip under my feet, but I do not think anything of it and continue. I use a knife to butter the hot toasted bread, but when I get to the jar of Vegemite, I cannot open it. I take the jar to my mother to help me open it. The man, who’s my father, is not happy that I woke them up. He mumbles something and reluctantly takes the jar from my hand, opens it, and then shoves it back into my hands. Back in the kitchen, I attempt to put the jar on the bench, but it drops. It drops and smashes on the floor. I cannot see him, but I can hear him. Instantly, the man, my father, is up out of bed. In a fit of rage and anger for being disturbed, yet again. He bellows into the kitchen, which is not far from the bedroom and begins belittling me for smashing the jar. I was only two years old. I was two years old and left unsupervised to make my breakfast, using electrical equipment, a knife, and a stoop I could have easily killed myself on. 

As this man, my father, stood over my tiny two-year-old self – belittling me for making him get out of bed – I remember the feeling of fear rushing over my body. I did not know this man. He is a stranger. Yet I was told that he was my father. Isn’t a father meant to love their child? Where was my mother? Why was she allowing this stranger to stand over me, shout at me, belittle me? Why was she not protecting me? Why was she not there making me breakfast? Why was she not there to supervise me? If she had been there, I would not have broken the jar. If she had been there, I would never have felt the rage of that man, my father. If she had been there, maybe I would have felt safer. If she were there, perhaps she would have protected me. If she was there… but she wasn’t. She was there in the flat, but I do not recall her coming to my aid. Maybe she did, and I blocked it out of fear. I want to think that she did. I want to think a lot of things because parents are meant to love and protect their children, but deep down, I know I was never protected – I even doubt I was truly loved most of the time. 

Seeing that young child in my mind, I want her to know that I am sorry. I am sorry that the adults in your life continuously failed you. I am sorry that you were put into situations that you never should have been in. I am sorry that you were never protected. I am sorry that you were never given the love and care you deserved. I am sorry that you had to go through it alone. I am sorry that these two moments were not the last. I am sorry. I am sorry. 

Signing off…

If you have found this post and have read it up until this point, thank you. I started this to work through my trauma and try to find self-love and inner peace so I can move on in life. It was tough to write out these memories and the thoughts behind them. It is hard to put yourself into such a vulnerable state, especially when you have been taught that you must be tough, and emotions are weakness. Even God lets His emotions show. If He can do it, why must we suppress ours? In truth, we mustn’t. It puts so much more pressure on us to hold in our emotions than it does to deal with them in an appropriate, healthy, non-destructive way. 

Much love,

Tarz