Youth Voice

Youth Voice: It was the most horrible sound I've ever witnessed in my life.

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It was the most horrible sound I’ve ever witnessed in my life: the sound of my mother’s head banging against the living room wall followed by a scream and a gush of blood from her nose.

It was an ordinary night and Mum had put me down to bed where I started to read. I was a keen reader so I often stayed up way too long. I heard my father crashing through the door. I knew by the amount of noise he was making that he had been drinking. You see my father is an alcoholic and the only thing on his mind from the moment he gets up to the moment he goes to bed is alcohol.

Next came the shouting and screaming, mostly mum’s. She hated to see him in such a state. The same questions:

“When are you going to stop the drink? Can you not come home early for once to see your girls?”

It was always the same thing every weekend.

Even at the age of 8 I knew I had to protect my mother so I made my way to the living room just in time to see my father banging her head off the wall. It was the most frightening thing I had ever seen in my life and I still haven’t seen anything that compares to it. That night we left for my grandmothers. We stayed there for 2 days but then returned home. I never understood why we went back.

It wasn’t the last domestic dispute I witnessed. I even got in the middle of some of them and received blows not meant for me. It wasn’t till I learned to fight back that the violence stopped. It was never directed at me but I felt it my duty to protect my mother and I still do. I would do anything for her to keep her safe.

Things are a lot better at home now, and now that I am 16 and my sister is 11 we are starting to become a real family. My father still has a drink problem but I’ve realised that until he admits that he has a problem there is nothing I can do to help him. Even though the violence has stopped I have still been scarred by it. Not physically but emotionally. I see a psychologist to talk through my experiences and to work through my feelings. It helps a lot.

I would advise anyone out there going through the same thing to tell a relative possibly a grandparent and explain to your parents how their behaviour is affecting you.

What ever you do don’t get involved as even though you feel you have to, it is not safe for you and you are not the adult: it is not your responsibility. Your parents should be protecting you not the other way around.

By Anonymous

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