SeraphinArouraNew Contributor
Family Court - as a survivor of so much more, is this the next thing to survive?
I never in a million generations thought I would be here.
As a woman, from a country where corporal punishment is more accepted than it should be, I had my fair share growing up. What I now know was just my ADHD, and neurodivergent way of thinking was _punished_ by adult figures. I was both too slow and too fast at the same time. I would stare out the window during class and be physically grabbed by the arm to the point of bruises and be thrown out, I was 7. I learnt to daydream while atleast looking in the genral direction of the teacher, trying to teach me a topic I had already completed the homework for, or learnt from personal interest months before.
I mentally got so used to it, that physicallity from grown ups was normal, i didn't even start questioning it till mid high-school.
I will not get into the details of it, but I will say that My grandfather told me the reason he stopped physically disciplining his two sons at 16 was because he was more worried about being beaten up back. As a woman, I did not have the same defence. My attempts to push back were tears that were thrown back at me, calling me weak, or acusing me of 'faking'. I never learnt how to not anger people enough for them to not want to hit me I guess. Or that is what I told myself... Why I went back, after the first time. Having every person that knew me lose all respect for me by going back to a man that hit me... believing the promises that it would change, like so many did. Part of it... may have just been my conditioning to not see physical abuse as real abuse, just discipline. Just a method I will never stand by or tolerate in a home I trully call mine.
So when it started, in that camper trailer, the only home I intended to live in on my road trip around Australia. Yes, I said, "Leave."
Not because I did not have the capacity to calm him down. But because it should not be my responsibility to explain to my fiance, 13 years older than me why he should not strike and restrain me saying "No wonder your dad hit you", calling me a baiting bitch.
Even still... I believe he can do better. I believe he has a deeper, true soul in him that is torturing himself over what he did to me. Over the flinches when my own father even approaches me.
Yet why is it, that the part of this that I hate the most... is it all being so public, through court. He is the one that threw a punch at me, in front of the camper trailer, in view of other campers... It scared one of them enough to drive the 2km to where there was cell reception to call 000... While I was in every way I could asking them not to. There are a dozen other, better ways to resolve 2 very hurting people's conflict, than this.
This is not going to be the beautiful part of my story... but this will be my internal, and unfortunately dragged into public struggle for the next few months.
