“I was just a kid” by Male 20

The start of my childhood was fine, as far as I can remember.
I came from a loving home, my mother was a hairdressser, my father a crook.
I suppose now looking back this wasn’t ideal, but it was a loving house hold.
I was cared for, there was no fighting between my mother and father.
As a young boy I thought it would forever, but the older I got my mother and father grew apart and eventually split up.
For the next year nothing really changed, but then my mum met John.
At the start I wasn’t happy she met some other man that wasn’t my dad.
But I was just a kid. I lost interest eventually.
Everything was fine, John was nice at the start.
He got me toys and had a nice car.
He proposed to my mum and they married in a big castle and we all went on holiday for their honeymoon.
When we were on holidy they started to drink alot.
One day when we were next to the pool, my mu went to get drinks.
I walked over to get a towel from the sunbeds next to the pool and I stepped on John’s sunglasses and broke them.
I picked them up and showed them to John saying sorry.
But John went into a rage, he pushed me down on to the sunbed and said ‘ sit there until your mums back, you ******* wee ****, you’re lucky I’m not your dad or I would put you over my knee and slap your ****’.
My mum came back and John told her what happened.
I thought she was going to give me into trouble.
But she just said it was a accident, ‘I’ll buy yee a new pair’.
John wasn’t happy, they had a big fight. Then mum took me back to the hotel room and we went to bed.
I woke up that night with my mum and John shouting again.
It went on until I heard my mum scream ‘stop you’re hurting me’.
I went into mum and John’s room.
Mum was on the floor with John standing over her, pulling her hair shouting in her face.
They saw me and stopped.
My mum ran over to me crying and said everything is ok.
She told me she fell over and John was helping her up.
We went to bed, I remember feeling scared.
I always thought my mum would always protect me, but that night I realised my mum was just a woman. She didn’t have the strength to fight a fully grown man.
The next day I woke up with John crying holding my mum.
Saying ‘sorry, it will never happen again’.
That day he spoiled me and mum with clothes and toys.
That night we went out for a nice meal in a fancy restaurant, but again mum and John were drinking alot.
My mum went to the toilet and John filled up a glass with vodka and the cola and put it in front of me and said ‘sorry for shouting at you yesterday, don’t tell your mum’.
I remember feeling like a grown up, thinking he was the best step dad.
But now looking back I was 11 years old just a kid.
The rest of the holiday went by without a hitch.
We got back home and we almost forgot about the fight.
Until it happened again.
I had went to stay with my dad for the weekend.
I had a good weekend but when I got back home, my mum had a black eye and her lip was cut open.
When I asked what had happened, she said she had fell down the stairs, but I knew John had hurt her again.
The older I got the more it happened.
Me and mum walked on tiptoes around John.
The first time John beat me up I was 13 years old.
John was the one who controlled most of the money in the house.
If mum wanted to buy me anything it was done in secret and I would tell John i got it from my dad.
I had come home from school with my jacket ripped.
John went into a rage and slapped me with the back of his hand.
I started to cry he spat on me and said ‘get you dad to buy you a new jacket’.
When I told my mum she said I should not have ripped my jacket.
Looking back now she was scarred of him.
One day when I was 15, he hit me for talking back.
By this time I had enough and for the first time I wasn’t scarred, I was angry.
I punched him back and we had a big fight.
I was getting the better of him, so he hit me on the head with a beer bottle.
It smashed and burst my head open.
My mum phoned the police and he was arrested and sent to prison.
To many people you would think now I am free.
You would think after this life would get easier, but far from it.
That man took half of my childhood, night after night losing sleep, due to him beating my mum in the room next to me.
The older I got I tried everything to forget the pain he put me and my mum through.
I suffered depression, addiction and suicidal thoughts.
Domestic abuse leaves mental scars that never fade.
We need to stand together to fight domestic abuse.
The more women that come forward to the police will no longer be victims but survivors.