By JOLENE OGLE
Debra* is one of the silent victims of domestic violence.
“In my experience, as a child, I was one of the silent victims of DV.
“The impact of years of abuse from my father have had such a lasting effect on my life and the life of my siblings.
“DV has a nasty life span and I don’t believe kids are as resilient as we are told,” she said.
Debra said she wanted to share her story in the hope other children who are suffering or who have suffered will realise that a life of violence and fear is not normal.
“My mum never spoke out, but it was a different time then.
“I want children to know that they can be brave and speak out for their mums, tell someone what’s happening at home. It’s not normal to live a life of fear and violence,” she said.
“I know mum knew it was affecting us, but I don’t think she knew how much.
“We suffered in silence, too scared to say anything to anyone.
“I guess kids feel they have no power. We relied on our parents so much and we felt trapped in a life of violence.”
Debra recalls a miserable childhood spent living in fear of when her father would next snap.
“I lost count of how many kitchen tables we had to repair,” she said.
“Something would make him snap.
“It could be that we did something earlier in the day or someone would just say the wrong thing.
“He would flip the table upside down, grab mum by the hair and punch her. This was our dinner time… we hated it, but it was normal to us.”
Debra said she feared speaking out to anyone.
“Dad was just so charming to everyone outside the family home.
“Everyone in the community loved him, thought he was a great guy.
“I was always too nervous to say anything to anyone because I feared they wouldn’t believe me,” she said.
“One day my cousin said to me that she wished she had a dad like mine. I said to her ‘are you kidding?’ and she couldn’t believe I thought he was a terrible father.
“I never said anything to anyone after that.”
Debra is now married with four children and said the impact of the 17 years spent living with her father is still visible today.
“I have three sisters and a brother.
“We all left home as soon as we could, except for my brother.
“I think he felt torn between escaping and staying to look after mum.
“But my older sister got pregnant to get away, I went to nursing school and my other sister ran away to the army.
“But even today, we’re still not ok about it.
“One of my sisters has completely shut off from the whole family.
“I don’t think she can stand to be near us, it reminds her of that life and the violence.
“My other sister absolutely denies anything happened – she denies the violence, she doesn’t recall dad hitting mum with a frypan.
“She doesn’t remember any of it.
“You don’t know how every kid will deal with it… some people can never recover.”
Debra said it took many years and a failed escape attempt before her mum finally left her abusive husband.
“I went to see mum one day and she was so pale – she looked like death warmed up.
“I said to her, ‘Mum, if you don’t leave now, very, very soon you will die’ and it must have affected her because two weeks later she finally left,” Debra said.
Debra said she never grew up hating men.
“I knew it was dad and his issues.
“I never thought of all men as violent or abusive.
“I now enjoy the love of a good man,” she said.
“And you know, mum always loved dad, she just didn’t like him hitting her.”
*Name has been changed to protect identity.
