During my childhood, I was always told or shown that I didn't matter in some way, shape or form. My voice meant nothing. I didn't want to be seen or heard by other people unless they were targeting me for whatever reason.
My brothers had similar experiences, but I won't try to guess at them. While we grew up in similar environments, we will never understand each others experiences or situations. They vary too much.
It's hard to explain the circumstances and explain what I was feeling at the time. I don't know; I can't remember. Dissociation was my bestfriend for so many years, that not being dissociated was a weird and scary feeling for me.
I never wanted friends; I didn't understand why I had to have them. I never liked the term 'friend' and rather explained people as those I tolerated. Even to this day.
I guess it's safe to say I didn't feel safe anywhere and was constantly on edge about everything and everyone.
Eventually, my mother and Jeremy split up. I can't remember how or when, or when he even moved out.
I don't think I even cared at the time.
There was too much going on at the time for me. With the whole Josh thing, one of best friends had moved away, I was always physically sick at school, being bullied at school as well as at home.
I don't actually remember it, but I was told I used to get beaten with a wooden spoon by my mother. I don't remember being hit, all I remember is running away and locking myself in my room.
A few things happened with my brother as well, but that's his story to tell. I'll only be mentioning his stuff if it has to do with my story. Respectfully.
By the time I was going to Grovedale, I made a friend. Her name was Jodie and she was a real tomboy. She was good fun and wasn't worried about getting dirty and muddy.
Then a girl named Emma came to the school and we were her "teacher designated friends". It didn't bother us, and we started actually being friends with her. That was until she started to bad mouth me to Jodie. I don't know what she was saying to her, but they would eventually tell me they didn't want to be my friend anymore.
I can't remember how many times this happened, but the last time I was reading a book and they said that to me, so I just looked at them and said: ok.
They looked at each other and said: that was easy; and walked away.
By that time, I was only even interested in reading or being on my own anyway. I had other friends but I was friends with people nobody else wanted to be friends with.
Most of the time, I would play on a rock with my imaginary friends. They were lionesses and the main ones name was Sue. People thought I was crazy but I didn't care.
The teachers would bully me along with the kids. Especially after our male principal retired. Everyone cried at his last assembly.
The new female principal was a real bitch. She would always go out of her way to pick on specific students. Nobody liked her, not even half the teachers.
One day before I went to school, I had asked my mother some muffins to have for breakfast. Those ones that you can toast. They were blueberry ones and she said no because they were hers.
It didn't worry me, and I went to school like normal. When I got home, I started getting yelled at because DHS (Department of Human Services) came to the house to check if there was food in the house. I had no idea what she was talking about.
Apparently the new principal had told DHS that there was no food in my house and proceeded to blame it on me. I had not told anyone anything of the kind, and to this day I'm not believed about that incident.
I was teased and bullied about blueberry muffins ever since.
I had learnt after a while that nobody was listening to me or believing me, no matter what I said, so I kept my mouth shut. It was better than being teased and bullied about it later on.
When I finally did make some friends again, I tried not to be home as much and went to their houses. My friend Sophie was a good friend. She had the same thing as I did with Emma and Jodie, so we bonded over that. I would go to her house and got along with her family. I thought so anyway.
She had her own part in a TV show and I went on with her one time. It was just a couple of 10 year old girls talking about horses, but it was an experience.
We also all went on a camp to Corrimungle. I think I might have still been friends with Emma and Jodie, or just recently stopped being friends because I was stuck in a cabin with them and I remember hating it.
We went for walks, did rock climbing and there was a giant swing. I hate heights, even now. They also had a lot of farm animals. Their big boar pig was my favourite.
I don't remember much, but I do remember sweeping the concrete outside the cabin rooms with a straw broom and singing to myself. Some kids started taking pictures of me dancing with the broom, but that only embarrassed me for a total of five minutes.
After that, a boy from my class started talking to me and somehow there ended up being a leaf fight between him and Emma. As far as I remember, she had a crush on him, so I guess she got jealous that me and him hung out a little.
The next memory I have is about a dream I had. I think that it was actually before all this.
Me and my brother were in an elevator with 3 bodyguards going up to the top floor of a big building. My mother was sleeping on a couch in the middle of the room and Dracula walked up to her and started eating her with a knife and fork. We started screaming trying to wake her up.
Other fragments of memory I have a time when my father called and I asked him if he knew who was speaking to him. He said: My daughter. That surprised me because at the time I had been told me and Rob sounded exactly the same over the phone. That was the only time I remember him going out of his way to contact us.
There was a time when I was sharing a room with all three brothers. We had two bunk beds I slept on the top of one. My aunty Krisas cat gave birth under the blankets, between my legs. I remember thinking I had wet the bed before I realized the cat was there.
I also had an asthma attack in the middle of the night, but never was taken to the doctor for it. I had to borrow Seth's inhaler and told I was being dramatic.
My aunty Krisa, who is only 14 years older than me, would live with us for a little while, and I vaguely remember what her room at the back of the house looked like. At one stage, I'm sure I shared a room with her. I don't remember any of the rearranging, but we often swapped and switched rooms.
I remember walking and riding from the house to the park, milkbar, servo (petrol station), and even to the BMX track across the rode from the servo. There was a house with dogs who barked at everyone going passed. I can't remember if they were friendly or not.
There used to be an elderly lady who lived next door with her dog. I don't know what happened to her, but her house was eventually demolished and some units put up in its place.
Me and my brothers were very outdoorsy and adventurous at the time, and barely was ever inside. For multiple reasons.
One time, we were in the backyard and decided to go through the caravan that Jeremy had in the driveway. I don't think we were allowed, but we had no respect for him at the time. I think only me, Rob and Seth went through the caravan and found some porn magazines. To be fair, they were hidden, but we were thorough in there.
Another time, Rob told me an idea he had about walking around door to door asking for money, saying he was from the Red Cross. He took Seth with him and left. Rob was 7 years old and Seth was at least 3 or 4 years old. My mother didn't notice they had gone until at least 30 minutes later. She made me tell her where they were and then made me go look for them, by myself. I don't think she even left the house. That's something Rob would remember.
They had ended getting a fair amount of money off people though.
When we walked to school, it was always by ourselves. I had even accepted a ride from a stranger, someone who said he was a school friends parent, because I had found a rabbit stuck in a drain. It doesn't make sense right? Why take a lift from someone you don't know because of a rabbit? And since I was literally right across the road and up the hill a bit. I was in sight of my house. Well, as a little 7 or 8 year old, finding a stuck rabbit I wanted to 'save' it, and taking it home wasn't safe for me. I knew I would get yelled at or worse for bringing it home and walking all the way to school with a scared and possibly injured rabbit wasn't an option. I can't remember if Rob came with me, but we got to school with no bad incidents.
Walking to school in the other direction to the other school, we would walk straight down the road to the nature reserve; follow the path and across the road was the school.
I would walk to this empty house block, walk through there to the giant concrete pipe and walk along that; especially if Rob wasn't walking with me. It felt so much safer than walking along the road and through the reserve.
There was a man with a black dog, I think a Labrador, that was always walking the dog. I stopped to pat the dog so many times, and the mans house was next door to that empty lot.
I was riding my bike one day and realized the tyre was either deflated or had a hole in it. The man spotted me and offered to fix it, but I was still cautious of him even though I'd met him a few times before.
I remember him walking towards his shed ahead of me and I remember him fixing the bike while I stood way back. I vaguely remember a woman coming outside and standing there too. He fixed my bike and let me go.
I think, now that I'm actually remembering, that this man is part of the reason I trust strangers more than people I know. I don't remember what he looks like or if he even told me his name. I kind of wish I knew so I could thank him.
I don't remember how or when, but my mother separated with Jeremy and got together with a man named Peter. I don't remember his last name, but he lived in Werribee with his mother. They were both security guards, as far as I remember. He had a lot of fishtanks full and had a Husky, Tekken, and a malamute, Tiffy.
We visited a few times, though I can't remember him ever being at our house in Belmont.
I remember one night either going too, or from his house it was raining so hard that we couldn't see out the car windows. The wind was so strong, it flipped the bonnet of the car into the windscreen. My mother and I were lucky it didn't shatter. I was in the front seat.
The only time I remember Peter specifically was when we were playing tag or something involving chasing, with him and he got me down on the ground tickling me. His hands ended up under my shirt before my mother walked in the room. The lights were off and it was dark, and his back was to the doorway, so I doubt she saw anything. I also didn't register that he did that until afterwards, and my instant thought was that I'd rather him do those things to me than for him to touch my brothers. That was the one and only time I remember him touching me before they split up. I never told my mother until years later when I was an adult; I was 11 years old when it happened.
Her reaction was to say: Well, aren't you lucky I left when I did.
My mother had a friend named Sally. Sally had a young son who we were friends with. I remember going to Sally's house a few times. This is where my mother met Chris Clarke.
Chris was living in her loungeroom, on a matteress from what I was told, when we met him.
Rob and I always had an "off" feeling about him from the start. Before anything ever happened with him, we told our mother our fears and basically begged her not to date him. She ignored us and did it anyway.
He was only 12 years older than me.
I can't remember when he moved in after that, but I doubt it was too long after. All I remember is parties that happened and a lot of people drinking.
It wasn't unusual, but it was a different lot of people.
Chris' brother would come over, and I remember him being drunk and dancing around. It was funny and we enjoyed people being fun and happy.
I remember Rob and Chris playing around, roughly, then Chris spear tackling him into my mothers exercise machine. It cut the back of his head open, but seeing as it was an 'accident' nothing other than Rob getting stitches, happened.
I remember moving from Belmont to Bendigo and back again. I remember staying with Cindy, my mothers friend I knew since I was a baby. Cindy had 4 children, 2 boys and 2 girls.
Their house was big, with a big backyard, big shed and a big in-ground pool.
I remember the layout of the house, and that we had a Christmas there. There were 8 children in the house, so the loungeroom was basically bursting with presents, just from the fact of how many children. Each of us didn't really get too much, it just looked like heaps.
I remember all of us kids playing families. Me and Trenten, the oldest boy, were the parents. I don't know why at the time, but I felt something for him. I wasn't sure if it was normal or not, even though we aren't related, but we would call ourselves cousins because of how close our mothers were. I ended up getting over that feeling.
I went briefly to a primary school in Bendigo. I remember the room I was in but that's basically it.
We moved back to Belmont for a little while, then back to Bendigo shortly after.
By the time we moved back to Bendigo, I was 12 years old and starting high school.