One in Three Campaign
One in three victims of family violence are male

Men's stories

MEN’S PERSONAL STORIES

If you are a male victim of family violence – intimate partner violence, violence from other family members, child abuse, elder abuse, sexual assault, or other forms of family violence and abuse – this page is available for you to tell your anonymous story. Please click here to tell your own story. If you feel like you need support, please click here. Stories are moderated to prevent the posting of spam, so it might take a little while for your story to appear on this page.

 

David's personal story

I met someone when I was about 19. I had poor self-esteem for a number of reasons. I was bullied at school and had parents that set high standards. Failure was a constant fear in my life.

The person I met spoke to me and said she understood me. A friendship grew into something more.

There were times I had doubts, little “crossroad” moments, like the time she took a kitchen knife to a book I was reading. Or her propensity to go from calm to white hot anger in a second. That white hot anger was usually accompanied by some physical violence which at best was a slap, at worst she would grab my genitals.

Then there were the put-downs, nothing was ever quite good enough and any ideas would be scrutinised by her and her family before I would be told, no, bad idea.

But there were good things too, enough for me to agree to move in after about 18 months or so.

Like others, I experienced the slow alienation from friends and family. Then the slow alienation from who I was and what I believed in. I was labelled an emotional retard and told how a normal person would react to things and how different that was to me.

I would find myself thinking, “what am I doing this for?” Or worse, “why bother going on if this is as good as it gets.”

I hated myself for a host of surface reasons.

All this was my problem. I could never be happy. I had issues.

Then after a particularly bad phase, I was referred to a psychologist. This helped me gain a great deal of clarity and also to believe that what I was experiencing and what I felt was as real as any other person. Deep down, I hated myself for not being true to who I was, and so it was time to stop being a cardboard cut-out and become real again.

I came to realise that the way I was being treated wasn't right and that either that had to change or I would have to leave. In the end it was the latter. Since then it has been a roller coaster. What I can say to people in what was my situation is that it gets better, a whole lot better. Sure there are bad days, but I am a totally different person to who I was in that emotionally and physically abusive relationship. I love my life now and I love who I have become in that life.

One in Three Campaign