WARNING: This article includes details of family violence.
“He’s going to actually kill me, I’m going to lose my life.”
This is the thought Kirsty* recalls reciting in her head, over and over, when her son James* wrapped his fingers around a beer bottle, looked her in the eye and swung it toward her face.
Moments earlier, the then 17-year-old had terrorised her as he smashed up the family kitchen.
She fled outside, but he sniffed her out. His 188cm build towering over his mother’s tiny frame, he grabbed her by the throat and dragged her across the ground for 100 metres, all the way back to the house.
There, a beer bottle became his weapon of choice. She ended up in hospital, with a broken nose, seven stitches across her face and two black eyes.
Kirsty, 57, had suffered years of abuse at the hands of her own son, at their home in Central Victoria. And it took her to the brink of death before she was finally ready to put her own survival before her motherly instincts. She drew the deepest of breaths, and took out an indefinite intervention order against her son.
It’s a near unthinkable decision for most parents – or, as Kirsty says, “a hard pill to swallow as a mother”. But it’s one that thousands of parents are facing across Australia.
In Victoria alone, during the 12 months to March 2017, police were called to 5104 family incidents where the accused was aged 17 or younger. A little over 600 of them were under 13 years old. And in about two-thirds (3247) of cases, a parent was the alleged victim.
Top Comments
Having recently ended up in hospital after a breakdown die to my 17 y.o. violence against me, this article rings true. My son regularly strangles me, calls me a f@#$en c$@!, whore etc and threatens to slit my throat while I sleep. I just can't cope anymore. I swallowed a bottle of pills and then my son beat me around the head so hard. My husband screamed at me not him and noone bothered to see if I was ok at the hospital. It is an extremely complex issue. Did our dysfunctional marriage cause it? Did our yelling at him do it ( he has been an extremely difficult kid to raise)? There are no easy solutions and we have been in therapy for years both individually and as a family. The biggest tragedy is the effect on his younger sister. There's no real assistance because at the end of the day we all have to come home and live together. We could never kick him out as he actually couldn't cope.
Yes, he could. If he's abusive to you, he needs to change or move out. Your responibility now he's grown, is to his younger sister, she deserves some time with you abuse free.
Arrrgghh. I am v angry with Dr CarrGregg for blaming the mothers! ADHD, oppositional defiance disorder, conduct disorder, and virtually zero support or help from the government in a case close to us caused:
removal of all metal knives from the house, eating off plastic cutlery, getting ones life threatened, a drowned cat in the bathtub, paying for other schoolkid's ripped school uniforms, apologising to other mothers one who's kid nearly lost an eye from a stick, sleeping upright in an armchair so not to fall into a deep sleep, putting the sibling into therapy for PTSD, having to give up a career, spending a fortune on services, the list goes on and on.
In America, there is support for ADHD. Here, parents have to go it alone. Mothers have to be deeeply pitied when their boy gets bigger and stronger than they are. Fathers have no support groups . They are dammed if they protect their woman and damned if they don't. There are many relationship breakdowns because the men are so frustrated and just walk out rather than hurt their son or stepson.