Hold Fast Project with Ryan Rowley

I believe every hold fast story is unique and helps people understand nobody is perfect.

Here’s a story of what it was like growing up for me and my family… Mum, dad and an older brother.

I grew up on the mid north coast of New South Wales in a country town called Taylors Arm, where my mum and dad first met. Dad, originally from Victoria, bought a farm in Taylors Arm to become a banana grower and live off the land. Mum was from the Gold Coast, struggling with heroin addition and had been involved in robbing banks and trafficking drugs overseas to stay high until she and a girlfriend made a run for it to get clean. That run was to have them as far away from the drugs as possible, they hitchhiked as far as they could, and ended up near Taylors Arm. They found a farmhand job on a notice board and called up hoping it was available, and that he would have two junkies stay there, work and be given the chance to get clean. She was in luck, the farmer was crazy enough to take them in and help them out.

Fast forward 12 months, mum and her girlfriend had broken down in the farm ute on the way to town. Dad was the guy who stopped and helped them fix the car and said “stop in at the pub on the way back and come have a beer ladies.” The rest is history, mum had found a guy who she thought was a funny hardworking man. Not long after my brother was born, which sometimes as a joke I call him the heroin baby. A few years later I was born. Mum and dad where happy campers living in a one bedroom shack in the bush with two kids, I’m sure there were some good year’s out there but from as early as I can remember my mum had married a monster. A man that could turn on us at anytime after having a gut full of piss. It was so bad at times my brother and I would hide weapons around the house just in case he would start laying into Mum, we were ready for war to protect Mum. My brother is a very quiet person so he rarely coped it, but me on the other hand has always had something inside me that forces me to tell you exactly what I think, and the truth hurts so I coped it pretty bad from time to time. This went on for years until I was around 12. Mum and dad had a huge fight one night leading up to a motocross event we had planned to see weeks before, she ended up with two massive black eyes so we couldn’t go out anywhere. I was completely over him treating us like this. The next time they fought my brother and I were both there, we were trying to get dad off mum and couldn’t, so my brother grabbed a big pair of garden secateurs and hit him so hard in the back he dropped, he was hurt. We all ran down into the bush and hid from him.

Shortly after we got out of there and called the police from a neighbour’s phone. This was when my brother and I convinced Mum to never go back. She listened and we did it, we made it out of there by hiding on people’s lounge room floors and sleeping in the car while still going to school like nothing was ever wrong. We found a rental a few weeks later in the next valley over, a place called North Arm. We landed in a four bedroom home with a veranda all the way around, which was exciting because this meant I’d have my very own bedroom for the first time and maybe my friends could come stay when we got back on our feet, but for now my mum was safe and my brother seemed to like it as well. We filled the house with op shop furniture and made it a place we called home it was great.

Fast forward another 6 months, after my mum being in a toxic relationship for so long and being controlled the entire time, it was time to go and have some fun again maybe? She doesn’t drink because she has hepatitis c that attacks your liver and booze doesn’t help that at all but she loves to smoke weed, she’s a real cruiser just loves being outside in the garden stoned listening to triple j, drinking cups of tea, and always had our fox terriers not to far away following her around New Year’s Eve was coming up and I said “Mum let’s go have some fun and watch the fireworks At Scott’s Head,” a beach town near by. “I’ll go hang out with my school friends and I’m sure you will know somebody there too?” “Yeah why not she says, let’s do it Ryan.” I remember the night pretty well, I went off with my friends, and she went off with hers, we had the keys to the car stashed in the bush so whoever got back there first could sleep in the car. After the fireworks I walked back to the car so I could go to sleep. I woke up in the morning and mum still hadn’t came back to the car, I wasn’t to worried so I went to the beach and killed some time until I got bored and hitchhiked around 50km home, at 13 you could get a lift pretty quickly because people didn’t want young kids hitchhiking around. I got home and didn’t think to much about it, until the next morning I woke up and still no sign of mum. I was trying to think of scenarios of what could possibly of happened and thought nah she will come home soon with some groceries and maybe a cool magazine to read but, she didn’t come home until the 4th day and it was late at night. I was like “hey Mum is everything ok?” she was perfectly normal and excited to be home so I wasn’t to think anything of it. I didn’t really ask where she was the last 4 days it was just good to know she was ok.

Over the next few months there was a pattern starting to form, she would go on a Friday afternoon and not come home until Monday night. Then it got longer and longer between her coming home and I was by myself at this stage because my brother had moved away to start working. Mum was only on Centrelink so we didn’t have heaps of food in the cupboards and I was just in high school, so I was a hungry teenager but didn’t really want anyone to know I didn’t have anything at home. I just wanted to go to school and see my friends and pretend everything was ok. It got worse and worse, I was asking her “Where have you been Mum, it’s been weeks and I’ve hardly had any food to take to school. Are you on drugs again or something?” she replied “No, no, not at all I’m just having fun with my new boyfriend and his friends.” I was pretty pissed off because I’d now found out who the new boyfriend was, he was a mutual friend of my dads, and was known as a speed junkie, I was certain she had relapsed and she was forgetting about me being at home.

She would come at night and leave a small amount of food in the fridge just the basics, and then be gone for another three weeks and do the same, time and time again. It got so bad I was loosing weight rapidly and couldn’t stay awake at school, people were starting to ask questions and the school was asking about school fees that where over due, but I was convinced I was a great actor and people would never know what was actually happening. I remember being in a English class and my teacher completely lost it at me for being asleep and made a big scene singling me out in front of the whole class, asking me to repeat the last three things he said and I obviously couldn’t. I was completely asleep and he wouldn’t let up he was screaming at me telling me I will never be anything if I don’t listen and I’d never pass, then said let me guess somethings up at home is it? I replied I need to talk to the principal, he said don’t bother he isn’t going to help you! Just get out and don’t come back. I left in tears thinking what am I going to do, who should I talk to? I waited down the road for my school bus so I could get home and thought I know who I can tell, I’ll tell the bus driver. At the time I caught two buses and the second bus driver was a legend, a christian man, and I had confidence in him that he could keep a secret and get me some help.

I sat at the front of the bus so I could talk to him, try have a laugh and possibly tell him I really need help, but I couldn’t find the perfect time. I didn’t tell him I was to embarrassed, I was too worried about what people would think of us as a family and thought I’ll tell him another day, but after that day I never went back to school. Things got worse, I was starting to vomit because I hadn’t eaten in days and could barely walk around because I was so dehydrated. This became a normal thing, on the 5th or six day without food you start to vomit stomach acid all day and night, it’s like food poisoning but you have a completely empty stomach. Then I’d wake up and there would be a small amount of food there, mum had come in during the night, It wasn’t much but it would keep me going. This went on for months, I was fucked, I was starving to death and to embarrassed to reach out, my body was shutting down. Even the dogs were really bad. Then the power got cut off and I was in complete silence waiting for something to happen, knowing what day Mum got paid and hoping for her to come home that fortnight or the next, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was barely going to the toilet and was just drinking water from the tank outside to help with the vomiting. I wanted it to be over, I wanted to die quickly, so I tied plastic bags over my head hoping to suffocate and I passed out and woke up in a completely different room with the bags ripped open and the dog’s braking at me. I had a crazy amount of adrenaline running through my body and decided not to give up, so I took advantage of the situation and walked to the neighbours over the hill and was prepared to ask for food. I chucked on two jumpers so I didn’t look really skinny and walked with my dogs. What would take me normally a 20 minute walk, it took me well over a hour stopping and starting, but I made it all the way over there only to find nobody was home. I spotted there was a big bag of dog food in the shed when I was leaving, so I quickly fed the dogs and filled my pockets and water bottle I was carrying with dog food. The dogs where so bloated and full after eating possibly too much food.

I was happy again, it was exciting to see the dogs eating, we were all eating dog food in the drive way of the neighbours farm. I was crying because I was so happy and was ready to head home and thought I’m not that far away from the other neighbours house so let’s try them, it was a bit of a hike but we got there slowly. I asked if they had any bread and dog food until tomorrow afternoon when Mum gets home, the lady looked at me strange and asked “where do you live?” I said “I’m only two farms away, I promise I’ll be back tomorrow” she said “ok, I’ve got some bread, but not much dog food until next week” I said “yeah that’s fine, anything will do.” She gave me 4 slices of bread, well two slices and two crust. I was stoked but knew I’d need to make it last so, I’d have one quarter of bread a day and some dog food to keep me going. It lasted for 2 weeks and then I was slowly losing energy again, I was going down hill again, most of the days I’d sleep to pass time and so would the dogs with me in bed. I woke up one morning to the dogs barking at a car coming down the driveway. For some reason I thought, oh no it’s probably the real estate coming to kick us out, but it wasn’t. It was a good friend of mine George from school. I hadn’t seen him in a year, he was back from living in Cairns with his dad. He had been trying to call me for months but the phone was cut off he, just walked straight in to the house, saw me and started screaming “Mum, Mum, help Ryan’s not ok.” They took me straight to their house up river, and called the police. I was happy, but so embarrassed. They took care of me, contacted my brother and my dad. I reported Mum missing to the police, I went on a special dietitian plan to gain weight and continued to stay with them. I really didn’t want to be a worry for them and out stay my welcome so I went to a youth centre and asked for help, they said can you go back to your dads and live, I told them that’s not a good idea but if that’s what I have to do I’ll do it. I lasted 12 hours there, he just blamed me for him and mum splitting up and got drunk and just continuously yelled at me. I snapped and wanted to fight him, he was saying some really nasty things so I punched him as many times as I could, I got some decent hits on him and then he just bashed the crap out of me I was too weak. I went back to the youth centre with black eyes and a ripped ear and said “Can you please help me now?” They immediately put me in a car straight to Coffs Harbour, to a refuge where I could stay, get back on my feet and work at getting healthy and back to school. I was really ready to put in the work.

I knocked around with some rough guys in the refuge and started going down a bad path until a one of the youth advisers noticed. An aboriginal fella pulled me aside, he took me for a big drive telling me I’m smarter than that. He gave me confidence by telling me I had a very wise mind and good work ethic and he wanted for me to succeed. He helped me get back to school and get out of the refuge to a place of my own, and repeat the year I’d missed. I was going back to a normal life, but because I was so young I couldn’t be my own carer the government wouldn’t allow it, so we said my brother was my carer until a mates dad was kind enough to take me in until I could look after myself. I’m forever thankful for the friends, families and social workers that helped me through this time.

Mum was found safe and completely fine. I didn’t talk to her for a long time, but one day something made me think she did so well to raise us kids and tried so hard to make it a normal upbringing with the cards she was dealt. She did an amazing job and it wasn’t all bad, there were some really good times, and she always put us first, and only really fucked up one year out of 14. I said it’s time to forgive her and let her back into my life and let her heal the pain she was feeling for her kids, we now have a great relationship she is an amazing person and I love her to bits. I still talk to my dad here and there but we are not close. Thanks for taking the time to read a part of my story, if you are in trouble please reach out and ask for help, if I spoke up sooner of my situation I could of saved a lot of pain. so wether it be a bad relationship, an addiction, a mental illness, it all starts with you reaching out and someone listening.