I thought now a better time than ever as to share this with you, before I turn 23 next week and descend further into the depths of adulthood. Here are some things you should learn before adulting...

First things first though, if you’ve read my other pieces you’re going to realise this is actually old and I've since moved to China then back to Australia and fucked up a lot more since then. I found this story on my computer it’s something I wrote in probably my third month in China, as my fourth month was when I moved out of the families’ home, into my own, changed my visa and entered into a full time job. There are some pieces I have excluded from this blog just because it was quite violent and could’ve been stressful to read. I really loved reading this almost a year on and seeing what’s happened now in my life and how much I have yet to learn.

Apologies for the photo, its my day off so I'm still in bed. Okay, open your eyes, you might learn something.

 

1. DO: Bite off more than you can chew

The days are getting shorter. I’m 22 and experiencing my first Winter. I’m living in a foreign country, thousands of kilometres from home, I barely know what is happening around me, I do not speak the native language. I left behind a fiancé, a home with a hefty loan, cars, pets and all of my family, I have bitten off more than I can chew. I feel the cold, externally and internally, I’ve never been colder. I lose a memory from my past life with every passing day. Memories of my loved ones and memories of those I loathe. I still can’t decide whether this Winter is healing me or destroying me, but then again, I don’t really know me. I don’t know who I am, no one in this world knows me. Society thinks of me as a grown up now, but how I got to be a grown up, that’s how my story begins. My name is of little significance, but I will tell you it means stone, a symbol of strength and power, not that I’ve ever felt like that. My life is anything but strong and powerful, it is weak, ever-changing, unpredictable and full of pain. I am a small town girl from North Queensland, Australia. I was a difficult child, as my mother has reminded me over and over again. My earliest memories of school are of being buried in the sandpit by the other children and being made fun of for having the appearance, and personality, of a cheeky little boy. Not much changed until high school either, and even then, just my appearance changed. My parents of course love me but I’ve never had the privilege or skill to feel love, my mind lives somewhere else, I am something else. I adore my family, mostly my younger brother, my piece of pure innocence and my dad, my dose of calm and peace. Painful tensions exist between myself and my sister, and myself and my mother. Painful memories take over when love is supposed to live. 

2. DO: Make at least one real friend

Never underestimate the power of a real friend, and if you get one, talk to them, tell them everything. A real friend can understand. When I was 13 I moved with my family to a bigger town for a better education, better work and a better lifestyle. My mother sent me to a Christian school, I have no fucking clue why, I guess she heard good things about Christians. I didn’t know anything about them. The Christians I met were the vilest humans I had met at this point in my life. I have never been bullied worse in my entire life. Every day I was spat on and beat for not knowing this Jesus character from the book, the beatings and the spit didn’t make me want to know him any more though. Eventually, I broke, a temper and level of anger I had never felt before took over me. The Christians would say I was possessed by the devil. I threw bricks through windows, lit fires, I even ripped some girls braces out of her mouth! Turns out 3 months of the beatings and spit was all this little girl could handle. After that, the teachers tried to “save” me with their bible and Jesus talk, but I had too much hate for this Jesus character and the pain he brought into my relatively normal life. After a while I was expelled, it was off to Catholic school for me then. The Catholic children had similar beliefs, but they were not so violent. They preferred name calling or to avoid me completely, I was much more comfortable with this. My first year at the school I would lock myself in the toilet to eat my lunch every day. That was until I met my best friend. I had come out of hiding in the toilet one lunch to get a drink of water when I was cornered by the one of the bully’s in my grade, alongside me was another child who got picked on. From then on, we decided to stick together. We fought for a few years but he is still my best friend to this day and I am godmother to his two beautiful children. Smoking, driving, drinking and fishing, some of the best times of my life have been shared with him. Without him in the back of my mind saying come on don’t be stupid you have so many people to love you, I’d be dead right now. In the same year, my dad was made redundant from his job in our town and forced to move 4 hours away to find more work. I didn’t last long at home after that. As I said before, dad was my dose of calm and peace, he seemed to have an answer for everything, without him I was alone. Without calm in the family, chaos reigned, inside and outside my mind. I found my power in the form of self-harm, burning and cutting my skin until I couldn’t handle any more, for that year you would be hard pressed to find me not bleeding. I would self-harm before school, during, on my way home, I was addicted, I felt it was the only part of my life I had full control over. I couldn’t control home, family, school, but I could inflict pain upon myself like no other. But no one could help me if I didn’t tell them. I wish I had just told my best friend what was going on, he was there the whole time. 

3. DON’T: Listen to what your parents say

I tried suicide, but obviously that failed. After taking all I thought I could handle, I decided to leave home. Even though I left the chaos outside my mind, the chaos inside my mind accompanied me to the streets, I was 16 now. I have heard so many times over people saying, I wish I had of listened to my parents, but for my sake, I wish I had not. I had a part time job at a car parts store, there I met a 26-year-old American who was an auto electrician. It is easy to see how he took advantage of my naivety, but at the time I saw him saving me. The day I moved out is still fresh in my mind. I packed up all I owned and tossed it into the back of his car. The last thing I heard as I walked down the driveway was my mothers’ and sisters’ voices arguing, “She can’t last without us; she won’t survive two weeks alone” “Two weeks! Ha! I’ll give her two days before she comes crawling back!” I wish they took the time to know me better, they could have known my stubborn nature, and my urge to prove people wrong, always accept a challenge. Where they thought the words would cause me to cave in and return home, they sustained my stubbornness and will to be alone. Those words were the last I heard from them for a long time. 

4. DO: Read the warning signs

It took me not even a week to realise I was in too deep. I should have known sooner, but I was young, I had so much to learn still. The 26-year-old man who would be my saviour was more of a creature, a monster, he definitely couldn’t be a human being. I missed the warning signs long enough to end up locked in a basement under his house. This room is my home for the next month. Every day, he would unlock the door and let me out for housework duties, cooking hotdogs for his lunch, cleaning and laundry, then before he would leave the house I had to be locked up. I still freeze to the core when I smell hotdogs. I can recall a time I hung the washing up outside instead of using the dryer machine, he argued that someone could have seen me, I should never be seen. There was a lot of blood that day. I could hear his car coming from two streets away every day, a loud small block V8 under the bonnet of a HQ one tonner, the noise physically hurt me, I could feel it, as if the car was running over my chest. Then I would hear his boots, and smell the burnt plastic on his clothes from work.  Every day I sat and planned what to do next, but I’m not a grown up yet, I don’t know how to deal with this, I’m not sure if anyone would. One day while I was out doing housework another boy came round the house, he was tall and skinny. I spoke to him a few times but I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on, they would never be with me, they would think I am so stupid and all of my innocence has been destroyed. But we developed some kind of connection and one day he gave me his phone number. The days went on, the long painful days, the waiting in my dark room. I decided this was my fate, this is it, for the rest of my life, the only escape I could imagine was death, I had nothing to lose. One night while he was upstairs, I was supposed to be doing the laundry. I crept out onto the street in my favourite pooh bear pyjamas. It was a Friday night, around 8pm, I remember that part clearly, I acquired from his room a bottle of Baileys and 2 sheets of pain killers and I finished the lot. Then, I stumbled out onto the busiest road in town and laid my weak body down on the cool bitumen and waited for death to take away the pain. It was the most peace I’d felt in a long time, and at the point, I knew I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know what death felt like but when I everything went black I thought I had found it, unfortunately I was still alive. I have faint memories of police sirens and people standing over me. 24hours later I regained full consciousness in a bed in the local hospital with a little Filipino lady standing over me waving her hands. Her name was Grace she was the social worker assigned to me. She did my assessment, I signed a form to say I didn’t intend to commit suicide and they were satisfied. The hospital was a busy place and I couldn’t stay there any longer now that I had regained my physical health. But I had nowhere to go to. The social worker, who I’d told parts of what had happened must have known in her mind if they released me then and there, they would be cleaning up my dead body the next night. The social worker took me to her sisters’ home and put me in some clothes for the night. The next morning, I had a new found courage, I’d cheated death and someone had shown me genuine care, I didn’t know quite how to take all of that in. But in my child mind I made a new plan. I walked myself back to the creatures’ home to get my things. He was furious, but I’m not scared. 

5. DO: Remember the warning signs

As it happens, the tall skinny boy who had previously given me his number was there, he calmed down the creature and told me to pack my things into his car I could stay at his home, the creature wouldn’t dare mess with him. I listened and followed his direction, where else would I go. Then I got into his car and we went across town to his home. I felt so safe with him. I felt like I had been saved, my true saviour had arrived. The next day I drove back to the creatures’ home with the tall skinny boy so he could collect the last of the things I had forgotten. As we pulled up I was grabbed and thrown out of the car by a man I didn’t recognise, it all happened so fast I didn’t have time to gather my thoughts. When I collected myself I opened my eyes and looked around. I was on the floor of the creatures’ lounge room, the tall skinny boy was there along with 5 other people, I recognised some of them. Standing around us were no less than 10 police detectives. The creature was yelling at me questioning the police why I had to be here as it had nothing to do with me, whatever it was about, he was telling the truth. I had no idea what was happening. The creature carried on so the police took me outside and cuffed me to the stairs so I wouldn’t try to run. So as it turns out I had just become part of a large scale drug and grand theft auto investigation. How convenient. I couch surfed for weeks with the tall skinny boy, sleeping wherever we could find and for 6 months we survived off social welfare payments and a diet of what we could find in the bins behind the restaurants and hotels in the city. I recall a time we found an unopened packet of lime and cracked pepper red rock deli chips, the medium sized packet I can picture it in my hands now, we had won the lotto that night and we talked about it for weeks. I lived like this until I found up the courage to contact my father for help. 

6. DO: Be selfish

My dad found a job for me where he was staying in another town so I moved in with him, living in an old shipping container at an oil and chemical warehousing shed. For the next few months I travelled between the two towns every weekend with my dad visiting the tall skinny boy on the weekends. On weekdays I worked cleaning oil water separators, chemical warehousing and driving forklifts around the sheds. I had my 18th birthday there, life was good, I had everything I needed there, and my dad again. But, the tall skinny boy wanted me to come back to be with him, so I searched for another job. I should have been selfish and kept the life with my dad that I missed so much, but I never thought of selfish as a good trait to have. Eventually an opportunity came up for a 3-month contract at a company out West in the desert with a salary of over one thousand a week. I could save up enough to move back to the tall skinny boy and have time to find another job closer to him. I bought a little ute for $300 and left it with my dad until I got back and I would start my new life. Then, I jumped onto the bus to head out West. 

7. DO: Seriously, those warning signs

8 long hours later I arrived at the station where I would work. There was red dirt for as far as the eye could see, no other people and no phone reception, how peaceful. The first night the boss, a strong built, well dressed Turkish man invited me to dinner with his family, it was him and his wives 10-year wedding anniversary. I started my work there the next and was confident in operating all the computer systems and completing all the tasks he gave to me. It was lonely out there with no contact to the outside world, not even able contact with the tall skinny boy. A few days in the boss got uncomfortably close to me, but I didn’t think anything of it. I kept on doing my work, it started out a grab on the should but the behaviour escalated until one night so much so that I lost my temper at him telling him to fuck off. I though that’s the end of it, he gets the idea, but something inside me knew it wasn’t over yet. I had often heard the man talking to someone on the phone about the kids and it wasn’t his wife, I found out there was a German girl staying at the house not far from where I worked at the station. I contacted the wife of the man and asked if myself and her could go into town for some shopping, she agreed. We borrowed the wives’ old car, which broke down three times on the way into town. I told the German girl everything that had happened, similar things were happening to her, we decided I should try to escape, she was too frightened, her VISA could be taken from her. We decided I would escape first, then if there were any issues I was the only one that could be affect. We purchased a new phone that could get reception in the desert and we headed back to the station. The next day the boss wasn’t in the office, so I completed my duties and went back to the area of the station where I stayed. One hour later as I lay in my bed reading the door shook, he was mad. I screamed as loud as I could, but there was no one there to hear me. When the door swung open, there he was, over 6ft tall, around 120kgs, holding the keys to my room in one hand and a shot gun jammed upside down under his other arm. I felt fear, I clutched onto my phone, my body moved so fast it was barely a jump, it was more like I had grown wings and swooped him like an eagle. I knocked him with my foot straight in the chest and ran as fast as I could. I never turned around to look I just ran. I spotted old shipping containers in the distance and dove underneath, it was dark so I could only tell where he was by his thick Turkish voice piercing the crisp desert air, and the occasional gunshot which echoed forever across the star studded black sky. For hours I lay there completely still, covered in dirt, I didn’t dare to move a muscle. When I felt like he had given up I pulled out my phone and called the police. There was going to be an 8 hour wait because of my location so I gave them all the details I could, then hung up and lay back down. I didn’t close my eyes that night, the doctors would call my experience an anxiety attack, but that suggests that it was partly my issue. I think of my night in the desert hell as a completely appropriate human reaction. In the morning I watched the horrible man drive off the station then a few hours later I heard the police sirens. I didn’t come out of hiding until I seen one man step out of the car. I sprinted over to him screaming, I don’t know what would have been coming out of my mouth at that point I was covered in red dust and still shaking in fear. I imagine I looked something like a monster from a child’s nightmare by that stage. I told him that the man was out and I needed to pack my things quickly so we could leave before he came back. The policeman helped me pack and drove me into the station. It took me a long time to speak, it took all day to write my statement, I was so nervous I kept breaking down and just forgetting how to speak all together. The police helped to contact my dad and explain what had happened. He sent them money for a bus ticket to get me back to his town. The only thing I feared more than the man at this point was my mother finding out I couldn’t survive on my own. Sure enough though, my mother found out, dad used a linked credit card for the bus ticket. She abused him for helping me and I had to pay the money back. The case never made it to court either. The police said it was due to no witnesses, the only thing they could charge him with was the gun, which they found he had illegally. I’d clung onto my human feelings and hopes for a normal life for so long but this stage was where I finally lost the last pieces of my humanity. 

8. DO: Deserve it all

I made my way back to the tall skinny boy eventually in my $300 pick-up truck. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to live in. I couldn’t go face the tall skinny boy now, what a mess I was, no one would ever love me. I lived in that little truck for the next few months, casually looking for work. Funnily enough people don’t like to hire you if you can’t even shower. I saved all my money for fuel, food wasn’t an issue, I could find food. I had already survived out of bins before, it was even easier this time with the convenience and safety of my car. I parked my little truck behind a famous hotel in the busy part of the city. They threw out copious amounts of food, and on Fridays and Saturday nights there was always pizza, searching through a bin to find pizza was like finding a gold nugget. Eventually I found a job as a brush hand, the add was in an old newspaper, but I called the number anyway. They told me I could work for the day and if I’m handy they’ll hire me. The next day I drove into a rough part of town to an old ladies’ house and quickly learnt how to paint. After my first pay I decided I was good enough to go back to the tall skinny boy and impress him with my new job. The tall skinny boy was so happy for me, we decided with my job we could rent a house to live in, together, I was in love. We lived in our house until there was a repeat of that night at the creatures’ house. Everyone was questioned and placed on house arrest for a few weeks. It was the same police and same group of people except now the creature had vanished, no one seen him ever again. We moved from house to house having some money issues and a few drug raids and some jail time too. But we stuck together. I eventually got tired of house painting, I was the only girl in my crew and I copped a lot of shit. I applied for a few new jobs and secured one on the army base working in the kitchens. It was better money too. I did a resume for the tall skinny boy and got him a job located near my new job so I could drive him to work, working in a steel shed. Life was good. But it wasn’t enough for the tall skinny boy, he still had his side job, selling drugs and grand theft auto with his friends. I liked to pretend I didn’t see it.  I came home and the tall skinny boy was in the kitchen, naked, holding our dog, screaming at the dishes for being dirty. I was so tired from work I couldn’t fathom what was happening and I just fell asleep anyway. In the morning I noticed some of his side business was missing from the fridge yet he had no money for rent, he had started using. For the next 6 months’ things spiralled downwards, fast. The tall skinny boy became even skinnier, his face changed, he was covered in sores, he always had energy at odd times and was paranoid about everything, he became violent, convinced that I was setting him up for the police every day. Due to my still recent past I was mentally weak, but physically, I was stronger, I know how to take a punch, but every day, from a grown man, he was starting to compare to the creature. I found peace in conversations I had with one of the army cooks. A tall blonde haired blue eyed farm boy from down South. The most handsome yet shyest boy I had ever met. I would stay at work late every night talking with the boy, sometimes sharing a few beers, it kept me away from my reality at home, but I couldn’t go forever like this. The cook treated me like a human, he gave me so much confidence I decided I could do better than the tall skinny boy, my level of help wasn’t enough to save him, there was nothing I could do to help him now, after about 4 second chances I decided to leave for good. I rang my dad to help me lift a few things and he brought my brother along. Together the three of us packed up just what I needed, I left behind everything that the tall skinny boy would need, a bed, washing machine, fridge and our dog. The tall skinny boy carried on in the background as we loaded up the car, saying how he could kill my mother if he wanted, or let my dog starve, we all ignored him. Not a word came from my mouth while I was in the house that day. I’d organised a room to stay in with a friend from work, a nice young girl a few years older than myself. My dad and brother dropped me off there, unloaded my things, and left. 

9. DON’T: Limit yourself

I kept seeing the handsome boy from work most nights. I finally knew what love felt like. It was amazing but with my dating record, my level of doubt was incredibly high. The handsome boy would come to visit me at the new place and cook dinner most nights, then leave back to the army base. He did this for many months. He was like a Prince from a fairy tale. It didn’t even feel real, I don’t know what I did to deserve a love like that. I told the Prince everything I wanted. When I was younger I always assumed I would go to university and get a job I could enjoy but that was just a farfetched dream now. At this stage the tall skinny boy was fixated on killing me and my family. He almost succeeded too, twice. He told me my dog was starving, to drop off money for food, of course I fell for it and took the food to his house. He met me on the side of the road yelling something about a lawn mower. I had enough of his crazy stories, I yelled back I wish he would overdose, he pulled a machete out and starting swinging at me. I went to get in my car but he was right behind me. I reached into my car and pulled out a tire iron and just swung as hard as I could, breaking his arm into two pieces. He went for one last stab, missed and got the knife stuck in the mirror on my car. I jumped in the car and drove to the police station. The second time was more cunning, he severed the break lines of my car in two places and I glided through a red light intersection almost drifting into a corner pub. Off to the police station for another report. Meanwhile the Prince stood by me, he was my voice of reason. The Prince even wanted to meet my mother, and he eventually did. My mother was a changed woman when I saw her again, she felt warm. My mother, the Prince and I spent hours catching up and all getting to know one another as we stood around the stove cooking dinner and sipping wine like nothing ever went wrong between us. One day the prince said to me, you should go to university, he felt he missed his chance to go because of the army, so he said at least I should try. I laughed, he’s fucking out of his mind, I already told him I couldn’t afford it. He told me he had been thinking about it, and if I took one day off work each week and he paid my rent, then I could be whatever I wanted to be. 2 months later I was accepted into a Bachelor of Social Work at the local university. My life was a dream. I was such a human now. 1 year on I received a phone call from the police, it was about the tall skinny boy. An officer was questioning my motives for requesting a court date to charge the tall skinny boy with the stalking and multiple assault charges. The officer told me there was no evidence of anything happening between myself and the tall skinny boy. I retold him the incidents, even the dates they happened, nothing came up. I resent them the email of recorded phone calls where the tall skinny boy told me he was coming to kill me and my family and how he was going to do it, but they told me the files can’t be opened and they closed my case. I never did make it to court, the tall skinny boy had someone on the inside. It didn’t take me much research to get the name of the officer. His name came up on my file when another officer logged into it, and he should have had no involvement in a case of this nature. I still hold the recordings on my computer of the chilling phone calls I received from the tall skinny boy, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. I still live on guard constantly in my home, ghosts from my past still haunt me every day just seeing police in the street makes me burn. The smell of hot dogs still stops me in my tracks and red dirt makes me shake. I can’t trust anyone. 

10. DON’T: Stop growing

I don’t know how I am even alive still. I am now a fourth year Social Work student. I have been working as a Detention Youth Worker at a local youth detention centre for over two years, a secure job and great pay. I bought my first house 10 months ago and got engaged to the Prince. Back to lesson 1 though. I’m actually not ready to grow up yet, not ready for my Prince, even if he is ready for me. So I’ve run away to China for 6 months to see where that leads and I have bitten off so much more than I can chew but I’m learning dam fast how to grow up here. Here I am living with a traditional Chinese family in a traditional Chinese courtyard in the coldest Winter in Beijing in 30 years. Surrounding myself in chaos as usual. The chaos in my mind has a way of projecting itself onto my external life. This is just what I’ve learnt so far. If you’re thinking of becoming an adult, just wait, you have no idea what you’re in for. 

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