The Foundation Wasn’t Love — It Was Survival -Part 2

Chapter 6: The Lazy Family and the Weight of Proving Myself

At 17, I met someone new, a coworker who wouldn’t stop pursuing me. Eventually, I gave in, I moved in with him and his family, hoping for something better, but what I got was just another version of toxicity, wrapped in a different package.

His family was bitter. Lazy. Always complaining, always blaming the world for their problems but never lifting a finger to change anything. I became the easy target because I would just take it on and not talk back, the one they could dump their frustrations on. Judged for everything I did or didn’t do, looked down on even when I was working twice as hard as they were.

But I kept going, I had grown up being used to walking on eggshells. I kept showing up, kept proving I was worthy. Because deep down, I still believed that maybe just maybe if I was good enough, someone would finally choose me.

In the middle of that storm, I got a job at ANZ Bank in their call centre. Long hours. A steady income. A moment to breathe. It felt like a step toward the life I had dreamed of one with freedom, routine, and control.

But peace still felt so far away.

Chapter 7: The Skating Rink Door and a Foreshadowed Goodbye

That was when I saw him for the first time, my future husband. The man who would later become both a chapter of love and a legacy of pain, by someone I chose to love.

He worked at a skating rink with his then-girlfriend. I was out with my boyfriend at the time. As we approached the door, he opened it and looked directly at me and then let it slam in my boyfriend’s face.

It wasn’t love at first sight. It wasn’t even a moment I thought much about. But looking back now, it felt like a warning wrapped in flirtation, a subtle sign of control. A display of dominance even before we ever spoke a word. We didn’t start anything then, we had four more years to go before our paths would cross again in full force.

But that memory that look, that slammed door, stayed with me.
Like a ghost of what was to come.

Chapter 8: The Sister I Always Forgave

After leaving yet another toxic house, I did what had become an exhausting cycle, I turned back to someone who had already hurt me. This time, it was my sister.

She offered to let me stay with her, and I convinced myself that maybe things had changed, maybe time had softened her, maybe we had both grown. I wanted to believe it not because she had shown me, she was different, but because I needed to believe in family wanted to fix the broken roads and mend the pain, trying to be the glue even if it had always betrayed me.

At first, there was a strange peace, I was quiet and careful. She was watchful, controlled. But it didn’t take long before the same patterns reappeared. Her voice sharp with judgment, things started to fly around past my head, her expectations wrapped in control. It started small. The comments about where I was going or who I was talking to but then it turned into rules, demands, and power plays.

She treated me like I was her child, not her equal. I was 18, I had survived more than most people my age and I didn’t need another person telling me how to live, especially not someone who had added to the pain I was still carrying.

The tension built until it snapped and just like that, we were done again more bruises more abuse. Another closed door. Another relationship wrapped in blood but poisoned by control and pain. I didn’t speak to her again until after the birth of my youngest son in 2020 and even that reunion came with its own shadows. Shrouded with jealousy and manipulation. Her need to dominate disguised as care.

I look back now and realise, I was always expected to forgive. To forget. To be the bigger person. But forgiveness without accountability isn’t healing, it’s silence and I’ve stayed silent far too long. Caring secrets that people shouldn’t have put on me, burdens that would destroy most but somehow I kept standing and continuing humbly.

 Chapter 9: The One Who Almost Gave Me Hope

Just when I thought I’d lost all belief in good men, I met someone who changed that briefly.

He was kind, thoughtful and present, He made me laugh, he held my hand like it meant something, he made me believe, for a while, that maybe love didn’t always have to hurt.

But then came the drinking. The mates. The partying. The distance between us grew faster than I could pull it back in and his family. They saw my people-pleasing nature as a tool, something to use. A way to get what they wanted without ever offering anything in return.

I was slipping again. Becoming small again and I knew it was time to go. I wasn’t going to lose myself to someone else’s brokenness again, I created an escape and ran.

Chapter 10: The Blood That Didn’t Mean Family

Just when I needed a place to breathe, my aunty and nan reappeared. It felt like a lifeline. A second chance. A way to maybe rewrite the past and heal old wounds. They welcomed me back like family, like I was being given a place again. I wanted to believe it; I needed to believe it. I thought maybe this was a full-circle moment, that maybe I was meant to come back and help heal the cycle, and that maybe I was meant to help them.

So, I moved to Temora. It was supposed to be a fresh start, but instead, it became a three-year sentence.

At first, they paraded me like I was their success story, an example of resilience, strength, perseverance. I was introduced like a trophy, like symbol of the family name but underneath it all, I was just another tool, and a mask for them to wear when the world was watching.

I became the idol to show off, the worker who was expected to always say yes, the overachiever who couldn’t make a mistake — ever, or face reticule beyond what was deemed necessary. To be the fall guy for their drama, and the emotional filter in every situation.

Behind closed doors, I was absorbing everything: my grandmother’s deep sadness, her constant longing to be needed. My father’s alcoholism and isolation, his presence there but never truly present. My stepmother’s controlling ways, how she played the victim when things didn’t go her way and then my grandfather, who acted like the respected patriarch, but behind the charm was still the same man. Still emotionally abusive. Still a master manipulator, still trying to rewrite his own history by silencing mine.

I tried to carry it all.

To be the glue for a family that had always been broken. I gave up pieces of myself — again, to be what they needed. What they demanded, i smiled when I was dying inside, I said “I’m fine” when I wasn’t. Only because I thought if I could just hold it all together, maybe they would love me. Maybe they'd finally see me.

But blood doesn’t guarantee love. It doesn’t promise safety. And it never promises healing.

Sometimes, blood ties are the heaviest chains.

Affirmation

I am no longer the secret keeper, the scapegoat, or the silence filler.
I am allowed to take up space.
I am allowed to walk away from what hurts.
I am not defined by what they did
I am rebuilt by what I choose to rise from.
My voice is no longer buried.
My strength is no longer borrowed.
I am mine fully, boldly, and without apology.

I survived the rooms that tried to shrink me.
Now, I create spaces that allow me to grow.

 Prayer

God,
Thank You for never letting go — even when I was surrounded by people who did.
Thank You for keeping a light alive inside me, even when the darkness tried to win.

Help me continue shedding the shame that was never mine to carry.
Give me wisdom to see truth, even when it’s buried beneath manipulation.
Remind me that my story matters — not because it’s tidy or easy, but because it is honest.
You saw every silent scream, every hidden bruise, every tear that no one else acknowledged.

Heal what they couldn’t love.
Restore what they tried to destroy.
And let me be a cycle breaker — not just for myself, but for the children watching me now.
Let my healing echo louder than their harm.
And let the legacy I build be one of truth, strength, and freedom.

In Jesus’ name,
Amen.