ALEC

Intro
I don’t like to write. In school, University or even to make up fictional stories my imagination could spews out. No, I don’t like to write for the sake of writing; my purpose for writing comes for my need to silence the thoughts that cloud my mind. A storm so strong it fogs logic and reason from being seen.

I think back on my life, though still young, I come to the realisation that all our lives are full of hurt.

Emotions, violence, trauma, the typical currency we tend to exchange when talking about our past; ignoring all the beauty and triumphs that we’re gifted with overcoming it.

My childhood was like most others… imperfect. My father was in and out of home moving away to different states for work, not seeing him for months on end. He came back an alcoholic. Though now a lot better, he created many reasons to why I act the way I do today.

My mother, the sweetheart of the family; caring and loving, an overall amazing human being, however, it can now be hard to see.

Lastly my sister; creative, tough-loving and though her mental health had always generated great fear amongst us, we always got along when times were rough.

Though imperfect, they make me who I am.

My name is Alec Joseph James Orgar Thomson; and at this current time, I am nineteen years old.

My life sounds basic, but there is more to me than a name and age.

The breakup

My life feels very confusing; I know what I want and where I want to go. However, I don’t know who I am. Lately I’ve felt very lost, as if I were once a child’s favourite toy thrown out of a car window. I believe it began when my former parter and I parted ways.

She was great, the type of girl you’d die for; beautiful, caring, respectful, wanted the most out of life and wanted me to be a part of that. I thought that all you needed in a relationship was love. Idealising that my feelings for her would carry that torch, passing it on year after year, never to burn out.

It crushed me when it did.

I “wasn’t enough” for her. We “never did activities”, I “never knew what was wrong”. How could I know what she wanted, when she never communicated her problems with me?

A loophole destined for failure, reminding me that some people, just aren’t meant to be.

We were very different. I was loud, obnoxious and you really had to get to know me to figure out that I was truly a good person. No one wants the guy who creates issues, rials up emotion and craves attention.

She was reserved, well-educated and innocent to the rough world people like me were brought up in. Though we’re different, it was the reason why we were so intrigued by one another.

Months flew past, everything with her I could see it from my eyes, thinking that life together was “picture perfect”. Buying gifts for each other every other fortnight, intimate moments every second day, always texting 24/7 or spending four days out of our week together. I even attended multiple family events… they all seemed to love me.

I felt the love shift about six months later.

She began to stop offering to pay for her own expenses, barely asked to see me, it all happened after I told her about my dark past of my family history and how I grew up.

I understand that this is most likely not the reason my family-oriented girlfriend’s feeling started to drift. But it played a significant role to why it hurt so bad.

It had been a week post our 6-month anniversary. I picked her up and drove her to my house. She sat me down and said the few words every man is fearful of, “we need to talk”. Expressing our feelings toward the relationship, the ups and the downs we were feeling. It then progressed to me becoming aggressive and rebutting some of the statements she made.

In hindsight of the situation, I could’ve handled myself better, though I was proud for sticking up for who I am alongside the childish complaints that any adult wouldn’t express concern with.

We broke up shortly after that.

Heartbroken, confused, angry. I felt as if I had lost a part of myself. Someone who was a part of my everyday routine… was gone.

I went to family, eager for advice. Though the well of wisdom had dried out. I went to friends for help, wanting to get over her, though I was the first to experience a breakup.

I was lost, no guidance, no clue what to do next. So, I went back to what worked before; music, gym and going out with friends to distract myself.

Everything I did was out of desperation to remove every negative emotion from my body.

Music was my wisdom. Artists like J. Cole, Tupac and YoungBoy provided me with comfort, almost as if they were here feeling the pain I was experiencing with me. Through their experiences it changed my view on relationships and healing.

J. Cole taught me that pain is a feeling, a journey in which we cherish in our older years. We learn from it and become better people; though if we distract ourselves from the issue at hand, the time it takes for us to heal is extended, and our ability to alter the outcome is limited.

Tupac taught me to value who was with us at our lowest; appreciate what we have and never forget what we had. Sometimes we can’t control everything that happens in life, however, we can control how we react to it and the ways we move on.

YoungBoy taught me that everyone feels pain; that it’s normal to feel sad and alone, but it gets better. Life isn’t always bad, if we always focus on what’s wrong we won’t ever see whats right in our life.

Music was my sanctuary, my place to go when I needed a pat on the back, expressing how I go from here and letting me know it was okay.

Going to the gym helped as well. It created a space I could get out all my emotions, throwing steel plates around until I ran out of steam.

Cementing itself as a crucial part of my daily routine, so much to the point of if I missed a session, I was unable to keep my emotions in check, lips running loose until they couldn’t.

I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I was hurt enough, taking out my feelings on another person is the last thing I wanted to do.

Hurt people, hurt people; so, the weightroom became my safehouse.

When I wasn’t alone, drowning in a sea full of thoughts, I’d go out to distract myself.

Spending every weekend at the club or running through every bar in Richmond, I began to drown myself in alcohol, feeling all my pain fade away; as if I’d fallen into the river of forgetfulness, every memory would vanish.

Kissing and touching on multiple women, a game many men play amongst each other. How many women can you get with, in one night? Though I was ranked highly in this perverted game, there was only one girl I missed being intimate with.

Throughout the night I would feel ecstatic, better than I’ve ever felt in my life, I could never regret these memories I had made, there was only one issue.

Distractions can only last for so long.

So, every time I would wake up the next day, come down back to my reality, the mist and fog I’d been living in would come right back and reunite my world with the former gloom it had been living in.

These distractions were so important to me. Not because I could escape the world around me, but because I could see what I valued in my life. My friends.

Meet the Family

I wish I knew these things when I was younger.

I find that many young men have had chaotic periods between themselves and their parents.

I have experienced this few too many times, it all started around June 2023. I was sixteen at the time. My father had moved back from Darwin to stay with us after he was laid off from work.

Engulfed in anger, confusion and depression, my apparent “father figure”, chose alcohol as his outlet. Drinking early in the afternoon to late at night. He found me to be his target, during his outbursts of emotions.

At first, I was confused how to react when insulted, I would let the things he’d say slide. Feeding a pit inside of me from all his annoyances, until I acted on the words my mother said to me when I was young; “if you don’t stand up for yourself, how will they know to stop.”

I began to rebel and fight back with my words.

This only made the conflict between him and I worse. Sat down at the dinner table he takes a jab at me insulting my insecurities. “Your jaw is pretty big you know”, said in the same way and tone a friend you’d banter with would have.

I have a slight underbite, knowing I couldn’t fix it until I stopped growing, I was aware this was an attack. Sick of his shit I’d been shoving under the rug for weeks, I threw a hook in return. “At least I’m not fat and balding.”

I overstepped.

Filled with rage, and a longing for someone to look up to I couldn’t hold it back, resulting in a big fight. The kind of fight you see on TV. Broken up by my mother, I could see the pain in her eyes; tired, emotional and lost on where to go from here, almost as if she could see into the future, watching the result of this war, seeing it would last almost a year before it got better.

I slammed my bedroom door shut, lay on my bed and just starred at my ceiling.

I felt ashamed of my actions, though, in an odd way I felt proud as well. Standing up for myself was something I wasn’t very experienced with; this made me feel unstoppable.

The fighting went for months, everyday a new topic. I was tired of reading a different book each night, where the content was mostly never covered before; however, it always seemed concluding the same way.

A few times it got physical, no punches were thrown, nor kicks. Just push and shove.

I knew I couldn’t continue living this way. What does one do to escape a toxic environment like this?

I decided that for myself. To keep sanity, I must stay away from the house as long as I could. Though I had to come back, I couldn’t break my mother’s heart like that, and I was smart enough to know I needed them.

Taking the only form transport I owned, my bike. I’d stay out late, every night coming home as late as 3am, hanging out with my best friends, Vas and Jamie.

These two people were so essential for me, we all had similar situations, Vas’ father was a drunk, retired, immigrant man who would pick on him any chance he could. Jamie never had a father in his life, and his mother was a constant smoker; we all related to each other’s home life. It created a sense of family between the three of us alone.

Though I was protecting myself, I was hurting them by being away so much.

Faith became my rock, something solid in my life in which was rare for me. My family consisted of people who I’d rather not go to for advice.

Grandparents live too far away, I don’t get along with my cousins; uncles, aunties all delusional believing they’re all that matters in this world, I really felt as if no one would bat an eye to my issues.

My ability to talk with the man above was what got me talking, opening to friends. The more I learnt about my own faith being Anglican, feeling as if I had someone who really listened to me and my issues, it presented the feeling as if I weren’t alone in this.

I came home early one night; my mother called me into her room to come talk to her. She was folding clothes to put away in her drawers. She looked at me with tears held back, I knew something was off. “Alec… please… are you doing drugs?”.

“Mum, what the fuck. No.” in disbelief I responded with anger, walking out the room swiftly after. Sat in my chair contemplating if this is how low their perception of me has gone. Knowing I hadn’t ever touched a drug not even a vape in my life at the time, her words sliced through me like a knife in butter.

I understand now why her assumptions were as strong as she’d expressed to me. This was unusual behaviour.

I had to do something about my family life.

I went to my sister, knock, knock, she opens her bedroom door, “hey, um, I don’t really know how to ask this but, I need something to change”. I sat in that room with her for hours.

She didn’t play around, she knew I had to sit down and have a real conversation with my parents; for something, anything to get better.

Within a month I was sat at a table across both my father and my mother. I brought my sister along as a mediator. You couldn’t have cut through the tension in the air.

Staring at them, the people who brought me into this world. They look over, sat across a boy they felt they’ve failed.

Expressing my issues and explaining why I’ve been acting the way I have, and they express theirs.

Underwhelming is the word I’d describe it. Trying so hard to get my father to say sorry for pushing me to this point. Ignorant having an agenda, especially when all I really wanted was to have a calm household.

My father was bad at expressing his feelings, so I knew even a sorry would mean a lot, though my goal was never fulfilled.

He barely said a word. My mother protected him. It felt as if my points weren’t acknowledged, as if I were supposed to understand them. How can I understand my father if not even my mother, the woman who had been with my dad since she was 17, doesn’t know anything about him other than he kicked his own father out at 16.

The meeting concluded with both parties unhappy, though through time, it gave us understanding.

Thinking back on the conversation, we left hurt, allowing us to reflect and be better for each other. All it took was communication and recognising where someone’s opinion stems from.

This moment in my life opened my eyes to the importance of talking, connecting, building a relationship that’s healthy.