15/05/2026
I want to share a story about a child.
A child who was spat on, punched, kicked, and ganged up on again and again, month after month.
A 30 minute school bus trip each morning, and again each afternoon, left this child trembling with fear simply because he was seen as different, an easy target for what others thought was entertainment.
What people often do not understand is how experiences like this can continue shaping someone long into adulthood.
That child was me.
It was 1980, and I was desperately trying to understand why I was being treated this way by a group of boys from another school who travelled on the same bus.
Even now, moments of exclusion, criticism, or unkindness can sometimes reach far deeper than people realise.
Not because I have not done the work around it. I have.
But the body remembers what it once needed to survive.
When a child spends years learning that attention can quickly become humiliation, something changes inside them.
You become careful.
Observant.
Highly aware of tone, reactions, and shifts in people around you.
You learn how to scan for danger before it arrives.
And while many people eventually become very functional adults on the outside, parts of them can still quietly expect rejection underneath it all.
Looking back now, I can see how much these experiences shaped not only me as a person, but also the kind of counsellor I became.
I know what it feels like to sit in fear.
To question yourself.
To wonder if who you are will be accepted or attacked.
I know how exhausting it is to constantly monitor yourself in order to feel emotionally safe.
And I think this is why so many people who sit across from me feel understood quickly, particularly gay men and others who have spent years adapting themselves to survive different environments.
Because many are not simply dealing with anxiety, shame, burnout, or disconnection in the present.
Many are carrying old survival strategies that once protected them.
That is also why I have very little tolerance for any sort of bullying.
Not because I am fragile. But because I understand how deeply cruelty can stay with someone long after the moment itself has passed.
Counselling, for me, has never been about pretending painful experiences did not happen.
It is about helping people reconnect with themselves beyond what survival once required of them.
To feel less guarded.
Less alone.
Less at war with themselves.
And sometimes healing begins in a surprisingly simple way.
Not through advice.
Not through fixing.
But through finally sitting in a space where you no longer feel you have to hide parts of yourself to be safe.
If this resonates with you, and you are looking for a safe, supportive place to talk, I offer online counselling across Australia, with in person sessions available in Melbourne.
