When I was five years old, my mother met my stepfather, because I was so young, I had no idea that the relationship she was entering would become a domestically violent one. While the education we had in school about domestic violence was minimal at best, their relationship didn’t fit the textbook understanding of DV that was spoken about at the time. I never saw her get physically hurt, and that was all I understood domestic violence to be. While he would hit me, it was deemed “disciplining a bad kid”. I grew up watching my mother be financially controlled, and her friends were often labelled as inappropriate or not good people to have around. Somehow, she lost everyone. It was a reality that reinforced patterns I later learned were forms of coercive control. My stepfather was very violent and often showed no remorse. There was always a reason why I supposedly deserved it, and no one was there to protect me or tell me that this treatment of an eight-year-old was not normal. When I was 14, I was pushed heavily against a wooden shelf. A metal tray sitting on the shelf behind me sliced open my ankle and left blood everywhere. It was the first time I ever had any indication from my stepfather that he felt guilty for the physical abuse he inflicted on me. It was the first time he was encouraging me to tell him ‘it didn’t hurt that much’ or ‘that it was okay’. Neither of which were true however it was obvious he only wanted one answer. Unfortunately, the physical abuse didn’t stop, but it was the first time I considered that what was happening might be wrong. I moved out of home at 17. As I got older, I tried to maintain a relationship with my mother. One time, when I visited home as a surprise, I could hear screaming from inside the house. i had grown accustomed to being able to recognise my stepfathers familiar echoing yell but I had never heard my mother sound so afraid. By that point I was 20 years old, and my understanding of domestic violence had evolved. I realised that this behaviour had always existed it had just been hidden from my sister and I. Because someone cannot “discipline a parent” the way he justified “disciplining me”, it always happened when we weren’t home. When I banged on the door, his yelling stopped immediately. My mother came running to me, crying and in deep distress, telling me how it was all her fault and that I couldn’t judge my stepfather for her “fuck ups”. This was the first time I saw my mother’s relationship with my stepfather for what it was: domestic violence. While my relationship with my mother is complicated, thankfully she is out of that relationship now. For myself, it took some time to unlearn what had been normalised in my childhood. Unfortunately, in my late teens I found myself with people who were like shadows of my stepfather. Thankfully, I have been able to break that cycle, and I have now been with my partner for almost three years. Because of my experiences, I am deeply passionate about advocating for women and changing our culture to stop the spread of domestic violence. While this is a very abridged version of a much bigger story I do hope it can help someone else going through something similar as the conversation around DV can often begin and end at intimate partner violence and miss out on a much larger conversation around family violence too. All conversations around DV are important and I feel fortunate to be able to share mine.