Writing by YAGKI
It wasn’t until I left home at 16 that I realised it wasn’t ‘normal’ to see domestic violence, drug abuse, assault and experience severe financial hardship before even starting high school. For the first 16 years of my life, I lived in housing commission in Western Sydney with my Lebanese dad and younger brother.
At the time, we lived in Bankstown and had a babysitter who lived in just downstairs from us, in the same block. When she babysat us, around the time I was 12, she’d walk in with bruised eyes, frail skin and sunken, hollow eyes.
She was 21 and had lived downstairs with her partner since she was 18. Nobody had checked on her, and no government organisation or body had visited because the apartment was under her partner’s name.
So, she was left there.
Whenever she attempted to leave, her partner pulled her by the hair and slammed her to the floor, dragging her back inside.
She was bound to that apartment.
She was bound to that partner, and she was chained to that life for three years.
One night, my dad decided to confront her partner, and a fight broke out. The girl stayed in our apartment that night, and the next morning, with our babysitter in toe, we packed our entire life up and left.
We lived in a motel until we moved to a new housing block, still out west but closer to the city. When we moved there, I was in my early high school years.
One night, my younger brother woke me up. He smelt smoke, and I woke up to find our apartment block was on fire. We were the only ones left inside because our smoke alarm didn’t work.
I woke the rest of my family, and we ran outside until firefighters came. The next morning, there was no news story, and no one ‘official’ came to see what had happened. I was 14.
A few months later, another apartment block fire broke out. The same story: no working smoke alarm and no-one coming to do a safety check on the apartment after.
Despite these experiences in both housing commission blocks – I still had something many kids didn’t have.
I had one parent who was always there.
My dad loved me and would’ve done anything to make my life better. As I got older, I slowly heard more of my dad’s story. I found out he had been to jail, that he had struggled with addiction, and grew up experiencing assault and abuse himself.
He shared a story about travelling from QLD to NSW without money or food. To survive, he would go into fast-food restaurants and say that a worker had forgotten his chips or burger. That was how he ate while travelling. That is how he survived.
Survival became the priority, above all else.
He didn’t have time to look for a job or a ‘better life’. His upbringing shaped his experiences. His experiences were witnessing domestic violence, drug abuse, assault and severe financial hardship – before starting high school. This influenced the life he provided for me and my siblings.
It wasn’t a matter of not wanting to; it was not knowing how.
When he had me and my brother, he gave up everything he was to become everything he could be.
We grew up with him in housing, so he could manage school fees, food and every other cost of being a parent.
Living in housing commission doesn’t give you tools for living—it only teaches you how to survive.
You run out of apartments on fire to survive. You leave your home to survive. You help others so they survive.
When I realised I wanted more for my life than to just survive, I left. I ran away from home at 16 with the hope I could find a job, rent a place, write and perform music. I wanted that to be my life, not because I knew it existed – but because I hoped it did.
However, wanting a better life made me feel selfish. It still does, every single day. When you grow up in housing commission, wanting anything more than survival, feels selfish.
I wrote Just A Ghost about the generational trauma that I experienced living in housing commission.What I experienced, what my dad experienced and what my younger siblings, who still live in housing commission, have to experience.
I wrote about the feelings of being tormented by that past and the guilt of knowing that while I experience a better life now, my family still live in survival mode. I carry the guilt of knowing that maybe I could’ve been the one to work full-time to provide food and comfort for my family.
But I know if I stayed, I would’ve continued living in survival mode, and 20 years would have passed in the blink of an eye. I would’ve had kids of my own and that generational trauma would continue. I would be stuck in the same environment, the same cycle, unable to create a better life.
