poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
- Messages
- 11,543
Craig thought being surrounded by drugs was a normal part of growing up
LIKE many kids, when he was young Craig Mack did a few odd jobs around the house. But his jobs were different to the usual.
“While most kids chores are to do the dishes, I would roll joints because the people in the house were too high, or I’d bag up cocaine,” he tells news.com.au.
“I thought it was completely normal for a seven-year-old to be mixing heroin with a spoon.
“This was my reality.”
Now 40, the Sydney-based social media strategist, said deep down his younger self knew his reality was increasingly troubled. That his wellbeing wasn’t a priority for the people who drifted in and out of his house.
“Part of how I coped was bottling it all up. But it wasn’t normal to be on a first-name basis with police or for them to help you with your homework while they raided the house,” he said.
“At 10 years old I was standing between my mum and a man pleading with him to hit me rather than her,” says Craig, who came out as gay when he was a teenager.
Being gay added an extra layer to an already bleak youth.
At 15, how different his life was from his school mates began to really trouble him. A year later was his first suicide attempt.
Earlier this month, the NSW Government announced $500,000 worth of funding to LGBTI health organisation ACON to tackle suicide in the gay, trans and intersex communities.
According to the LGBTI National Health Alliance, the LGBTI community has the highest rates of suicide of any group in Australia, with 20 per cent of trans people and 15 per cent of gay people having seriously contemplated ending their life.
Last November, 13-year-old Queenslander Tyrone Unsworth took his own life following years of homophobic taunts.
“You feel you have nothing to add and no value to the world,” Craig says.
He says bullying was extreme during his formative years.
“Particularly with gay and trans kids, they feel they’re the abnormal ones, they fear isolation from friends and family, they’re subjected to bullying and that stress piles up.”
When he was 15, Craig went on a Christmas holiday to his uncle’s in Melbourne. He would never return to his childhood home.
He moved in permanently with his uncle, who brought stability, but the sudden change was too much.
“I was going to friends’ houses and seeing all this normalcy and it would send me down a hole.
I was listening to kids at school having a whinge about not getting on a horse riding team and it was all a clusterf**k of ‘this is too much’.
“And then, when I was 16, I called my mum on her birthday and she was like ‘who is this?”
“I said ‘Craig,’ and she said she didn’t know anyone by that name. That was a real breaking point.”
CONT -
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...p/news-story/4a38a09be13b0a43001c07783172d528
LIKE many kids, when he was young Craig Mack did a few odd jobs around the house. But his jobs were different to the usual.
“While most kids chores are to do the dishes, I would roll joints because the people in the house were too high, or I’d bag up cocaine,” he tells news.com.au.
“I thought it was completely normal for a seven-year-old to be mixing heroin with a spoon.
“This was my reality.”
Now 40, the Sydney-based social media strategist, said deep down his younger self knew his reality was increasingly troubled. That his wellbeing wasn’t a priority for the people who drifted in and out of his house.
“Part of how I coped was bottling it all up. But it wasn’t normal to be on a first-name basis with police or for them to help you with your homework while they raided the house,” he said.
“At 10 years old I was standing between my mum and a man pleading with him to hit me rather than her,” says Craig, who came out as gay when he was a teenager.
Being gay added an extra layer to an already bleak youth.
At 15, how different his life was from his school mates began to really trouble him. A year later was his first suicide attempt.
Earlier this month, the NSW Government announced $500,000 worth of funding to LGBTI health organisation ACON to tackle suicide in the gay, trans and intersex communities.
According to the LGBTI National Health Alliance, the LGBTI community has the highest rates of suicide of any group in Australia, with 20 per cent of trans people and 15 per cent of gay people having seriously contemplated ending their life.
Last November, 13-year-old Queenslander Tyrone Unsworth took his own life following years of homophobic taunts.
“You feel you have nothing to add and no value to the world,” Craig says.
He says bullying was extreme during his formative years.
“Particularly with gay and trans kids, they feel they’re the abnormal ones, they fear isolation from friends and family, they’re subjected to bullying and that stress piles up.”
When he was 15, Craig went on a Christmas holiday to his uncle’s in Melbourne. He would never return to his childhood home.
He moved in permanently with his uncle, who brought stability, but the sudden change was too much.
“I was going to friends’ houses and seeing all this normalcy and it would send me down a hole.
I was listening to kids at school having a whinge about not getting on a horse riding team and it was all a clusterf**k of ‘this is too much’.
“And then, when I was 16, I called my mum on her birthday and she was like ‘who is this?”
“I said ‘Craig,’ and she said she didn’t know anyone by that name. That was a real breaking point.”
CONT -
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...p/news-story/4a38a09be13b0a43001c07783172d528
