How Domestic Violence Affects Children.. #YouthStories

Last night a close friend asked me a very personal question to help with her uni work. She asked me- "how domestic violence had affected me from childhood up until my adult life"?
No one has ever asked me that before so I found it quite interesting. I answered and then I spent the whole night thinking about it and thinking, I am the founder of The Youth Life Project
, a charity that runs the campaign #YouthStories. I encourage young people to tell their stories, share their experiences of violence, bullying abuse etc., and yet I have experienced some of these things as a youth and have never spoken out about it. How can I expect and encourage people to write about their experiences when I have not done the same?

So I've made a decision. I am going to publish my answer to that question.
I'm not going to write a whole story about things that have happened to me as a child, I am just going to publish my answer to the question- 'how has domestic violence affected you'?

I'll admit that I'm feeling very anxious about it. What sort of reaction would it provoke? Most people I know wouldn't have a clue about my childhood, my family may not want me to talk openly about my mother experiencing domestic violence, (I have asked for her permission before I've gone ahead with this). It may come across attention seeking or even that I'm emotional. The worse affect would be if people felt sorry for me. Anyone that's friends with me would know I'd hate that.
I'm thinking, even if all that negativity did come of it, I'm sure maybe some positive would to?
If not at least I have done what I am encouraging others to do and tell their story (or an answer to a question in my case).

so here goes..

My answer-
"As a child, domestic violence affects you in many ways. I feel It affects your confidence mostly and weakens you as a person. It makes you feel insecure because as a child your mum is the strongest person in the world, your mum is an idol. So to see her being slowly broken down as a person, and demoralised, beaten, mentally abused on a daily basis, as a child you feel the affects of that too because in your eyes your mum is stronger than you and to see her go from a lively bubbly confident person to a weak, scared, emotional insecure person, you kind of feel the same too. Most children mimic the people they love, and are in tune with their emotions so their feelings have kind of a rebound affect on you. It also rocks your confidence and affects the way you socialise with people because its harder to interact or form relationships with other children when you're hiding a big secret and carrying loads of things emotionally. You can't be yourself, and you don't trust many people and sometimes envy other families.
As you get older and are in adolescence, its a crazy time. I felt angry at the world and just wanted to rebel. My mum left her abusive partner when I was a teen (14) so I felt a freedom that now I could finally do what I want because we're not controlled anymore, but I took that too far and went off the rails. I also got into a lot of fights with men and was easily provoked because as soon as a male made me feel intimidated or scared in an argument or fight I would lash out and would not stop until I had gotten the better of them, and worse of all was that it made me feel good.

Later on in adult life, there are positives because it makes you a stronger person and a better parent in the sense you know you will never let any harm come to your children, you'll never let them have any sort of life you have had. You treat people better and are more caring because of what you've seen as a child and I always make sure I tell my friends when they look good and are doing good because I want them to feel confident and never insecure like we was made to feel.
The negative for me though is that I find it hard to keep a relationship because as soon as someone does me wrong I take it really hard and personal and feel like I have to exit the relationship because I won't have my children put through any arguing etc., Where in fact I probably should try harder to work at it. I think I just get really scared I'm going to be like my mum and I've grown up striving to be the opposite (my mum's a legend. I mean be opposite as in not allow anyone to treat me or my children bad).

Domestic violence has affected me emotionally and mostly with trust issues but it has made me a stronger person, a better parent and I do find it easier to have empathy for adults or children experiencing the same. It's also made me very protective of the people I care about and I have really good morals that I always stand by.

As a child I also experienced many other forms of abuse, so maybe my experience of domestic violence may not be the same as others because I experienced other things alongside it.
So now I'm asking- How has it affected YOU?

If you have experienced domestic violence and would too would like to join in the #YouthStories campaign and publish your real life experience of how abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse, bullying, rape, obesity, illness or poverty has affected you as a child or teen and may still affect you in adult life. Please email danielletylp@gmail.com  with your story, and suitable ones will be published to the blog. By doing this you are encouraging others to speak up and you are letting people that have been affected by any of the above know they are not alone.

The most important point I must make is that yes, my childhood was bad but I've gone on to have 2 amazing children who are raised beautifully in a loving home full of fun and happiness, I run a wonderful charity and use my bad experiences to help others, I have amazing friends and family and I consider my life to be pretty awesome and definitely full of lots of love and positivity.
The point being- Never let your past rule your future and never let the bad people win!

If you have Facebook then please visit The Youth Life Project Facebook page, you can also follow us on Twitter

The Effects Of Cyber Bullying #YouthStories

As part of our 'Youth Stories' campaign, we will be posting real life testimonials from youths that have suffered at the hands of bullies, fallen victim to knife crime, street crime, abuse etc.
The first story in are series features a testimonial from TYLP's trustee Carney Bonner, written in his own words to raise awareness on cyber bullying.

Carney
I’m Carney Bonner and I run a charity called is called ‘Keeping it Safe Online’. Which is part of my charity called The Carney Charles Foundation I want to tell you my story about how Cyber Bullying affected me.
I am a friend, a best friend, a brother and a son. When I was 14 I fell victim to one of the worse possible form of bullying-cyber bullying and it is something that can affect everyone
I spent a year of my life being bullied, it knocked my self confidence.
I became quiet and never spoke to anyone.
I didn’t know who to turn or what to do
When people are telling you – you are nothing – you should die – no one wants you around –
You feel responsible
I started to self harm because I had people saying to me that I was nothing and I should kill myself.
I’m not looking for people to feel sorry for me. I made a come-back ,  I told a school councillor. She helped me re build my self esteem- and now I want to help others who are going through the same.
That is why I started my campaign
What is cyber bullying
The latest figures from Beatbullying show that nearly one-in-three 11-16 year olds has been targeted, threatened or humiliated on their mobile phone or the internet.
This means- it can happen to anyone,  but what does Cyber Bullying actually mean?
Cyber bullying can be texting someone a horrible text, sending abuse on Msn, or taunting people on Facebook.
people who do this may think it’s a bit of harmless fun but it actually destroys lives.
Keeping it safe online is trying to stop the problems of cyber bullying and make a stand together to show people that cyber bullying is not acceptable.
Bullying is bullying at the end of the day and just because people can't see their victim doesn't mean that it doesn’t hurt.
So what should you do if someone is bullying you online
First Take Action
Second ‘Report, Don’t retaliate’- it will only encourage the bully
How to Report bullying
You can report bullying online and in the real world.
I felt embarrassed about being the victim of bullying- but shouldn’t have. It can happen to anybody. In the end I turned to a school councillor who helped me, but you can turn to anyone that you trust, mum and dad, guardians, youth workers, teachers, older brothers or sisters.
I’ve put the ‘report’ links below for Facebook, twitter, msn, Bebo, youtube,

• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/report#!/help/?page=843
• MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=help.reportabuse
• YouTube: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/request.py?contact_type=contact_us
• Bebo: hhttp://www.bebo.com/Safety.jsp
• Twitter    http://support.twitter.com/
• MSN http://help.uk.msn.com/windowslivehotmail/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4374062

There are also places to go online for help. Beat bullying run a cyber mentors scheme. They’ve got  trained Cyber mentors online between 7.30 am til late. So there is always someone you can talk to.

Check out

• www.Cybermentors.org.uk

Finally You can ‘Block the bullies’, and always make sure you keep the evidence
For example on facebook you can block anyone that you don’t want to contact you.
If you are receiving emails or messages. Don’t Delete them, move them to a separate folder as evidence and better still print them out.
Also always make sure your details are on private-that way no-one can reach you or contact you. If you don’t want them to.
It is well worth your while spending some time doing this.
Keep it safe online
You can also contact me and my team and we can remind of anything you need to know,
Go to my battlefront page battlefront.co.uk/carney and you LIKE the facebook, follow me on twitter and Subscribe to my youtube to keep up to date and in contact. Or email us on keepingitsafeonline@gmail.com
I didn’t know what to do or who to turn to when I was being cyber bullied. And for a time it ruined my life but I got help but now I feel stronger.
I want to help others who are going through what I went through. Together we can Keep it safe online.

TYLP's anti-bullying track

Two local MC's have kindly recorded an anti-bullying track for The Youth Life Project to help highlight the seriousness and the implications of bullying. Grim Sickers and Zeeks paired up to create an urban sound specifically aimed at young adults.

Not only have they donated their time to record this for TYLP, but they have also offered to create a video to accompany the track and came up with the great idea of getting the young people involved in making it.

whether this be your music genre or not, I feel the track is great and the lyrics not only bring home the serious nature of bullying, but also highlight the different types off bullying too.

Grim Sickers & Zeeks - Change The Cycle

If you want to know more about or would like to hear more music from Grim Sickers, then hit the links below:

Grim's official Facebook page

Grim Sickers official Youtube channel