My aunt, my safety net

Aunty Mary was my safety net. She was me and my brothers' safety net. So, we would go to her when it became too much. We would talk to her and whatnot. She would be our sort of protector-type thing. I don’t know if she voiced anything to mum and dad.

We always knew when we went to her that we would be fine. We didn’t have to worry about anything.

One thing that Aunty Mary also talked about was breaking the cycle. She was quite a philosophical lady, a real logical lady. She could have been a therapist. We talked about anything and everything under the sun.

She would talk about wanting to break the cycle. I think at a young age that really stuck.

Things could have gone a lot worse. So I do acknowledge that choices were made that instead of going down the wonky path I sort of stayed in my lane-type thing.

I think I’m a bit head strong, and if I know she’s doing something stupid I’ll call her out on it, and she’s the type of person, “well, I’m going to do it anyway”. I think we have come along a lot, and I don’t feel unsafe anymore. I don’t feel angry, yeah. It could have been a lot worse.