If things had turned out the way I intended on that bleak afternoon in my teens, when I collapsed on the bathroom floor, I would not have lived past 14.
After another horrible day in the endless hell that was my adolescence, which saw me mercilessly tormented by the kids at my football-mad boys’ school, in a small town in the Queensland region at the end of the decade By 1990, it had reached the breaking point.
Someone had written a graphic love letter to the school’s NRL star, signed my name, and passed it around the room. The teacher read it out loud, word for word, and then pointed at me.
What was left of my miserable world collapsed at that moment. And so, once home, completely hysterical, knowing that things would get a lot worse if I ever went back to that school, I decided to kill myself.
Fate intervened and I survived, thank God.
I’ve thought about that painful day from time to time in the years since, but these last few weeks, I’ve had to face my dark past head-on every day.
A stage production has been put on about that horrible moment and the year it was in: my fourteenth year of life.
And so every night a couple of hundred people enter the Queensland Center for the Performing Arts to see a brilliant young actor named Conor Leachwho bears an uncanny resemblance to my teenage self, plays that afternoon.
It amazes me how familiar everything feels, even after all this time.
The purple hue of sunset filling the bathroom. The muffled howl escaping from Conor’s throat. Tears streamed down his young face.
Fourteen, playing as part of the Brisbane Festival, is an adaptation of the book of the same name that I wrote in 2020.
I thought I had gotten over most of the trauma of my upbringing after writing it all down, I spoke endlessly about that chapter of my life at festivals, book clubs, meetups, and interviews.
But seeing my 80,000+ words jump off the page and come to life in such detail has been quite a confronting experience.
Seeing that scared, confused and utterly defeated kid looking at me, screaming in despair as he comes dangerously close to end it all… well, if a picture is worth a thousand words, this work screams about a million of them.
A glowing review of the show last week described it as a ‘period piece’…and after nursing the bruise of my aging ego, I realized the writer was right.
So much time has passed since the 90s and so much progress has been made. We are a more tolerant and inclusive society and queer people like me finally have freedoms that queer people could only have once dreamed of.
We’ve come so far… haven’t we?
I have spoken in many schools about my book and most of the children are horrified by what they hear from my experience, unable to imagine it today.
But we know from the statistics that gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are six times more likely to try suicide than their heterosexual counterparts.
For trans kids, it’s nearly double that number.
School remains an unwelcoming and unsafe place for many children, whoever they really are, and if that data is any guide, far too many are unsupported and go to dark and dangerous places.
I remember the tragic story of Tyronne Unsworth, a 13-year-old from Brisbane who endured a bullying hell similar to mine.
No help was found anywhere, despite alarming warning signs and cases of violence that were ignored. She took her own life in late 2016.
The regions and outer suburbs are hotbeds of intolerance and misunderstanding, where it is dangerous to be anything other than the norm.
And yet, anti-bullying programs designed to help are weaponized by political ideologues until ultimately scrapped. Safe Schools, anyone?
A young man I follow on Instagram was beaten last week by a group of thugs while walking down Oxford Street, the gayest street in Australia and what should be the safest.
It happens all the time, I can think of half a dozen cases in the last year or so, but we don’t really hear about it anymore.
We’ve come so far, we tell ourselves. The fight is over: same-sex couples can marry and start families, so what’s left? Queer or not, the world is within everyone’s reach now.
Except, that is, for the 69 countries where it’s illegal to be gay, and the 11 that punish those caught in same-sex relationships with execution.
And of course, many are the kind of nations one would expect to have such a law, like Somalia or Afghanistan.
But in a few months, the FIFA World Cup will be held in Qatar, where men like me may be jailed, tortured and executed. And yet, a global sport that regularly slaps a rainbow on its brand is happy to host its multi-million dollar event there.
When my family and I get on a plane to Europe, we have to choose a service that avoids stopovers in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, where homosexuality is also illegal, but where Qantas, whose boss is a proud gay man, is happy to do business .
Perhaps the fear and uncertainty that so many young people still feel, pushing them into dark places, is not just about the schools they attend or the towns they live in, but about the dangers they see in the world.
The horrible debates in parliaments across the country. The nasty words said and written by the commentators. The atrocities committed worldwide. The push to overturn same-sex marriage in America. Violence is still perpetrated here at home.
It is UK OK Day today, and this is an important initiative to reduce the stigma that still surrounds mental health issues, to encourage people to speak up when they need to, and their partners and loved ones to do so safely.
It’s cool and it makes an impact, for sure, but along with days like these, I think we need to pause and reflect on how far we’ve really come.
And we must think about how far we still have to go, together, as one community, united, no matter who we are, so that everyone feels valued, included and safe.
I am living proof that things get better and that the darkest day, week, month or year, in my case, does not last forever.
The play about my life is an illustration of how a little love and a little kindness can instill hope in struggling youth, encouraging them to keep going and keep fighting.
But in the end, when they survive and thrive, we must work together to make the world they become a better place.
If you need help, contact Lifeline, 13 11 14, Beyond Blue, 1300, 22 4636, or the Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467.
Shannon Molloy is a journalist and the best-selling author of the memoir Fourteen. A stage production of Fourteen is now running at the Queensland Center for the Performing Arts as part of the Brisbane Festival. Tickets are available at qpac.com.au
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