By Joe Bakhmoutski
Four years ago, when the war in Ukraine began, something shifted inside me. I watched the news every day. But for me, it was more than the place I grew up in. It was old hurt coming up in the ways I hadn’t expected. I found it harder to be with my family. I found it so hard to focus, to enjoy simple moments.
Around that time, I met Dr Donna Lyon, a senior academic at the University of Melbourne, and found Left Write Hook. It changed something for me. For the first time I could name it: it was abuse, and I was only a child. And something Donna told me stirred something in me: “You are a survivor.”
That was not easy to say, but it gave me power, a new way of being. For too long I carried the shame, and it built up a great wall between me and others. But bringing it out in the open gave me a new sense of who I am. Left Write Hook helped me understand I wasn’t broken and I’m not alone.
In Australia, one in three women and one in five men have experienced child sexual abuse. Those numbers are confronting, but what struck me most was the human reality behind them. So many people are carrying this hurt, alone and unseen.
Left Write Hook is an eight-week, research-informed program for survivors that combines creative writing, sharing, and non-contact boxing. Being part of the pilot men’s program was something unique. Just being in a room with other male survivors, I felt powerful. We wrote about trauma, memory, anger, grief and hope. Then we moved it through the body with boxing. It wasn’t to fight, but to come back to ourselves.
And that combination of words and movement helped me reconnect with parts of myself I thought had been lost. I felt part of a community in a way that was honest, safe, real, and deeply human.
Left Write Hook has grown into a movement that is changing lives across Victoria and beyond. The program became the subject of the multi-award-winning documentary Left Write Hook.
As a Frankston local, it means a great deal to now be helping bring this work into our own community. On Thursday, June 25, Frankston Arts Centre and Left Write Hook will host a free screening of the documentary at Cube 37, followed by a live Q&A.
Even more importantly, Left Write Hook’s first Frankston men’s program begins this August. It will also be the first Left Write Hook men’s program run by men. I’m proud and humbled to be co-facilitating it alongside another male survivor.
So if you’re a man who’s been through child sexual abuse, or you love someone who has, know this: you’re never alone. We’re here, we’re with you. And you’re a survivor.
To book a free ticket for the screening, scan the QR code or visit the FAC’s event page.
For more information about Frankston’s Left Write Hook program, email mensprograms@leftwritehook.org
