Words by Joe Bakhmoutski | Photo by Hani Amir
I’m sitting on a chair on the stage at Cube 37, a microphone resting in my hands. The documentary has just finished. The lights come up.
And suddenly I am aware of everything: the 70 or so people seated in the amphitheatre around us. The stage lights hitting my face. My sweaty palms. My dry throat. In a few moments, the Q&A will begin.
And suddenly, it hits me. Tonight, in front of my own community in Frankston, I won’t just be speaking as a theatre maker or a wellbeing facilitator; I will be speaking as a survivor, as someone who experienced sexual abuse as a child.
For a moment that feels terrifying, almost as though I’m going to be found out. Then I remember why I’m here. And I look around the room.
There’s Ken and Jason from Frankston City Council, who believed in this event from day one. There’s Ace from Left Write Hook; we have written, boxed and shared space together. Beside me sits Donna Lyon, who began Left Write Hook as a grassroots idea that grew into an award-winning documentary and a powerful movement. Next to her is my friend Daniel, a clinical psychologist who will co-facilitate this next chapter with me.
And I realise something important: I’m not here alone. Actually, none of us are.
That has become one of the greatest lessons in my own healing journey. Trauma can make it feel as though you are bearing a great weight alone. It can tell you that asking for help is a weakness, that people will laugh at you, judge you, that your story is too much, and that nobody could possibly understand.
But healing has taught me the opposite. Healing happens when we are with others. It happens when we find people who can stand beside us without trying to fix us or make us stop talking. When we write, move, laugh and reflect together, we begin to reconnect with the parts of ourselves buried underneath all the noise, survival and isolation.
That is exactly why we are launching the first fully run men’s Left Write Hook program here in Frankston. It will be the first Left Write Hook program run by men for men who are survivors. Across eight weeks, participants will come together for writing, non-contact boxing and peer connection.
During the first hour, the group will write in response to creative prompts. This offers men a way to explore their experiences, thoughts and feelings in a non-judgmental space. Nobody has to be an experienced writer, and nobody is forced to share anything they are not ready to share.
During the second hour, the group will learn the art of non-contact boxing. The boxing creates a way to reconnect with the body and to locate and express healthy aggression safely.
Holding both parts together is peer connection: being alongside other men who understand something of what it means to carry difficult experiences, often in silence.
The program will create a space where men don’t have to be a certain way, pretend to be OK or tell their entire life story. It is an opportunity to take that next step forward with the people who get it, people who understand what it is like to want life to feel a little lighter.
Watching the documentary that evening reminded me of something simple but profound: every person who shared their story did so because someone else had first held the door open for them. And now it is our turn.
If this program becomes that open door for even one person – if someone walks away feeling a little lighter, a little more hopeful and a little less alone – then every moment of nerves, every difficult conversation and every step that brought us here will have been worth it.
Because hope grows when our joys and struggles are shared.
And none of us were ever meant to carry this much on our own.
• The Left Write Hook Frankston men’s program will begin in mid-October; expressions of interest here or email mensprograms@leftwritehook.org
