For Those Who’ve Been Silenced: My Story and Why This Space Exists By Fabienne

I think it only fair as the creator of Yungblud Rebels to share my own story. I hope it will provide some comfort in knowing you’re not alone. I’ll do my best to not make it ten pages long…

As a young kid until I left high school I was bullied. Bullied in kindergarten for speaking French at home, en endless taunts of “comment tu t’appelle” (what’s your name?) still resonate in my mind. In other grades it was mostly for being a redhead and not being able to afford brand clothing. Even later on because I wasn’t allowed to go out.

I was called every name under the sun, tripped, kicked in the genitals, gum spat in my hair, head smacked against a window that luckily didn’t break, abused verbally and mentally. By peers. The teachers devised their own clever way of mental games. Being told I was a little miss know-it-all because I once corrected my biology teacher as she had made a glaring mistake. Was told I was a liar and a cheat because I usually failed all things math but one time I figured out a correct answer and I was proud but the teacher told me I copied it from the other class who had the same homework. I never bothered again after that and kept failing all math tests. That was how my school years went by, to scared to stand up for myself. A teacher once asked the class why they bullied me, a boy said “because it gives me a real kick to do that.”

Was it any better at home? No, not even close, not when your own mother is your first bully. From pretending I did not exist and having endless screaming matches with my father, the only family I found was on TV, like in Full House or friends on a show like Saved by the Bell.

Did it improve with age? No, my mother told me it was about time I dropped dead when I was 16 and that she wished she never had me.

My father you ask? Never told me he loved me all of my life, then he passed 2 years ago. I went to all his doctor appointments, paid all the bills, the funeral, everything. After that I found a letter written by him when I was still a baby stating that he couldn’t help it but that he just didn’t feel any love for me…

There are years of misery sprinkled throughout, deep desires to end it all.

I think I will skip the boyfriends chapter, let’s just say my first experience was an unwilling and unwanted one. Then came a few others who saw it fit to mentally anguish me. Until I stopped dating completely and have done so for a number of years now.

In 2018 I was working in an office where Studio Brussels played all day, I caught the song “I love you will you marry me” several times a day for a few weeks… it never occurred to me to look up the singer…in 2022 another job with a radio, there I caught “The Emperor” several times…. Didn’t ring much of a bell.

In march this year I was scrolling through TikTok and saw a video of a young man with spikey hair hiding behind a wall to surprise some fans… looked at the name… Yungblud… hmm…scroll on, over the next weeks and months I regularly saw videos of him but just scrolled by… until some time in July I decided to finally listen to a song… Lowlife… I was hooked… then Parents, Tissues and everything else. I ended up listening for hours daily, joined a Facebook group and started to post a LOT, I was then made moderator. I discovered everything about the BHC and that there were many others just like me out there.

In august I got the chance to meet Dom at the booksigning in London. It was magickal, he felt so safe and so protective, I never knew it was possible to feel that way with a man. His hug was divine, and I felt seen for the first time in years.

In September I met up with a gang of BHC members that became friends. Friends I’d never had before.

Now it’s almost December 2024, I have created this website to give people a voice when they were silenced. I have an instagram, a tiktok and an own facebook group. I am organising a Belgian meetup for next year with a new friend and have plans and ideas a plenty! I came from very far, lived through the harshest things you can imagine but thanks to Dom, I have hope. A hope for a future, for friends, for new plans and projects.

 

Thank you Dom for everything, I will love you always.

Thank you BHC for being my friends and for letting me help you get your voice out. I hope anyone reading this will feel compelled to join in and share their own stories.

Fabienne xx