Thank you for your support

A massive thank you to all your support on my last post about the homophobic abuse suffered by my hubby and I, both here and over on my facebook profile! It's awesome to have so many of you agreeing that I did the right thing.

I'm beginning to believe it. So far, the kids are staying away.

Homophobic Abuse In My Own Home

Tonight my partner and I suffered homophobic abuse in our own home. And I handled the whole thing so badly.

We live in an apartment block, renting a ground floor apartment in a block shared with 17 others. Recently the teenagers in our area have decided that hanging round in our carpark isn't cool enough, and through the use of slender wrists through the buildings letterbox manage to break in every evening and hold a gang meeting in our Hallway. They're kids mostly, kid's with nothing better to do than Invade our property to get out of the rain. And as it turns out, nothing better to do than shout abuse at my partner and I whenever we try to enter and exit our home.

It's not even like they're particularly creative. We've been called Batty boys, faggots, and been told that we 'like it up the shitter.' But it's abuse, pure and simple. I try to ignore it, but it annoys me, and it upsets Dan. These kids ve no right to be in my home and no right to make me or my partner afraid to walk out our own front door.

Tonight I exploded at them. I told them to get the fuck out of my house.

"If you're not gone in ten minutes I'll be reporting you for trespassing.
"It's not your house. And my mate lives here, he invited me in."
"Then go to your mates flat!" Dan said, to them. Surprisingly he seemed calmer than me. I was so angry. All I could think of was how much they'd annoyed me.
"Fine," I'm yelling at them now, "then I'll report you for Homophobic Abuse. Take your pick."
"Report us for what?" One of them said. He can't have been more than about 13.
I ignored them and turned to walk back to the flat. The kid started to follow me, panicking.
"What do you mean. What did we say?"
I walked into the flat, held the door open and turned to face them. They knew where I lived now. What the hell had I done? But then, the kid who followed me looked genuinely concerned. Maybe I'd scared them. I'd threatened to report him, he was trying to talk his way out of trouble. For a moment though, I wondered if he truly even understand what him and his friends had done to upset me.
"You were there!" I snap at him, "You know what you said." And I closed the door, fumbling to lock it in case they tried to get in.

10 minutes later I went to look again, and all of them had gone.

But here's the thing. I did it all wrong. They're Kids. Just Kids. Kids with nothing better to do than sit in places they have no right to be and hurl meaningless abuse. They can't possibly understand the hurt and the pain they caused or how much they scared Dan. Why couldn't I have told them that? Why couldn't I have tried to stay calm, reasonable, maybe even educate them a little. Why couldn't I at least have just ignored them, maybe that way they still wouldn't know where I live now...

I got it all wrong. I saw red and just shouted and yelled and gave them a reason to hate me. Now I don't know what I'll do next time I have to walk past them. Because they will be there again, at the very least they'll still be in the carpark next to my house. They're not just going to go away and now I've given them a reason to single me out and make things worse for me and Dan. Especially Dan. I'm so worried I've made things worse for him.

How can I fix this? Any advice would be welcome.