Shannon Molloy tried to kill himself when he was 14.

Twenty years ago, he was in year 8 in an all-boys Catholic school in the small Queensland town of Yeppoon, where he and his older siblings - three boys and one girl - lived with their divorced mother.

His family was nominally Catholic: he attended the school because it was regarded as better than the state alternative. But it had a heavily masculine, rugby-mad culture and the skinny, unathletic, artistic and effeminate Molloy was an outsider.

Worse, Molloy was still trying to deal with his emerging homosexuality - he had always felt "different" but had not yet come out - and was a target for relentless bullying.

The first year of high school was rough enough, he says. And it hurt when a close friend dumped him, with seeming regret, as a liability in the new culture.

But it turned out his tormentors were just warming up.

Year 8, he says, was "downright horrific": the physical and mental torture was ramped up. Not only did teachers not seem to notice or care enough to do anything to stop it, but in his shame and guilt and self-hatred he felt almost as though he deserved what he got.

The crisis point came in June, when a classmate forged a note in his name graphically proclaiming sexual interest in another boy. Not only was the note passed around but it was given to the teacher, who read it aloud with disgust.

After school that day, Molloy endured yet another round of violent verbal and physical abuse. He went home and, with nobody else around, he sat on the bathtub with a razor blade. And then there was blood.

This is the nadir of the year Molloy, 34, recounts, month by month, in his book Fourteen: a memoir.

"It still haunts me a little bit - it's the lowest I've ever felt."

Molloy, a senior writer for NewsCorp, says the inspiration for the book "came out of the awful debate about Safe Schools" - one MP said the program was a ploy for gay men to groom children.

"I was so upset by that," he says.

And if he - a "relatively well-adjusted" 30-year-old gay man with a happy professional and personal life - could be so deeply affected, he could only imagine how devastating it would have been for the scared, brutalised 14-year-old boy he had been - and his latterday equivalents.

In response, he wrote about the importance of the Safe Schools program and what had happened to him that terrible June day, "a really personal opinion piece.

"It was the first time I'd ever told that story or spoken about that sort of thing".

His piece received a big run and a lot of positive response. What really touched him about the reactions to his article was hearing from "four or five mothers of boys just like me who didn't survive - they took their own lives".

He decided to write more about that period in his life, hoping it would help people in similar situations to persevere knowing things would get better.

Molloy sent the June chapter as a sample to a publisher and was encouraged to continue, receiving a lot of help from his editor to make the book as good as it could be.

"We did this exercise called 'pocket lint' - describe what it feels like to find an old movie stub in your washing. What movie did you see?"

This and other exercises helped Molloy remember details that fleshed out the narrative and the people in it. Although the positive people in his life remained unchanged, names and identifying details of others were altered.

While he endured a lot of pain in his 14^th year - including a devastating betrayal by one young man and another attempting a sexual assault on him at school - he also had some fonder memories, particularly the time spent hanging out with three close female friends - smoking, listening to music, and having a good time.

"They knew I was 'bi' - I was easing my way into it.

"They were a huge part of how I got through that awful year."

There were also small acts of kindness from sometime unexpected quarters. And his family, while not knowing all that was going on, were there for him. One of his older brothers, who was also at the school, did what he could to help.. And his mother, who ran her own hairdressing salon, was his rock.

One thing that also helped Molloy, in more ways than one, was going on an international student exchange program the following year to a town in Connecticut.

He loved his host family and going to his new school, a larger, more welcoming and inclusive place than the one he had experienced. There were plenty of extracurricular activities including a gay-straight alliance. Molloy felt safe and accepted. He travelled and had his first romance, "a summer fling".

From the US, he also came out to his mother and the rest of his family in a letter: he had feared they would reject him but he was happy and relieved it didn't happen.

He came back changed for the better, much more self-confident and knowing he deserved better than he had been getting.

He and his mother moved to Rockhampton but at his new co-ed Catholic school there was still bullying - verbal and emotional but not physical.

This time, Molloy pushed back. Although he repeatedly complained to the principal, the response was not encouraging. He finished secondary school through TAFE.

Molloy says, "There was never a doubt in my mind" where his career would go: from an early age he loved to write fiction and non-fiction, started a newspaper of his own with a second-hand typewriter from his mother and wrote for online publication.

He studied journalism at university and, despite the occasional venture into politics and PR, has remained and thrived in it.

Molloy and his husband, Robert Battisti, were married in New Zealand in 2018 and live with their dog Bard, a Norwegian Elkhound, in Sydney.

Things have, Molloy says, improved in Australia for gays and lesbians since he was 14.

Just five years ago he never imagined that marriage equality could happen.

But things are far from perfect and for him, the pain from his adolescence lingers.

Molloy says, "I still have a very complicated relationship with faith."

When he was young, he says, "I believed in God, loved God and wanted a place."

He remains a Catholic but has toyed with the idea of removing himself because the Church doesn't seem to want him.

At the time of the marriage equality debate, senior clerical figures were actively supporting the No side.

"It was clear to me I was not welcome in the Church."

But Molloy says he learned a lot of good lessons from his faith - "compassion, understanding, charity.

"I used to do every charity event around - skipathons, walkathons ...It's still a really big part of my life."

The community spirit aspect of faith still resonates with him and he participates in one big charity event a year.

Molloy says, "I hope society is becoming more compassionate and more understanding that people being different doesn't define who are we as people - our character does."

Lifeline: 131114