Please Help: "Audience" usage
I want to write "My whole life, I have been audience to a..." Does that make sense? Should I instead write "been the audience to..." or "been an audience to..." Am I using this correctly? Thank you. People commonly say "given audience to" so I feel like it should work.
Using "been witness to" is closer to what you want to say. You can also say "I have had to witness" or "I have had to watch/listent to/put up with/suffer..."