Trial: Oscar tells how supportive his mom was

"She didn't ever want me to see my disability as something that should hold me back," said the double amputee who went on to compete in the Olympic Games.

Oscar Pistorius's mother was very supportive, the paralympian testified in his murder trial in the High Court in Pretoria on Monday.

"She didn't ever want me to see my disability as something that should hold me back," said the double amputee who went on to compete in the Olympic Games.

She allowed him to pursue sports, and if he fell she allowed him to get up for himself.

He went to primary school on the West Rand. In primary school, the prosthetic legs he had were very heavy and did not allow him to be as mobile.

"It was difficult," he said.

He encountered some teasing and bullying for the first time, after growing up to think he was like everyone else.

"I had grown up not thinking I was any different," he said.

He was bullied and pushed around a few times and his parents told him to stand up for himself.

"My family always believed in standing up for yourself and standing up for what you believe in. We were taught that you have got to cope."

He related a story of how mother stood up for him when he stood up to a bully who had pulled his buttons off his shirt.

His mother also had her own pistol, which she kept under her pillow, for safety.

She died when he was 15 years old.

"Everything we learnt from life I learn from her."

Pistorius has been charged with the murder of Steenkamp and contraventions of the Firearms Control Act.

He said he thought there was an intruder in his house when he shot and killed Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day through the door of a toilet in his Pretoria house last year. She had been spending the night.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

On September 30, 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.