Honest and Raw

The abuser was my ex partner at It all happened at the home we previously shared. I struggled with drug addiction on and off after finding my older Brother had committed suicide. He had been dead for two weeks, laying alone in his unit before being found. This happened the year after losing my two closest friends (previously a couple) to suicide also, so from this point on I was very very vulnerable.

I was a single mum to a little girl, I was lonely, broken and dreamt of giving her a proper family with a mummy and a daddy living in the same house. He obviously saw my weakness and vulnerability but when I met him, he was so nice and best of all he accepted my child and before I knew it I got into a relationship with him. Everything was amazing for ages. He was so loving and supportive and then all hell broke loose. By the end when I finally left him, I was suffering from extreme panic and anxiety and complex ptsd because of the severity of the domestic violence I was subjected to in our relationship.

After years of abuse, broken bones, beatings, financial and emotional control/warfare and him holding my children almost as hostages to ensure I’d come back if I ever needed to go to the mainland, I was finally able to break up with him. I was only able to do this because I had my daughters father come and stay to keep us safe but whenever my ex heard that the kids and I where home alone he would wait until a time he’d assume me to fall asleep or there was no noise in the house anymore and scale up and over the back verandah and break in through the massive sliding glass windows and come down to my bedroom. He would have sex with me while I was asleep, I was heavily medicated for my mental health conditions and the difficulty I had sleeping because without solid sleep, it only made the days and my anxiety worse. I would have no recollection of the incidents at the time. I would wake up confused, with my Pants removed, then I found seminal fluid and it was evident I’d had sexual intercourse. I was covered with bruises and marks on my upper thighs and arms and I felt so ashamed and violated and it made my depression worse.

I didn’t tell Anyone because I thought they’d think I was dirty or trying to cover up having make up sex with my ex or they’d just say l losing it and they’d probably tell him and then it would only make him get worse. I set up a home security system and caught him upwards of 35 times coming and going from my house around 3am -530am often leaving with property of mine under his arm that he’d stolen whilst inside my house. I changed the locks multiple times, put dowl in all the windows and locked myself in as much as possible but being such an old house he’d always somehow still manage to get in.

I would go to bed fully dressed in pyjamas or my clothes from the previous day and yet I’d wake up with my underwear and bottom half removed and laying on the floor. I even started wearing multiple layers of clothes to make it harder for him to sexually assault me but the medication had me in such a drugged out state I didn’t stand a chance of holding him off.

One day I confronted him about it and he said I was his so he could do to me whatever he liked. He said I should be thanking him for putting in such a good effort that not everyone gets that level of service. He thought it was very funny and joked about me being heavily medicated and not being able to get to sleep without the meds so how was I ever going to stop him getting what he wants. He was an intravenous drug user and was always sleeping with lots of women even throughout our relationship and I was so concerned about him giving me an std. I was terrified of him.

He had kept me hostage many times screaming at all hours and physically assaulting me and no one would ever help me. The neighbours pretended it didn’t happen. I even moved out and left him to live at this house and paid the rent still for over 6 months and stayed with a friend because he was easier to manage at first when surrounded by people in the beginning of his violent outbursts. In time it no longer mattered if their where witnesses or not, he would just attack me in front of anyone, adult or child, so I moved back to my house because nothing stopped him anymore and at least at my own house my kids had their own space and their own toys etc.

He tried to stab me with a dirty syringe and ultimately Once I’d ended the relationship and removed all his property from the house he then came back and bashed me with a metal pole out the front of my home. He attended my house saying he was coming to steal my son. he had been in his life since birth so he had assumed the father role and loved playing god with him. He didn’t come for my son that day, he knew he was at daycare, he came armed with a metal pole and his new mrs. He was psychotic and she was almost impressed by his tough guy act. He hit me so hard it ruptured both of my breast implants. He was yelling So loud this day to the neighbours across the street to turn off their cameras cause he was going to kill me and didn’t want to be caught on their footage. Luckily there was a delivery truck dropping off building supplies in the street on this particular day and he must’ve rung the police and that’s the first time anyone helped me because the police came and put a domestic violence order in place.

If I’d rung the police he probably would’ve killed me for being a dog, he always threatened that. Sometimes when he was raping me I’d pretend to still be asleep so it would be over more quickly and he’d be talking to himself and saying stuff like ‘go on ring the cops you dog I’ll Fuck you so hard you’ll bleed to death’.

I was arrested in 2018 and went to jail for drug trafficking, I had to do what I did to keep him high and happy because it kept me alive. My drug use was only ever just to numb my trauma. I got clean from drugs in prison, dealt with being separated from my kids and was released in late 2018. I did a lot of work on myself and the things that lead to my drug addiction and my risky behaviour. I have secured housing, Beem sentenced and am on parole now and my children and I are doing the best we can each and every day.

Inside me though was still this secret that I’d never told anybody. I’ve explained some things to my family about the violence but never the sexual assaults. But I needed to tell someone about it, I needed to release myself from my past. I’m still scared of him, he lives very close to my mum so Ive chosen not to formally have him charged for fear of repercussions, harassment and him flipping out and potentially not bringing my son back to my mum after his visits. My mum facilitates this process when the children visit her out where she lives.

He was sexually assaluted by an uncle as a child and he sees that as the ultimate power to have over someone because his uncle had complete power over him and still does. BecAuse I broke up with him because of the violence, my punishment for that was the sexual assault. It was a way for him to gain control of my mind again after me getting a little bit of power back and ending the relationship.

I take responsibility for my mistakes in life, I’ve gone to great lengths to address my demons in order to move forward, clean and sober but never does any woman or man deserve to be bashed, abused emotionally mentally or physically or sexually assaulted, I believe that his addiction lead more quickly to his episodes because when he was clean and sober in our relationship the first year or more he was never abusive or violent. Bit I also believe it was inside him the entire time.

As I discussed in my earlier post, I have severe medical issues from the physical assault and am in constant pain. I also struggle sexually to have any sort of intimacy because of the damage he’s done to my body and my mind.

I couldn’t risk charging him because he will immediately go on the attack because he’s been very conscious of still protecting his image or rebuilding his image in the small community where he still lives. He works within the community and church groups so for me to compromise this for him, he would leave no stone Unturned and find my children and I. I don’t want to go back to living like that.

My children have suffered enough and no longer live in constant fear and nothing is worth jeopardising that for them.

I needed to address this and then set myself free of his power. However for myself the risk of harm and even death to be honest, far outways any outcome I could ever seek in a courtroom. The counselling and the dv work I’ve done in and out of jail has empowered me to speak out and to put actual words to the putrid things that where done to me and then to try to move forward as best I can. I don’t need a piece of paper or a judge to find him guilty. I know he’s guilty, he knows he is guilty and he has to live with that but now that I’m so far out of his reach and im not always looking over my shoulder in fear, I don’t ever want to let any man have that power again. I no longer need to pretend it didn’t happen. It did happen, there was absolutely no consent. He sexually assaulted me, he raped me repeatedly while I was asleep and no one deserves to be treated like that.

My story

I wake up at night having had nightmares, night sweats, I wake up feeling like I’m having a heart attack. I struggle to breathe as if someone is sitting on my chest and I have tears streaming down my face like I’ve been crying for months on end. When I was in my twenties I never felt like a woman. I felt so insecure in my own body, I didn’t feel feminine I felt inadequate and I had no confidence. I had a man who loved me, great friends and good job and a great life but when I looked in the Mirror I hated what I saw. I decided to get my breasts enlarged and organised to fly to Thailand with some friends to have my surgery done. It was hands down the best decision I’d ever made, for me. I felt sexy, I felt like a proper woman and I within myself had confidence. I feel like my breasts matched the body I was given and I truly couldn’t have been more happy. To have struggled with drug addiction, the suicide of my brother and my two best friends, bringing two babies into this world on my own without the fathers around, to have experienced domestic violence and the terror of being abused emotionally sexually and physically, to have Been sent to jail and not seen my kids for 3 months, I’ve finally come out on the other side of so Much sadness and gloom so to hear that my health is at risk, to hear that I could loose the function of my lymph nodes and have to wear pressure bandages on my arms for the rest of my life is just too much. To be told that the ruptures in my implants are far more significant than originally thought, to listen to the extent of the actual surgery I need to have the silicone and implants removed from my body is nothing short of terrifying. My body is going to be riddled with scars, and because I no longer have the finances to pay for a private surgeon to correct my breasts and remove the ruptured implants and the leaked silicone and then replace the implants, i can only have them removed in the public system. So instead of looking like I do now I will be left with just the empty skin that once housed my 465cc silicone cohesive gel implants because the public system under Medicare only does removals. My skin has stretched around the implants and grown and reduced with weight gain from pregnancy and from my struggles with drugs because when you stop you put on a significant amount of weight and I was an a cup before implants and I am now easily an E cup, so I will have these huge empty sacks of skin where my breasts used to be. The thought of this makes me sick. I will be absolutely disgusting. I will be an eye sore and it makes me so filled with panic, anxiety and in all honesty I think about death being easier than having to look at my chest like that. People say better to have your health, it’s for the best, they call me vain and they dismiss my concerns as me trying to grasp onto aesthetics. My breasts made me feel complete for the first time in my life at the age of 24. They where the pinnacle of my transition to being a woman and learning about myself as a sexual and feminine being. Watching my body change with pregnancy was hard enough but I still felt with my boobs that I was still desirable and sexy. To not have my breasts and now have more scars and stretched skin not just on my stomach, truly makes me want to die. My ex partner bashed me with a metal pole and ruptured both of my implants and because of this I need to have surgery. So he is walking around living a great life. I’m in pain everyday, my chest and arms hurt because of swelling in my glands as they try to process the leaking silicone throughout my body. I have suffered enough under the hands of a man who said he loved me but really he just loved to control me. I was vulnerable and weak and I allowed him to consume me because I had lost my brother and two closest friends and my daughters dad wasn’t around and I wanted to share this whole parenting gig and he wAs very calculated and very cunning and he wore me down and broke my soul. I used to sit in the corner of my bedroom saying over and over to myself that I’m not this girl yet everyday I stayed that girl. I finally got the strength years later to leave and to get away from him and this is why he bashed me so badly this particular day because I took some of my power back and he couldn’t cope with the new power dynamic. I was strong and I stayed away from him and I didn’t become another death statistic. Instead I got away from him, I got bashed anyway, I now have some very serious medical issues because of his violence and now I will have to look at the monster my
Body has become everyday in the mirror. Instead of seeing a brave warrior who escaped from her captor I will see a disgusting mess of scars, an unfeminine figure, who’s ex has managed to still destroy her even long after I was out of his physical reach. How does he still have the power to make me want to die even though I haven’t seen him in almost two years. How is it fair that he goes on happy and healthy and he was the monster and I’m the victim and now I’ll look like a monster. How do victims of domestic violence ever get the control back when they’re up against such odds from the get go. Financially screwed, physically ruined, emotionally broken. The irony is if I went back to him he’d pay for my
Surgery I’d have my breasts fix, my health back but I’d be dancing with the devil and it’d only be a matter of time before the beatings and control would start again. However it almost sounds better than the alternative, struggling financially, watching my body be ruined and living with my new appearance without breast and instead large empty sacks of skin that I’ll need to roll up and hide in a bra. Massive scars to replace where they once where. How are we showing women that leaving is the best option, how are we empowering the brave ones who got away, we aren’t. We are further crippling them. We can fix their health in the public system because well we can’t let them die on our watch that would be inhumane but by leaving them without for example their breasts we help steal their confidence and cripple them as a woman. So they survive an abusive man only to want to die because instead of being with a monster now I’ll look like a monster. This is the scourge of DV in our world, this is the reality of a woman who’s survived dv only to be punished further by having to look at herself in the mirror everyday and still see the damaged woman who he can still hurt long after she was brave enough to leave him. This is why women don’t leave, this is why they stay because the reality of the situation is far greater and wider than most realise and if we’re speaking truth living with him is probably easier than living looking like I’m about to look.
How can I let anyone else look at me if I won’t even be able to look at me. So he wins still. He always said if I left him he would ruin my life and make sure I was never or able to have another relationship and he’s probably right. This will leave me so broken that it will be the straw that breaks the camels back, it will make me withdraw in severe depression and I will push him away and eventually he will leave so I will be alone. How does one man have so much power over my life still even after leaving him and being brave enough to have told my truth and actually spoke out and told my family and friends that I was sexually, physically and emotionally abused and victimised for years, how does he still have the power. How on earth do we show women that leaving is best, that strong woman reap the rewards of a good life if they just be brave and leave their abuser. All I’ve been shown is that the pain continues on long after you leave. That he can ruin my mind, body and soul and get away with it but that I am the one who is still suffering. I promised my children that I’d have the surgery because my health is more important But the truth is far different. I cant actually picture me having this surgery. I know I need too. I know I should. I know I should want to live a healthy existence but all I feel is like this surgery is going to desicrate the already crumbling ruins of the me I used to be but at least i can Live with this version of me right now. I can’t promise that I will want to live once I see what I look like after this surgery. I can’t promise that I have that fight left in me. I can’t promise that I will cope with this next chapter. Because I can’t see a future where I have to hide my body from even myself because to look at what that will look like will be hideous and make me sick to the core. Every woman wants to feel beautiful and desired and there is no way that I will ever feel either of those things again once I have this operation. It may fix my health but it will ruin my headspace. And I was the one who didn’t do anything wrong. I just loved the wrong person, I loved an evil monster who put his hands on me and felt power by abusing me and even though I took my power back he still is ruining my life from the sideline. Any wonder suicide rates are so high. Because the broken get more broken and the wrong get to keep living on untouched, unpunished, it’s unfathomable!!! It’s just wrong. You may not agree but this is my truth. This is how I feel and this is my honest and harsh reality as a survivor of domestic and sexual violence. I saved myself from him killing me only to be tortured long after I left him.