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.