#mistakesdontdefineus

I was born May 1986 in a small country town in Gippsland, Victoria to a young couple who upon learning of my arrival were involved in a shotgun wedding, due to their parents catholic beliefs.

Due to abuse from my father this marriage only lasted 2 & a half years unril the night my mother ran away with me. First we went to a women’s shelter & then we moved into her old family home. Even at such a young age I remember this time well. I remember waking up before everyone else & going out to ride the horse in my pjs, I would climb the fence to hop on & ride until mum came out to get me as I could always get on but was to little to get down. We had a few house guests & at the time they were fun but they were addicts, alcoholics, criminals & looking back it was definitely no place for a child & so I moved to the city with my Dad to his parents house when I was 3 & a half .

Even though my Dad was what I like to say a ‘holiday mass goer’ my grandparents were strict catholic & so it was always a part of my up bringing…music, drugs & Catholicism, sounds funny but very true!

Dad went through ‘religious moments’ where he would be more catholic than the pope & a pillar of society but the Man I knew was emotionally & physically abusive, heavily involved in drugs & alcohol, partying, sport, looking good to the locals & finding me a mother or as I liked to call them baby sitters.

At 6 we moved back to Gippsland with family friends & the following year is when my lighthouse turned up.

Judy was a woman like no other & even though I was a spoilt brat at the beginning she became one of the most important people in my life, I was the daughter she never had & she was definitely a mother to me.

She taught me so much, too much to go into details but without her voice in the back of my head I would never have survived.

By 12 I was using drugs, alcohol, smoking cigarettes & going to parties. At 13 I had my first real boyfriend, which is known as almost normal in today’s dating culture, but this “boy” was 8 years my senior. We never had actual sex but we did almost everything else & looking back it was textbook grooming & what's worse is because he was the best of the worst our trauma bond spanned decades. Again at the time I never thought anything of it because I loved him, for what I knew to be love anyway but now being a parent, I know if that were my daughters I would be doing everything in my power to stop it as I was a child & he was simply a predator. At 14 Judy left us & even though I understood why it broke my heart & hers, I remember crying on the bed with her while she told me how much she wished she could take me with her but it wasn't possible. That is something I never really forgave my Dad for but luckily Judy & I are still close to this day. From then the bullying I had endured for years escalated from name calling too being terrified to go against the people I called my friends. It was easier to be completely destroyed by these people & be in their group, then it was to be on the outside & finally it caused me to move schools. Mary Mac was just as bad if not worse & it lead me into worse crowds, worse behaviour & my voice had started to be somewhat suppressed.

By the time I was almost 15 I was going to parties with people my dads age this was the year that in two events I officially lost my light & experienced my first lot of cyberbulling.

First event, He was a few years younger than my dad, he got me alone away from my Dad & his mates, convinced me to leave the party & fed me gin from the bottle. He assaulted me sexually that night, I never told anyone in fear that my dad would get in trouble. My father even with his faults was the only constant person in my life & as they say there is no place higher than daddy’s shoulders! Even though I felt forgotten while he bought my love, this man could kill someone in front of me & Id still back him 110%.

Second event, I started getting emails calling me names like slut, whore, bitch & demanding I wear revealing clothing to school or they would put photos all over the school with my head on a porn stars body. It was the not knowing that got me the most I believe.

I think of this now & laugh thinking about how silly it is & I should have just let them, but because I was already damaged, afraid, scared & a target..That would have broken me.

A few months after I turned 15 we had a group of my friends come to our house, because Dad always said “I’d rather you do whatever it is you’re doing here so I know.“ Me, a guy I’d been friends with since I was a kid & a guy we both went to school with named Aaron slept in my flat out the back, as I had been moved out there once my dad got remarried.

Aaron raped me repeatedly that night & my friend Steven sat through the whole thing, never saying a word. I went in to speak to my dad about it the next morning & he made a joke in front of my other friends saying the springs in my bed were to noisy. I never told a soul & im sure they didn’t either.

My moods became extreme & overwhelming, almost to the point that I felt nothing. I did not find out why until over a decade later.

My behaviour became risky & damaging, I was lacking connection & this made me seek "love" anywhere I could find it wether it be in a physical or platonic relationship.

At 16 my Dad kicked me out & sent me to live with my mum, it was hard as our relationship was not a stereotypical one as she wasnt really around in my younger years as she left the country to be with her ex husband so except for some school holidays when I'd travel to Perth I didn't really see her. Between the ages of 16-18 I felt abandoned by my parents when I needed them the most. I felt they had made it clear that their partners were more important than me which caused me to fall deeper into addiction & inappropriate behaviour which lead me to defining moments in my life.

Robbie was very charming & he treated me very well…what I didn't know is that Robbie was a heroin addict, a criminal, extremelyabusive & came from a family of the same. Unfortunately by the time I found this out, it was too late.

I didn’t realise but as I got closer to him I became isolated from everyone else & because of this I couldn’t see what was happening & nobody could tell me.

I was 17 & in a routine,

5am-Get up

Get his clothes out

Make his breakfast & lunch

Wave him off & then I’d lie on the couch because I wasn’t allowed back into bed as my feet would be dirty,

Sad thing is I didn’t see this as bad because I was young & in love.

A friend of mine rang me asking if I wanted to go shopping, it had been months since Id seen any of my friends so I asked if I could & he said yes & that he’d come get me later on.

Later on that night he called said he’d been drinking & couldn’t come to get me & that I should stay at my friends & go to work the next day then catch the bus home.

I did this. I returned home that next night & as soon as I walked in the door he was jumping down my throat “where the fuck have you been?!"

Confused I told him I’d done what he had told me to, because I always did what he had told me too. He then told me to pack my stuff & get out! I went & started packing, then out of no where he was behind me yelling “what do you think you’re doing you can’t leave!” & threw me down the stairs. That night ended with me in a cold shower fully clothed with 3 cracked ribs, broken nose, wrist & arm, split lip & covered in bruises.

His mother drove me to my mums & when I asked if I could stay with her she replied “I have to ask your stepfather” & she shut the door in my face.

I stayed the night & left in the morning.

Broken emotionally, mentally & physically I started walking, next thing I knew I was on the other side of the rails on the over pass pleading for help…I’m not sure who to because I was taught if you live a certain way you don't get help, no second chances. Help came.

I was pulled back over by my friends dad & they took me to the hospital & then into their home & their family for months. In this rime they left for a month long trip to England & let me stay at the house, Robbie somehow found where I was & used to sit in the driveway flashing his highbeams & reving his engine. It may seem like nothing but it was him telling me that he knew where I was & could get me at any time, I was terrified & started using more drugs to get through. In the week around my 18th birthday I was assaulted by a work colleague & fired, held captive & raped by my ex boyfriends father & then the family returned & hit hard times & I unfortunately had to move out.

I will be forever thankful to these people but again I was homeless so I called the only person I could think of…my Dad & he put me on the next flight home, what I didn’t realise was I was taking something with me…I was pregnant.

When I told Robbie his first response was “if anything happens to that baby I’ll kill you”

I was still very young & very scared & I did something that I will regret for the rest of my life because I knew that he would find me & eventually he would do what he had  said.

it was my life or the babies & I have thought about & grieved for Tyler every day since.

I started drinking heavily without the knowledge of even those closest to me & I fell pregnant again within months. The person who got me pregnant, denied it, told our friends I was lying & refused to help me in any way, to this day he still won’t accept or admit to it. I felt completely alone & unprepared, again I regretfully made the choice to have another abortion. I was completely alone through it all & I could feel the judgement from my ‘friends’ with them also saying it wasn't his & that I was lying. So after this my life spiralled out of control. I was drinking every day, taking illegal drugs & self harming & what I didn’t realise was that things were only going to get worse!

Growing up I was friends with 6 local boys, they all looked after me like a sister I was their ‘little miss’, tragically one of them died.

Stevie was a kind but sometimes misunderstood soul but he always looked out for those close to him. The boys & I took it pretty hard, we decided to use one of the other boys 21st birthday party’s as an unofficial send off. Almost everyone was able to make it & it was just like old times, until I drank a little to much & took too many drugs causing me to pass out. One of these boys started sexually assaulting me, what made it worse was all the other boys were watching including my own cousin..nobody stopped him. His girlfriend came in, woke me up & kicked me out. I was hurt, humiliated & again alone.

My cousin & his friend came after me & took me to the Foster look out, where they convinced me that saying anything would only come against me.. I have never spoken of these things until now as to protect them, but I have realised by doing this I am only hurting myself.

The drinking & drugs became excessive & the self harming got worse, this behaviour continued until when in 2008 I fell pregnant again at 21.

I had only met her father for the first time 4 weeks before falling pregnant but I knew I was keeping her, even if I was doing it alone!

20th of December Charlotte Ruth was born & I had never loved anything as much as I did her! Three months later I found I was pregnant again!!

A year & one day after Charlotte was born we welcomed Harrison into the world & again I was in love with his perfection, we had an angel baby after Harrison & then in 2013 along came our beautiful Penelope, things were busy but we loved them!

Finally I felt I had gotten something right!

Parents will always say "I would die for my children" & I get it...thing is, I wanted to die but it was no longer about me!

In early 2015 I was hospitalised after a mental breakdown, that is when I was diagnosed with Borerline Personality Disorder due to childhood trauma & despite what people say it does not mean I have numerous personalities or am a crazy, manipulative, narcissistic bitch.

What it means is that I did not have the skills to regulate my emotions, I had sever abandonment issues, polarized thinking, impulsivity & the list goes on...once I got this diagnosis, things started to change.

I would start to fluctuate between going really well & terribly!

I started a treatment called dialectical behavioural therapy once a week & this was basically retraining my brain, teaching me the skills that I didn't learn as a child.

It was NOT an instant fix & things would definitely get worse before they got better!

I changed medications 3 times after this..one made me feel suicidal, one made me feel like I was a guest in my body & some would literally make me black out.

I found a mix that worked & slowly started to open up about my past, slowly but subtly started telling my story...

Things started slowly geting better, I'd started reconnecting with old friends & culling some of the toxic ones. Things were looking really good for the first time in my life until early 2017 when naked photos of myself, my face, my name & location ended up on a public website.

I spiralled & ended up being placed in a psychiatric ward, I had never felt so scared, alone & once again violated.

I was left to stand in a hallway by myself which normally would've been fine, but I felt like everyone was staring...judging.

They took everything from me as I was seen as a danger to myself...My pencils, my phone, my music, my medication.

I was then taken to a room that hadn't been cleaned apart from the bedding, the nurses treated me like a criminal, their harsh looks & words I'm sure were somewhat valid but I will never until the day I die forget the coldness they sent out...

I came out of there thinking one thing, "I will NOT go back there or any place like it!"

So a couple of days after returning home, I decided that I needed to lose some of the baggage, i needed to drop some of the shame that was & never should've been mine.

I went to the police station & made statements about the four main people that sexually & physically abused me between 14 & 18.

I had people tell me that i should let it go, ask me if i was sure i wanted to tell as it would ruin their lives...I was sick of being blamed for something I had no control over.

As they are historic cases, they are hard to investigate & that was proven when these men said they had done nothing or said it was consensual. I think I knew nothing would happen, I just needed them to aknowledge that it happened & how it shaped out my life. For one day they had to see me, they had to face their actions, they had to feel that shame & then recently I received a message that Robbie had died, it was a weird feeling there was relief that I would never have to be scared of him again & a type of grief for someone who was such a big part of my life. Either way it was another weight lifted & another step forward!

Since that all happened & after reconnecting with some great people I've learnt to look at things differently & reclaim my life!

I will no longer be silenced.