November 24, 2024 • 53 mins
Domestic violence, miscarriage, disordered eating. On this week's episode, Mikki shares her DV story, a story that has barely ever left her lips. Out of fear, shame, feeling like it's not worth sharing, and more. Mikki is somebody who is a passionate advocate against domestic and family violence. She has run rallies, spoken at events, raised awareness, and helped many women seek help. It's the stories that others shared that have helped Mikki the most.
So she realised that it's time to share her story, and maybe it might do the same for others.
Please, if you are listening to this episode and realising you might be in an abusive relationship, seek help using the below numbers and services. There is help available! You deserve to feel free in your own life.
If you are in any immediate danger, call 000 straight away.
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
13 YARN: 13 92 76
1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732 (www.1800respect.org.au)
Daisy App (An inconspicuous app that has resources and places to go in your local area)
Mensline: 1300 789 978
Kids Helpline: 1800 551 800
The Rainbow Sexual, Domestic and Family Violence Helpline: 1800 497 212
Dawn House: 08 8945 1388
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Apogae Production. Hey, Gorgeous Legends. Before we get into this
podcast today, I just want to preface and say that
there are trigger warnings for this podcast. I will be
discussing domestic violence and miscourage and also eating disorders. Just
(00:26):
so you're aware and prepared for any of those topics
that will come up. Please check the show notes for
numbers of support and websites that you can seek help
and support from. I'm Mickie Fisher, and welcome to the
Village Crazy Lady. People are talking to me and they
are not physically in this room, so just strap in
(00:47):
for that. Can't call me crazy because I said it first.
Whoever's try to come through whatever messages need to come through, like,
just bring it on. Let's do it, Crazy Crazy Crazy,
the Village Crazy Lay. Hello, Gorgeous Legends, and welcome to
another episode of the Village Lady. Thank you everyone for
starters for all of your beautiful responses from last week's podcast.
(01:13):
Really nice that my experience in what I was going
through one it was definitely not something that only I
was going through, wasn't an individual experience, and I know
a lot of people related to a lot of it,
and I'm glad that the guidance that was sort of
given to me was able to sort of help and
benefit lots of other people as well. And it's nice
(01:35):
to know that we can not feel alone in these
feelings and experiences. I feel like I've just gone from
zero to fuck it. I'm being so honest and sharing
parts of myself that I probably haven't really shared before,
not in like such a public kind of way. Today,
(01:58):
I'm going to be talking about a subject that's very
dear to my heart, and it may or may not
feel super village, crazy lady relative because it's very human experience.
It's something that is really rife right now and always
has been, really but I think we're just actually talking
(02:19):
about it. It's a cause that I am very involved in.
I am very active leave part of it all, and
I just don't think i've ever like properly shared why
and shared my story. And I think I am constantly
in awe of the people that do, but have always
(02:39):
felt to a degree afraid to sort of share it
in a way that feels permanently out there. And that
subject is obviously domestic violence, not obviously maybe that wasn't obvious,
it was obvious to me because I knew what I
was talking about. Domestic violence, and not even toxic relationships,
(03:00):
because it goes far beyond that, but the violent, whether
that's physical, whether that's emotionally, mentally, all of the above.
It is something that I personally have experienced, both as
a child and also as a partner as well, and
(03:20):
so it's something that obviously I'm very passionate about. And
I just think that is important to share our stories
so that we don't feel so alone in it, and
so that we can help each other and support one another.
And I just hope that maybe by sort of sharing
my experiences, it might help other people feel like they
(03:45):
can find the resources and support to either leave or
Sometimes we find ourselves in situations and we've been that
you question everything, and you struggle to believe yourself and
trust yourself. A lot of my issues, not issues, a
(04:08):
lot of my complications and struggles around trusting myself came
from these very experiences where I was in situations where
I was told things about myself and told not to
trust myself, not to believe myself. My experiences that I
(04:29):
was experiencing, I was then told that I wasn't experiencing them,
and when you are so used to hearing those sorts
of things, it becomes extremely hard to trust yourself and
trust your own experiences. And it really influenced that distrust
within myself because I was so used to hearing that
(04:50):
I was just making things up, and so used to
hearing that even though something may have happened to me,
it wasn't real. Yeah, I think it is a really
important thing to talk about. I think I've grew up
and a family of all girls, and I'm going to
talk about things without talking about some things because they're
(05:11):
still obviously safety things and not everything's mine to share,
So I'm just going to share within what feels safe
for me. But yeah, I grew up in a family
of all girls. I'm the eldest of four girls and
we're very close in age, and my mum raised us
single handedly with the help of my really amazing grandparents.
(05:36):
She had four under four, so my younger sister and
I exactly four years and two days apart, and there's
four of us. She was left with four kids just
after my youngest sister was born. And without going into
too much of it, basically my dad obviously was not
a very nice guy and was. And I experienced abuse
(06:01):
in all the different forms as a child, and also
watched my mum experience it as well. That kind of
was just that was the beginning of my life in
my childhood. That was the world that I knew. And
there is actually like quite a lot of spiritual context
to this whole experience and story as well, because I
(06:23):
guess my little soul knew exactly what it was getting into.
And even when I've done womb healings before, one of
the things that came up was around my conception, and
my feeling was anger of why am I doing with
this knowing exactly kind of what I was getting into.
There was a lot of court things, There was a
(06:43):
lot of back and forth, There was a lot of
I was a child who was very into extracurricular activities.
I've always been an overachieving eldest daughter and have like
really had that personality since day dot. I played classical piano,
what was a classical pianist? Vocalist? I was in music.
(07:05):
I played netball for state and rep and all sorts
of things. I was always like involved in any sort
of captaincy. I was volunteering for things I was creating.
I was like protesting against teachers and writing letters to
get uniforms changed. I was a feminist from the second
(07:28):
that I knew. Before I even knew what that was,
I was already behaving very much in that matter. And
so I was also very involved in the church as well,
and so I kind of grew up. I was scared
of I was scared of boys. I was scared of
like the concept of a relationship. I was never a
(07:49):
relationship kind of girl. Throughout high school. I had a
few high school boyfriends. I remember breaking up with one
of them because I said, I'm so sorry, but I've
got too many extra curricular activities. I was also told,
you know, no sex before marriage. That's bad. You've got
a hell all of the things. And so I never
really had any proper relationship, and I wasn't particularly interested.
(08:11):
As I said, I was one terrified, and two just
didn't have time for them. So I was too busy
being in musicals like the fucking cool kid that I was.
Until I finished school when I was seventeen years old,
and I met a guy who basically took the rains.
(08:36):
We very quickly went from zero to a hundred. I
just felt like I didn't know anything. I didn't know
anything about being in a relationship. I didn't know anything
about sex at all. I was a virgin. And yeah,
he just sort of took the rains, did the whole
(08:58):
love bombing thing. I feel like we've known each other forever,
blah blah blah blah blah. Within a few weeks of dating,
he'd already convinced me to, you know, lose my virginity
to him, and that kind of felt not really within
my complete control, and just everything sort of just was happening.
(09:21):
And because it felt like, you know, I was being
told all these amazing things, I was like, Wow, this
is it. This guy he's my everything. So anyway, this
was my first real relationship, and because I didn't know
what it was really like to be in a relationship,
and the only sort of relationships that I had to
(09:44):
sort of model up growing up was my grandparents, who
were phenomenal and like, truly the most beautiful notebook like
love story ever, and a few others, but mostly I
didn't really know. I just I assumed, despite the fact
that my grandparents had a really beautiful, loving relationship, for
(10:04):
some reason, according to like movies and other relationships that
I saw and had it in my head genuinely that
relationships were supposed to be toxic. You were kind of
supposed to not really even get along. You were supposed
to like fight, and it was supposed to be ugly.
(10:24):
It was supposed to be a very up and down experience.
And so I guess that had me in this relationship
thinking that this is what it was supposed to be,
and he's telling me this is what a relationship is
supposed to be, Like, so I guess it is. And
(10:45):
when you're in a very emotionally abusive relationship, especially as
a young girl, I was like, just eighteen, you're learning everything.
And again, like I constantly was like, well, I don't know,
I don't know he does, he's telling me all these things.
I would cry almost every day. I was terrified constantly
(11:11):
of getting in trouble, of saying the wrong thing, of
doing the wrong thing. And the wrong thing would be
like not answering the phone because I was in a
UNI class, or the wrong thing would be being at
UNI with other guys, or not driving an hour to
pick him up because I was doing that all going
(11:34):
and hanging out with friends or going out. That was
like a big no, couldn't go out, was told what
to wear, what not to wear, was constantly we're breaking up. No,
we're back together. You deserve this, You did this. He
would cheat and then tell me about it and tell
(11:55):
me that it was because it was my fault. He
would show me pictures of you know, girls who were
sending him photos and girls he was taught to and
he would go, well, you like I could be I
could have her, I could have her, Like You're so lucky,
and if you do anything wrong, I'm going to sleep
with her and I'm going to leave you. He would
(12:18):
leave me at a lead, like he would break up
with me and say like I had to still be
with him, and I had to earn back being with him,
like I had to earn it back. There were so
many things when he got angry. He would get so
angry he would punch walls. He would yell and scream.
(12:42):
There was only one time where I fought back, as
in like I yelled back. I got angry as well
and basically was like, well fuck you as well. And
I learned pretty quickly after that never to do that again.
Like that was the last time that I ever spoke
back up. After that, I really quickly learned that it
(13:05):
had to be apologies. It had to be and I'm
so sorry. I'm so sorry. You're so right, I'm so sorry.
It's so interesting, like when you're in it, you know,
like this doesn't feel enjoyable, But at the same time,
there's so many moments where you're like, no, we're so
in love and we have so much fun together, and
(13:26):
we've got this memory and he did this, and he
brought me that that you start going like, well, no,
like this is what love is and this is just
part of it, and you know, part of the experience.
He would isolate me from my friends, my family. I
remember him literally saying, I, you were not allowed to
(13:48):
love anyone more than you love me, not your mom,
not your sisters, not your friends. I remember him literally
saying like, I, if I'm not number one in your life,
we are not together. I have to be number one.
There is a choice between me and someone else. If
it's not me, then that's not love. This isn't love.
(14:09):
You don't love me. And so I would be constantly
having to make excuses and tell people, no, I can't
go here. I can't do this. Or if a friend
said something against him or he didn't like them, I
could not be friends with that person anymore. And he
would sit there and be like, you have you're texting
them right now, I'm sitting and if you're not going
(14:30):
to text them and tell them you don't want to
be friends with them anymore, And like he would watch
me write out the text message. He would write it,
and he'd go, if you don't send that, we're done.
And so I had to be awful to my friends.
I lost so many of the close people in my life.
(14:52):
And I think anyone who sort of knew me at
the time probably was I guess aware of it, but
you can't really tell someone when they're in it because
you've been isolated until all you're left with is them,
and they're sitting there telling you that they're the only
person who cares about you. I'm the only person who
cares about you. I'm the only person in your life
(15:12):
like you. If you don't have me, you've got nobody,
And so you believe everything that they say, and because
you're like, well, I don't have anybody else, and you're right,
everyone else. It's everyone else against us, so you and
I against the world. And I was eighteen. I was
living with my grandparents near the university, just like really
wanting to enjoy that experience, and as like someone who
(15:37):
was studying music, we did a lot of production, so
we'd be up in studios late at night recording things,
doing assignments, editing, and I remember like him calling and
being like, what are you doing And I'd be like, oh,
I'm just you know, at the Uni. We're just sitting here,
were editing, and he's like, no, you're not, You're cheating
(15:58):
on me, blah blah blah. And I remember like being like, no, honestly,
I'm going to put you or put you on the
phone to like my my friends. And I remember like
genuinely getting the phone and giving it to my friends
and being like, can you tell him? Can you tell
him where we are and what we're doing. And he'd
be like, no, you've got them lying for you, blah
blah blah blah blah. And it was always just like
you're cheating on me, You're cheating on me, You're cheating
(16:20):
on me, when that was not obviously the case at all.
But then you'd just start getting so I would be like,
I can't talk to other people. I can't talk to
other guys. I'm so afraid, and I would start to
feel so crazy. I also my mental health was not good.
I remember going to doctors because I kept getting these
(16:41):
really horrible stomach pains and I'd go to a doctor
and they're like like telling me, They're like, this is anxiety,
and I was like no, no, And I remember really
clearly one doctor going do you have a boyfriend? I'm
like yeah, and he's like how does how's that relationship?
And he was basically trying to sort of figure out
(17:02):
like and I just remember going, oh, no, it's fine,
and I just left. I didn't get the medication, I
didn't do anything, and I was just like nah, out
of there. I was also like really he would pick
at my body. He would tell me that and like
I was like tiny, and he would tell me that
I was skinny fat and I was going to get
(17:23):
and I was going to get fat and I was
going to get which is just like insane and disgusting
things to hear, especially when you're an eighteen year old
girl or just in anybody. And he would constantly pick
at my body. He would show me where I needed
to improve everything that was wrong with me, And so
I became obsessed with my weight. I would weigh myself
(17:48):
like every single second that I got if I and
I'm fairly tall person, if I got over I'm not
even gonna say the amount because I don't want to
trigger anybody. If I got over a certain amount, I
would just stuff myself, I would vomit, I would do
all the things I wouldn't allow myself to get over
a certain amount. I became absolutely obsessed with being skinny,
(18:14):
because otherwise I would just get picked at and like,
and I was convinced that I was there was something
so wrong with me, and I was this fucking ugly beast.
So there were so many things like that that just
would continue, and it was just always the same thing.
(18:35):
I remember one time him saying to me, like, this
was like earlier in the relationship, what would you do
if if I did cheat on you? I'm like, well,
I'd leave, Like that's a pretty non negotiable for me,
Like my mum was cheated on, Like that's just always
been a non negotiable. And I remember we were driving
(18:56):
and he just lost his shit, started driving really dangerously.
How could you blah blah, I would, and then I
asked the same thing back. I was like, what would
you do? And he's like, well, fucking leave you blah
blah blah. And it was just the most instant and
he cheated me all the time, and it was the
most insane thing. He told me it was my fault,
(19:18):
my doing. You'd lie about it for a while and
then be like, yeah, okay for wing to do blah
blah blah, but you did it and then yeah. And
there were so many sexual experiences as well that were
just there was a lot of power play within that
as well that was just awful and not always consensual
(19:40):
at all. I'd be sobbing saying no, and he would
continue anyway. And this continued on for about two years.
I actually ended up leaving my UNI. I don't have
like many regrets in my life. I would say I
(20:01):
have like basically none except maybe this, and that's I
literally left my UNI degree that I was doing really
great at, really enjoyed, there was no issue around it
at all. But he I remember so clearly the fight
we got into where he said like he was blowing
(20:25):
up at me because I was at UNI with guys.
It was a small degree. Only a few people sort
of got into the degree each year, and so we
were quite a small close cohort, and obviously it's quite
a practical degree, so we were having to like we
(20:45):
were creating bands and music together and constantly in projects together,
and he hated that I was around other guys. And
I remember a specific assignment that we had to do
and I was put in a group with well, I
think there were like two other dudes. There was still
other girls in it, not that matters, and so we
were like writing a song together. He lost his absolute shit.
(21:11):
He was like, you're cheating on me. Like one of
them texted me something just super innocent, like he like,
how's this time for practice tonight or whatever, and these
were all just like the sweetest fucking dudes you've ever met.
And he saw the text message and just lost it.
And I remember feeling crazy, absolutely crazy, to the point
(21:38):
where like I would physically hurt myself because having someone
just yell at you and tell you that you're doing
all these things that you're not doing and just knowing
it's not true. It was like that energy just had
nowhere to go, and I had no one to talk
to about it, and I just started physically hurting myself
(22:00):
because I just felt like I needed to feel something.
And then that led to if you don't quit this
UNI degree, we're done. And so how much do you
really love me? Because it's between like you, So you
really do? You are cheating on me with these guys?
You are you think this UNI degree is more important
(22:20):
than I am. And so with him watching me and
making me do it, I pulled out my phone and
I went into the blackboard of the UNI. I researched
how to literally like cancel the degree right there and
(22:41):
then in the car park of the football grounds, and
they did it. I quit my music degree with only
like a year Togo, and then had to tell everyone
in my life that the reason I was doing it
was because I wasn't enjoying it. That's not what I
want to do. What's the point? Like, I can't even
(23:03):
I genuinely kind of remember what it was that I
made up. I can't remember what the lie was that
I was telling people. And then all of this continued
to escalate, and there was, you know, so many things
in between, and I was just quite the shell of
(23:25):
myself by this stage, and then I fell pregnant. I
was nineteen years old, and he also refused to use
a condom, and I had to be on the pill,
but I was really unwell from the pill, and so
I was trying lots of different pills. So then when
(23:47):
I wasn't on the pill, he would just make me
get morning after pills. And I cannot even tell you
how many of those fucking things that I have eaten
between the ages of eighteen and twenty. It is probably
way too fucking many. My body. No wonder I have
(24:08):
so many hormone issues because I ate fucking twenty morning
after pills. But one time it obviously didn't work, and
I felt pregnant, and I knew I was pregnant for
quite a while before I even did a test, before
(24:30):
I even told anyone, I just knew straight away and
knew was a girl. I knew that I had to
escape everything. It was a real wake up call of
like I felt like I was re experiencing every life.
(24:52):
I felt like I was almost like my mum, and
I was in a relationship with a guy who was
really similar. I was the same age as she was
when she felt pregnant, with me, and so it's really interesting.
It's sort of like we are breaking cycles. And it
just became a secret between myself and this little baby.
(25:14):
Who I would talk to. I was terrified because I
didn't know what to do, who to go to. I
felt too scared to speak to any family member, talk
to literally anyone, any friend, anything. And then because obviously
I was nineteen fucking years old. And then eventually I
(25:36):
did a test and it was confirmed, and he was
must have been pretty nice at the time, and so
I was like, okay, maybe this will be okay. I
just kept having thoughts of like I need to run away,
I need to run away with this baby. But I
told him and he was thrilled over the moon, like
(25:58):
and everything was always like who I was to him,
you know, like, oh, well I can strap me, and
I was supposed to be wherever, Like wasn't me as
an individual, It was always who I was to him.
I'll be told what I was going to do, who
I was going to be, where I was going to,
what we were doing, what I was doing at all times,
like zero control or autonomy over myself at all. So
(26:22):
when I finally told him I was pregnant, I was
about ten weeks so I really had kept it quite
the secret for a while. As I said, he was
over the moon about it, and so I was like, Okay,
maybe this is really exciting, Maybe this is like the
start of something new. Maybe this will change him, Maybe
this will, you know, really keep him, and this will
(26:42):
be exactly what I want. And then literally the day
after I told him about it, and he said, forced
me to tell my mum and I'm going to be there.
I was like, no, I think I want to do
this by myself. No, we get together with blah blah blah,
Mum's a bitch whatever, like said all the things. So
(27:04):
like forced me to tell her, and that was fucking horrible,
and she, I mean, she took it quite well considering.
And within that same day I then started bleeding, and
the relief I felt I cannot even express. It was
(27:25):
a very mixed emotions of like, Okay, that's a little
bit sad, but at the same time, thank the fucking
Lord above, because I'm nineteen years old and I'm with
someone horrible. So I went to the doctor and they said, yes,
you were having a miscarriage. You need to go to
the hospital right now. I was literally went to the
(27:46):
doctor before I was about to start a shift at
Glorious Genes, where I was working at the time, and
I said, oh, well, can I just go? I'm literally
like about to It was in the same center, like
the doctor was within fifty meters of the coffee shop.
I was in my uniform everything. I was like, well,
I can't, like I start working five minutes. Can I
(28:06):
just go after my shift? And she said, no, you
need to go to hospital right now. If you don't,
if you don't get someone to take you, I'm going
to be calling an ambulance. Yeah. So I said, okay, sure,
sounds traumatic but whatever, went back to work and was like,
I can't do my shift. The doctor said I have
to go to hospital. I wasn't telling anyone why, just oh,
(28:28):
I think it's fine. I think it's just, you know,
she's just worried about something, worried about a test that
came up or something. I can't remember the lie that
I told then either. So drove myself to hospital, told
my mum. I think she came down and met me.
Went to the hospital and they said, basically, yes, you're pregnant.
(28:49):
Obviously G levels are all there, but did the scan
and couldn't find the baby in the uterus, and they said, well,
we can't seem to find where the baby is. You
should be about ten weeks long, so we should be
able to see. It's one of two things. Either the
baby's passing already and I'll put trigger warnings on all
(29:11):
of this, or potentially you're having an ectopic pregnancy, in
which case we need you. I'll we'll let you go,
but you need to stay close to a hospital because
it is life threatening. And I remember this doctor. I
remember her so clearly, this really beautiful kind Indian woman,
(29:32):
and she's and she said like, if it is an
EC topic, if you feel ABC and C symptoms, go
straight to hospital because you will bleed out and die.
And I remember her saying those words so clearly, and
my mom and I were like making jokes about it,
like you know, that's so dramatic, like I'll bleed out
and die. Like okay. So I went back up to
the Sunshine Coast with my mum, stayed with her. I
(29:56):
had a gig the next day and I was like, well,
I've got to go to this gig. Like I was
performing and it was really interesting it was just before
chris As time and I'll never forget. At this gig,
I sung the song River by Jodie Mitchell and it's like,
just felt it felt like a song to this baby,
(30:18):
and I'm not going to fucking sing it or anything,
but and I remember as I was singing it, I
just felt the only way I can describe it. And
I've had bleeding in my abdomen. I can never say
that word twice. And the feelings the same. It feels
like you can hear the blood sloshing around in your belly.
I don't know how else to explain it, but it
feels like that. And I've felt that feeling and I'd
(30:41):
been feeling pain. But when you have endemitriosis and all
those sorts of things, like you'd pain level like you
have such a distorted concept of what pain is. And
so I kept sort of doing this gig performing it.
After the gig, I sort of went back to my
boyfriend's house and I said to him, I actually am
not feeling great, like I'm in a bit of pain.
(31:04):
I feel a bit And I was like, am I
just coll mom, and I'll just get it to pick
me up? Cool, mum, and she's going, I'm going to
take you straight to the hospital. I was like, no, no, honestly,
that's very traumatic. I don't need that anyway. She did
made go to the hospital, thank god, because I basically
got in there passed out and it was zero to
one hundred. Don't really remember too much after that, aside
(31:27):
from just being rushed to the bigger hospital being told
you're bleeding out, we need to get you right into surgery.
And it wasn't like still. I just had no real
recollection of what was going on. I was drugged. I
was completely out of it. I felt like I couldn't talk.
(31:48):
I couldn't talk, I could just hear what everyone else
was saying. It wasn't until I woke up after the
surgery that I was told, you are extremely lucky. Like you.
The baby was on your right filipin tube ruptured it
because it's a ten week a long baby ruptured the
floapin tube. You'd been bleeding out for a while. You
(32:10):
needed a whole blood transfusion, the whole thing. We took
the floapin tube out, took the baby out, and you're
lucky to be alive. There's a lot of scarring there's
a lot of all these sorts of things, and was
in that moment told you'd probably never be able to
have babies again. We also found a lot of endmetriosis
in there. Also found out you have chlamydia as well
(32:31):
while we were there, so that was a lot to
hear as a nineteen year old girl sitting in a
hospital in a maternity ward with babies crying all around me,
and with the boyfriend who was the reason for it
all sitting there in the hall, heard about the calamitia thing,
(32:52):
and then that instantly just turned into it, you've been
cheating on me. I knew you've been cheating on me.
There's no way that I could have it. Blah blah blah.
And that's when it was the big wake up call.
And even my mum said, you cut you. You almost died,
You almost died, Like you cannot go back to him.
I've been watching this blah blah blah, and like other
people with going, you cannot, you just cannot. It was
(33:16):
the ultimate, like final realization and for me felt like
I finally had an excuse, finally has something tangible that
gave me the strength to actually leave, and leaving's not easy, thankfully.
I can't even imagine doing it with children with There
(33:37):
are women who just have been in this for so long.
They've got financial burdens, they've got a house, they've got
DeVos there. I had a woman message me the other
week who her friend. She's like, I don't know what
to do. I don't know how to help my friend.
She's got nineteen AVOs against her ex husband and he
(33:57):
still is chasing her down. He's still she's trying to escape.
She cannot, like, doesn't matter what to do. She's got
a son, she's like trying to hide. What can she do?
It's so fucked like, it's so hard to get out. Thankfully,
for me, I was able to eventually, and he did
the whole I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna kill myself.
(34:20):
It's all your fault. Blah blah blah, like call me
every name under the sun. I was a big cheater.
I was a big all of this. It was all
my fault. But thankfully because of I guess I was younger,
we didn't have house children, anything like that. I was
eventually able to get away. But fuck it fucks with
(34:42):
you and just your trust in yourself, your ability to
not even trust others, just mostly trust yourself and trust
anything that you experience. And I'd already had such a
distrust within myself and it takes a long time to
sort of rebuild that and learn to trust yourself again.
(35:05):
And sometimes when you experience very emotional abuse, you sit
there just going just punch me, please hit me, Please
have something, Please give me something that I can show
people that I can go, Okay, all right, this is
really happening, because before that you're just and I know
women who have experienced the physical side of it as well,
(35:28):
still going on it. But I deserved it, or like
you know, no, it only happened this once, and I
really I did make him angry and he apologized. And
we know the cycle of abuse oril. If you don't,
it's like, when you look it up, it's just the
love bombing it that everything's fine. It's that then they're angry,
and then they lose their shit, they lose control, and
(35:48):
then it's back to that I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
I would never and then we go back to that
entire cycle. Just in Australia this year, we've had I
think when I checked this morning, it was eighty four
women this year been by the hands of a man.
(36:10):
Eighty four women. The statistics when I did a podcast
a few years ago, when I was doing a podcasts
on DV, the statistic this was I think two or
three years ago, the statistic was one woman a week,
which is a lot still right, that's fifty two women
in a year in Australia and now we are at
eighty four and the year has not finished yet. And
(36:34):
I said in a speech one time, because I think
anyone who's experienced TV understands that it's the control that
is the biggest thing, and that's when it gets really
dangerous and really scary, is when they lose control, which
is why you become very submissive and you become very
I need to act accordingly for my own safety and
I need to keep him happy. They need to be
(36:55):
in control at all times because when they lose control,
that's when my life sucks. That's when my life sucks
big time. And I think because people are speaking out
about it and women are feeling more empowered to leave,
I think a lot of these men are losing control
(37:16):
and that's when it can become really dangerous. So that's
my sory, and I'm going to give a lot of
resources and the show notes will be full of numbers,
people to call, places to go, all of that for
anybody who is in a situation. And if you were
sitting there listening to this story, going, I think that's
me or that's what I experienced, that's my life, that feeling,
(37:38):
that fear, that eggshell feeling that the guys sladding, and
the feeling crazy, and that all of those sorts of
things like call the numbers, talk to someone to have
people valid date, because the thing is, you are so
convinced that it's just you who's just fucking crazy. You're
so convinced that it's like, well, this is just what
(37:59):
a relationship is, this is what it's supposed to be like.
Or you know he's not bad at the time, or
we have such beautiful or you know it's too all
of those sorts of things that we and they make you,
they make you feel so small. You end up becoming
the most small, fearful, completely lacking of confidence version of
(38:22):
yourself and that trust is completely gone, so you're just
believing everything that comes out of their mouth. And they're
great liars. And that's the other thing. Right, These people,
these men, hire's a lot of other people in this
world are upstanding citizens. They are very charismatic. Someone says, oh,
(38:45):
he's very charismatic. Red fucking flag right there. Okay, give
me an awkward doesn't know how to like fully carry
a conversation guy any day of the week. Give me honest,
give me like. And this is where you know, the
belief believe people and not just like. Obviously, statistically women
(39:09):
are the biggest victims. Men are as well, of course,
and you know there's going to be pign mad man
as well. Statistically speaking, it's predominantly women other victims, and
so we're not trying to like, I'm not trying to
create a fucking like man verse woman situation. I'm just saying,
(39:30):
here are the statistics, and it's you know, because systemically
women usually not you know, there's the gender pay gap.
We're not being paid as much, not able to financially
support ourselves alone, especially if you get into relationship from
a young age and they're in control of the money
and you get pregnant and so you've been having babies
(39:52):
and not been making money for a long time because
you've been looking after the children. And the all of
that sort of thing. So it's not that easy to leave,
and especially if they're in control of the finances, and
like like how do you even do it? And you know,
you've got the kids to think about as well, And
then also have to consider that it's even harder for
(40:16):
Indigenous women, like tenfold what they experience is again this
culture of it all means that they are in an
even more difficult position and dealing with police. It's not
just that easy to just go to the police, because
you go to the police and there are women who
(40:37):
were just told like, you know, you're making an up. No, well,
there's not enough evidence. You know, people think that, they're like,
there's so many stories, and I've heard them all because
when you become a safe space for people to share
those sorts of things with you, you hear all of it.
And if you're someone who is like, well, I've never
heard of this before, and you know, it's just the
(40:59):
crazy feminist under this and that, and there are women hated,
men hated, and blah blah blah blah. Maybe or not
a safe space, maybe you don't get to hear stories
like this because you're not a safe space for people.
And I'm telling you right now that there are women
in your life who have absolutely experienced this and maybe
(41:19):
right now experiencing it. People in your life whoever, and
maybe you haven't heard about it or no one's ever
shared anything with you because you're not a safe space.
I always think about how can I be a safe space?
But I get to hear the honesty from people. I
get to hear how they truly feel, what they're really experiencing,
(41:39):
what's truly going on, because when you make it like,
really have that intention of like that's why I say
like dropping the judgment being a safe space, like really
pulling away from the wrongs and the rights and that
this and that that and a man supposed to be
(41:59):
in a woman supposed to be No, there's no supposed to,
there's no should, there's no this is the way it
supposed to go, And this is how such and such
a behave. No, we are people. We're raising good people,
not good men, not good women. We're raising good people
who care about other people, who are safe spaces for
(42:22):
other people. And when you're able to be a safe
space for others, you're going to hear the stories that
others aren't going to hear and so you have such
an understanding of more of an understanding, and I can
barely scratch the surface of what's going on and what
(42:42):
people are experiencing and the just fucking horrors of it
and how it's it's you know, it's not that easy
to just leave, you know, the people. And again what
I was saying before about believing victims just because you know,
(43:03):
maybe they're not the perfect victim. I don't have to
be the perfect victim. Maybe the person like and if
the fucking ditty stuff and everything coming out in Hollywood
and the upstanding citizens and the people that we've put
into influence and power and given power to that are
(43:23):
now coming out like literally just yesterday, Alan Jones in
Australia was arrested for allegations of multiple accounts of sexual
misconduct and sexual assault against minors, others, all of the
above spanning over many years. And people who sit there
(43:47):
and they're like, you know, these allegations can ruin men's lives. No,
they don't, No, they don't. Literally, just on Netflix the
other day there was big fucking I don't follow MMA
or whatever that thing is WWE or I don't know
Wrestling Big Fight, Mike Tyson Verse some the fucking dude
who I don't know, both had not only allegations, not
(44:11):
just allegations, but he, Mike Tythan is a convicted racist
and has also very publicly like made jokes about bashing
his wife and all sorts of things, and yet they
can have a fucking doc Netflix spot. So yes, believe victims.
(44:32):
And I think it's important that we start to share
this stuff. And this is fucking terrifying for me to
do this, and I feel so insanely vulnerable and so
afraid of backlash or what people have to say or
people's opinions of how I shared my story and why.
And I'm afraid of the people that I'm even talking
(44:52):
about in the thing, the people who hurt me. But
I'm so inspired by the people who the women and
the men who have come out and been so brave
sharing their stories, and I watch them, I'm like, thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for being
(45:13):
the voice of so many of us who maybe you're
afraid to be that voice like I have been for
so long. And I think recently I've just gotten to
a stage where I'm like, maybe I need to be
brave too. Maybe I also need to be brave like
these people are, And if they can tell their story,
then maybe I can as well. And maybe if they're
(45:36):
like the way that their story helps me feel seen
and inspired and brave to stand up and make noise
about it and help others, then hopefully maybe my story
might do the same. Maybe we'll inspire people to seek
help and get out of relationships that are abusive and
(45:58):
awful and horrible, where your autonomy is taken away, where
you don't get to exist as you because you're existing
for them. You're existing out of fear. You're afraid, you're small,
you feel like a shell of who you truly are.
But I have no idea how to even get out
(46:18):
of it or escape it. And I know it's so hard,
and the system is set up in a way where
it's made difficult. But there are ways, and there are
people who can support you. And as I said, I'm
going to put all of this in the show notes,
there's going to be ways that you can access this
(46:40):
information whilst still really safe. And if I can say anything,
be safe about it, Be safe about it, have planned.
Remember that you are dealing with someone who when they
lose control, is willing to get worse. Okay. It is
(47:00):
not something that you take lightly and just click your
fingers and do overnight like. It needs to be well
thought out. It needs to be done in a way
where you are basically playing the role placating to be
able to safely get out, because there's nothing more important
(47:20):
than your safety. And sometimes you have to just be
in survival. Okay, you can do thriving later. Okay, you
can do surviving for now, and then once you have
gotten out of survival, then you can work on thriving
and really like building back everything that you felt like
you lost and returning back to yourself and working on
(47:42):
your autonomy and building a life that is yours, coming
from you, because it's your life and you don't want
to get to the end of it going. I wish
I wasn't living for everybody else. I wish I got out.
I wish I stood up in a safe matter of course,
(48:03):
it's not as simple as just fucking fine your voice,
finding your voice or whatever doesn't have to be speaking out.
It's like, okay, finding my voice for me, I think
like this is the what I needed to hear to
realize that I'm not making it up. And that's the
biggest reason why I felt like I wanted to share,
(48:27):
because I know what it feels like to feel like
you just make things up and feel like your head
is just a place full of lies, and your experiences
are lies, and your life is lies. Everything's just lies,
and you're making it up because you're crazy. Okay, this
is the village crazy Lady. But I spent a lot
(48:48):
of time genuinely thinking that I was actually crazy, and
it wasn't even the voices in my head that were
making me think that. It was the voices outside of
my head that were making me think that. And I
hope that if you were in that space, that this
(49:08):
might help you start moving towards a place where you
can get out and believe yourself and trust yourself. And
there's a happy ending to the story because then eventually,
after many also meeting more shit than not as horrible,
(49:34):
I eventually fell in love met my partner now not husband.
I'm not interested in getting married. Chris, who taught me
what it feels like, showed me what it feels like
to feel safe with someone so unbelievably safe, to just
be yourself, no eggshells, no walking on anything, no being
(49:58):
afraid all the time. I remember when I met him,
and I was terrified because I realized I was falling
in love with him. I remember having a full blown,
fucking panic attack about it. And he was so surprising
because I was like, this isn't what I thought. It
was supposed to be a lot harder than this. I
thought it was supposed to be very toxic, but it wasn't.
(50:21):
He was so kind. He made me fall in love
with myself more. He made me, not made me just
being around him, made me fall in love with myself more.
He put out parts of myself that I really loved
because I kept feeling safe, and so I just felt
the safer I felt, the more I felt like I
could be me more. And I just got crazier in
(50:43):
the way that fucking feels freeing and exciting and like me,
like I'm just being free to be me. And he
still is like that every single day, like literally just
my best friend, just the sweetest, kindest human being. And
so we all deserve that, We all deserve someone who
(51:06):
makes us feel so safe that we can eat ourselves
so completely, and for us to be that far others,
to just be a safe space, to allow the people
in our life or anyone to feel like they can
just be completely themselves, they can be completely honest and
(51:28):
free and real, because I know for me that has
what has brought me to this moment where I feel
so safe and free to help others and be doing
what I'm doing and be psychic, medium, have a podcast
and do all of these sorts of things because I
just feel safe to be freely myself and so to
be able to hold space for other people to feel
that helps the world. That does a ripple effect. Oh,
(51:52):
as I said, I know this is a fucking big, heavy,
wild episode and I'm probably going to want to hide
in a hole when it airs, and probably just even
after this as well, But it just feels like I
hope it feels free for me to be honest, because
it's something that I guess, as I said, like I've
(52:13):
been helping people and women for so long. I've been
up speaking, you know, in the streets, yelling and screaming
about it. This is why. That's why, And so thank
you for listening and for holding a space for me.
And if I do go into a cave for a while. No,
(52:37):
I'll probably come back out again. But as I said,
there's going to be numbers, websites, everything in the show
notes for you to contact or if you need them,
and if you do, please use them, please use them.
So thank you so much guys. Bye,
Apogae Production. Hey, Gorgeous Legends. Before we get into this
podcast today, I just want to preface and say that
there are trigger warnings for this podcast. I will be
discussing domestic violence and miscourage and also eating disorders. Just
(00:26):
so you're aware and prepared for any of those topics
that will come up. Please check the show notes for
numbers of support and websites that you can seek help
and support from. I'm Mickie Fisher, and welcome to the
Village Crazy Lady. People are talking to me and they
are not physically in this room, so just strap in
(00:47):
for that. Can't call me crazy because I said it first.
Whoever's try to come through whatever messages need to come through, like,
just bring it on. Let's do it, Crazy Crazy Crazy,
the Village Crazy Lay. Hello, Gorgeous Legends, and welcome to
another episode of the Village Lady. Thank you everyone for
starters for all of your beautiful responses from last week's podcast.
(01:13):
Really nice that my experience in what I was going
through one it was definitely not something that only I
was going through, wasn't an individual experience, and I know
a lot of people related to a lot of it,
and I'm glad that the guidance that was sort of
given to me was able to sort of help and
benefit lots of other people as well. And it's nice
(01:35):
to know that we can not feel alone in these
feelings and experiences. I feel like I've just gone from
zero to fuck it. I'm being so honest and sharing
parts of myself that I probably haven't really shared before,
not in like such a public kind of way. Today,
(01:58):
I'm going to be talking about a subject that's very
dear to my heart, and it may or may not
feel super village, crazy lady relative because it's very human experience.
It's something that is really rife right now and always
has been, really but I think we're just actually talking
(02:19):
about it. It's a cause that I am very involved in.
I am very active leave part of it all, and
I just don't think i've ever like properly shared why
and shared my story. And I think I am constantly
in awe of the people that do, but have always
(02:39):
felt to a degree afraid to sort of share it
in a way that feels permanently out there. And that
subject is obviously domestic violence, not obviously maybe that wasn't obvious,
it was obvious to me because I knew what I
was talking about. Domestic violence, and not even toxic relationships,
(03:00):
because it goes far beyond that, but the violent, whether
that's physical, whether that's emotionally, mentally, all of the above.
It is something that I personally have experienced, both as
a child and also as a partner as well, and
(03:20):
so it's something that obviously I'm very passionate about. And
I just think that is important to share our stories
so that we don't feel so alone in it, and
so that we can help each other and support one another.
And I just hope that maybe by sort of sharing
my experiences, it might help other people feel like they
(03:45):
can find the resources and support to either leave or
Sometimes we find ourselves in situations and we've been that
you question everything, and you struggle to believe yourself and
trust yourself. A lot of my issues, not issues, a
(04:08):
lot of my complications and struggles around trusting myself came
from these very experiences where I was in situations where
I was told things about myself and told not to
trust myself, not to believe myself. My experiences that I
(04:29):
was experiencing, I was then told that I wasn't experiencing them,
and when you are so used to hearing those sorts
of things, it becomes extremely hard to trust yourself and
trust your own experiences. And it really influenced that distrust
within myself because I was so used to hearing that
(04:50):
I was just making things up, and so used to
hearing that even though something may have happened to me,
it wasn't real. Yeah, I think it is a really
important thing to talk about. I think I've grew up
and a family of all girls, and I'm going to
talk about things without talking about some things because they're
(05:11):
still obviously safety things and not everything's mine to share,
So I'm just going to share within what feels safe
for me. But yeah, I grew up in a family
of all girls. I'm the eldest of four girls and
we're very close in age, and my mum raised us
single handedly with the help of my really amazing grandparents.
(05:36):
She had four under four, so my younger sister and
I exactly four years and two days apart, and there's
four of us. She was left with four kids just
after my youngest sister was born. And without going into
too much of it, basically my dad obviously was not
a very nice guy and was. And I experienced abuse
(06:01):
in all the different forms as a child, and also
watched my mum experience it as well. That kind of
was just that was the beginning of my life in
my childhood. That was the world that I knew. And
there is actually like quite a lot of spiritual context
to this whole experience and story as well, because I
(06:23):
guess my little soul knew exactly what it was getting into.
And even when I've done womb healings before, one of
the things that came up was around my conception, and
my feeling was anger of why am I doing with
this knowing exactly kind of what I was getting into.
There was a lot of court things, There was a
(06:43):
lot of back and forth, There was a lot of
I was a child who was very into extracurricular activities.
I've always been an overachieving eldest daughter and have like
really had that personality since day dot. I played classical piano,
what was a classical pianist? Vocalist? I was in music.
(07:05):
I played netball for state and rep and all sorts
of things. I was always like involved in any sort
of captaincy. I was volunteering for things I was creating.
I was like protesting against teachers and writing letters to
get uniforms changed. I was a feminist from the second
(07:28):
that I knew. Before I even knew what that was,
I was already behaving very much in that matter. And
so I was also very involved in the church as well,
and so I kind of grew up. I was scared
of I was scared of boys. I was scared of
like the concept of a relationship. I was never a
(07:49):
relationship kind of girl. Throughout high school. I had a
few high school boyfriends. I remember breaking up with one
of them because I said, I'm so sorry, but I've
got too many extra curricular activities. I was also told,
you know, no sex before marriage. That's bad. You've got
a hell all of the things. And so I never
really had any proper relationship, and I wasn't particularly interested.
(08:11):
As I said, I was one terrified, and two just
didn't have time for them. So I was too busy
being in musicals like the fucking cool kid that I was.
Until I finished school when I was seventeen years old,
and I met a guy who basically took the rains.
(08:36):
We very quickly went from zero to a hundred. I
just felt like I didn't know anything. I didn't know
anything about being in a relationship. I didn't know anything
about sex at all. I was a virgin. And yeah,
he just sort of took the rains, did the whole
(08:58):
love bombing thing. I feel like we've known each other forever,
blah blah blah blah blah. Within a few weeks of dating,
he'd already convinced me to, you know, lose my virginity
to him, and that kind of felt not really within
my complete control, and just everything sort of just was happening.
(09:21):
And because it felt like, you know, I was being
told all these amazing things, I was like, Wow, this
is it. This guy he's my everything. So anyway, this
was my first real relationship, and because I didn't know
what it was really like to be in a relationship,
and the only sort of relationships that I had to
(09:44):
sort of model up growing up was my grandparents, who
were phenomenal and like, truly the most beautiful notebook like
love story ever, and a few others, but mostly I
didn't really know. I just I assumed, despite the fact
that my grandparents had a really beautiful, loving relationship, for
(10:04):
some reason, according to like movies and other relationships that
I saw and had it in my head genuinely that
relationships were supposed to be toxic. You were kind of
supposed to not really even get along. You were supposed
to like fight, and it was supposed to be ugly.
(10:24):
It was supposed to be a very up and down experience.
And so I guess that had me in this relationship
thinking that this is what it was supposed to be,
and he's telling me this is what a relationship is
supposed to be, Like, so I guess it is. And
(10:45):
when you're in a very emotionally abusive relationship, especially as
a young girl, I was like, just eighteen, you're learning everything.
And again, like I constantly was like, well, I don't know,
I don't know he does, he's telling me all these things.
I would cry almost every day. I was terrified constantly
(11:11):
of getting in trouble, of saying the wrong thing, of
doing the wrong thing. And the wrong thing would be
like not answering the phone because I was in a
UNI class, or the wrong thing would be being at
UNI with other guys, or not driving an hour to
pick him up because I was doing that all going
(11:34):
and hanging out with friends or going out. That was
like a big no, couldn't go out, was told what
to wear, what not to wear, was constantly we're breaking up. No,
we're back together. You deserve this, You did this. He
would cheat and then tell me about it and tell
(11:55):
me that it was because it was my fault. He
would show me pictures of you know, girls who were
sending him photos and girls he was taught to and
he would go, well, you like I could be I
could have her, I could have her, Like You're so lucky,
and if you do anything wrong, I'm going to sleep
with her and I'm going to leave you. He would
(12:18):
leave me at a lead, like he would break up
with me and say like I had to still be
with him, and I had to earn back being with him,
like I had to earn it back. There were so
many things when he got angry. He would get so
angry he would punch walls. He would yell and scream.
(12:42):
There was only one time where I fought back, as
in like I yelled back. I got angry as well
and basically was like, well fuck you as well. And
I learned pretty quickly after that never to do that again.
Like that was the last time that I ever spoke
back up. After that, I really quickly learned that it
(13:05):
had to be apologies. It had to be and I'm
so sorry. I'm so sorry. You're so right, I'm so sorry.
It's so interesting, like when you're in it, you know,
like this doesn't feel enjoyable, But at the same time,
there's so many moments where you're like, no, we're so
in love and we have so much fun together, and
(13:26):
we've got this memory and he did this, and he
brought me that that you start going like, well, no,
like this is what love is and this is just
part of it, and you know, part of the experience.
He would isolate me from my friends, my family. I
remember him literally saying, I, you were not allowed to
(13:48):
love anyone more than you love me, not your mom,
not your sisters, not your friends. I remember him literally
saying like, I, if I'm not number one in your life,
we are not together. I have to be number one.
There is a choice between me and someone else. If
it's not me, then that's not love. This isn't love.
(14:09):
You don't love me. And so I would be constantly
having to make excuses and tell people, no, I can't
go here. I can't do this. Or if a friend
said something against him or he didn't like them, I
could not be friends with that person anymore. And he
would sit there and be like, you have you're texting
them right now, I'm sitting and if you're not going
(14:30):
to text them and tell them you don't want to
be friends with them anymore, And like he would watch
me write out the text message. He would write it,
and he'd go, if you don't send that, we're done.
And so I had to be awful to my friends.
I lost so many of the close people in my life.
(14:52):
And I think anyone who sort of knew me at
the time probably was I guess aware of it, but
you can't really tell someone when they're in it because
you've been isolated until all you're left with is them,
and they're sitting there telling you that they're the only
person who cares about you. I'm the only person who
cares about you. I'm the only person in your life
(15:12):
like you. If you don't have me, you've got nobody,
And so you believe everything that they say, and because
you're like, well, I don't have anybody else, and you're right,
everyone else. It's everyone else against us, so you and
I against the world. And I was eighteen. I was
living with my grandparents near the university, just like really
wanting to enjoy that experience, and as like someone who
(15:37):
was studying music, we did a lot of production, so
we'd be up in studios late at night recording things,
doing assignments, editing, and I remember like him calling and
being like, what are you doing And I'd be like, oh,
I'm just you know, at the Uni. We're just sitting here,
were editing, and he's like, no, you're not, You're cheating
(15:58):
on me, blah blah blah. And I remember like being like, no, honestly,
I'm going to put you or put you on the
phone to like my my friends. And I remember like
genuinely getting the phone and giving it to my friends
and being like, can you tell him? Can you tell
him where we are and what we're doing. And he'd
be like, no, you've got them lying for you, blah
blah blah blah blah. And it was always just like
you're cheating on me, You're cheating on me, You're cheating
(16:20):
on me, when that was not obviously the case at all.
But then you'd just start getting so I would be like,
I can't talk to other people. I can't talk to
other guys. I'm so afraid, and I would start to
feel so crazy. I also my mental health was not good.
I remember going to doctors because I kept getting these
(16:41):
really horrible stomach pains and I'd go to a doctor
and they're like like telling me, They're like, this is anxiety,
and I was like no, no, And I remember really
clearly one doctor going do you have a boyfriend? I'm
like yeah, and he's like how does how's that relationship?
And he was basically trying to sort of figure out
(17:02):
like and I just remember going, oh, no, it's fine,
and I just left. I didn't get the medication, I
didn't do anything, and I was just like nah, out
of there. I was also like really he would pick
at my body. He would tell me that and like
I was like tiny, and he would tell me that
I was skinny fat and I was going to get
(17:23):
and I was going to get fat and I was
going to get which is just like insane and disgusting
things to hear, especially when you're an eighteen year old
girl or just in anybody. And he would constantly pick
at my body. He would show me where I needed
to improve everything that was wrong with me, And so
I became obsessed with my weight. I would weigh myself
(17:48):
like every single second that I got if I and
I'm fairly tall person, if I got over I'm not
even gonna say the amount because I don't want to
trigger anybody. If I got over a certain amount, I
would just stuff myself, I would vomit, I would do
all the things I wouldn't allow myself to get over
a certain amount. I became absolutely obsessed with being skinny,
(18:14):
because otherwise I would just get picked at and like,
and I was convinced that I was there was something
so wrong with me, and I was this fucking ugly beast.
So there were so many things like that that just
would continue, and it was just always the same thing.
(18:35):
I remember one time him saying to me, like, this
was like earlier in the relationship, what would you do
if if I did cheat on you? I'm like, well,
I'd leave, Like that's a pretty non negotiable for me,
Like my mum was cheated on, Like that's just always
been a non negotiable. And I remember we were driving
(18:56):
and he just lost his shit, started driving really dangerously.
How could you blah blah, I would, and then I
asked the same thing back. I was like, what would
you do? And he's like, well, fucking leave you blah
blah blah. And it was just the most instant and
he cheated me all the time, and it was the
most insane thing. He told me it was my fault,
(19:18):
my doing. You'd lie about it for a while and
then be like, yeah, okay for wing to do blah
blah blah, but you did it and then yeah. And
there were so many sexual experiences as well that were
just there was a lot of power play within that
as well that was just awful and not always consensual
(19:40):
at all. I'd be sobbing saying no, and he would
continue anyway. And this continued on for about two years.
I actually ended up leaving my UNI. I don't have
like many regrets in my life. I would say I
(20:01):
have like basically none except maybe this, and that's I
literally left my UNI degree that I was doing really
great at, really enjoyed, there was no issue around it
at all. But he I remember so clearly the fight
we got into where he said like he was blowing
(20:25):
up at me because I was at UNI with guys.
It was a small degree. Only a few people sort
of got into the degree each year, and so we
were quite a small close cohort, and obviously it's quite
a practical degree, so we were having to like we
(20:45):
were creating bands and music together and constantly in projects together,
and he hated that I was around other guys. And
I remember a specific assignment that we had to do
and I was put in a group with well, I
think there were like two other dudes. There was still
other girls in it, not that matters, and so we
were like writing a song together. He lost his absolute shit.
(21:11):
He was like, you're cheating on me. Like one of
them texted me something just super innocent, like he like,
how's this time for practice tonight or whatever, and these
were all just like the sweetest fucking dudes you've ever met.
And he saw the text message and just lost it.
And I remember feeling crazy, absolutely crazy, to the point
(21:38):
where like I would physically hurt myself because having someone
just yell at you and tell you that you're doing
all these things that you're not doing and just knowing
it's not true. It was like that energy just had
nowhere to go, and I had no one to talk
to about it, and I just started physically hurting myself
(22:00):
because I just felt like I needed to feel something.
And then that led to if you don't quit this
UNI degree, we're done. And so how much do you
really love me? Because it's between like you, So you
really do? You are cheating on me with these guys?
You are you think this UNI degree is more important
(22:20):
than I am. And so with him watching me and
making me do it, I pulled out my phone and
I went into the blackboard of the UNI. I researched
how to literally like cancel the degree right there and
(22:41):
then in the car park of the football grounds, and
they did it. I quit my music degree with only
like a year Togo, and then had to tell everyone
in my life that the reason I was doing it
was because I wasn't enjoying it. That's not what I
want to do. What's the point? Like, I can't even
(23:03):
I genuinely kind of remember what it was that I
made up. I can't remember what the lie was that
I was telling people. And then all of this continued
to escalate, and there was, you know, so many things
in between, and I was just quite the shell of
(23:25):
myself by this stage, and then I fell pregnant. I
was nineteen years old, and he also refused to use
a condom, and I had to be on the pill,
but I was really unwell from the pill, and so
I was trying lots of different pills. So then when
(23:47):
I wasn't on the pill, he would just make me
get morning after pills. And I cannot even tell you
how many of those fucking things that I have eaten
between the ages of eighteen and twenty. It is probably
way too fucking many. My body. No wonder I have
(24:08):
so many hormone issues because I ate fucking twenty morning
after pills. But one time it obviously didn't work, and
I felt pregnant, and I knew I was pregnant for
quite a while before I even did a test, before
(24:30):
I even told anyone, I just knew straight away and
knew was a girl. I knew that I had to
escape everything. It was a real wake up call of
like I felt like I was re experiencing every life.
(24:52):
I felt like I was almost like my mum, and
I was in a relationship with a guy who was
really similar. I was the same age as she was
when she felt pregnant, with me, and so it's really interesting.
It's sort of like we are breaking cycles. And it
just became a secret between myself and this little baby.
(25:14):
Who I would talk to. I was terrified because I
didn't know what to do, who to go to. I
felt too scared to speak to any family member, talk
to literally anyone, any friend, anything. And then because obviously
I was nineteen fucking years old. And then eventually I
(25:36):
did a test and it was confirmed, and he was
must have been pretty nice at the time, and so
I was like, okay, maybe this will be okay. I
just kept having thoughts of like I need to run away,
I need to run away with this baby. But I
told him and he was thrilled over the moon, like
(25:58):
and everything was always like who I was to him,
you know, like, oh, well I can strap me, and
I was supposed to be wherever, Like wasn't me as
an individual, It was always who I was to him.
I'll be told what I was going to do, who
I was going to be, where I was going to,
what we were doing, what I was doing at all times,
like zero control or autonomy over myself at all. So
(26:22):
when I finally told him I was pregnant, I was
about ten weeks so I really had kept it quite
the secret for a while. As I said, he was
over the moon about it, and so I was like, Okay,
maybe this is really exciting, Maybe this is like the
start of something new. Maybe this will change him, Maybe
this will, you know, really keep him, and this will
(26:42):
be exactly what I want. And then literally the day
after I told him about it, and he said, forced
me to tell my mum and I'm going to be there.
I was like, no, I think I want to do
this by myself. No, we get together with blah blah blah,
Mum's a bitch whatever, like said all the things. So
(27:04):
like forced me to tell her, and that was fucking horrible,
and she, I mean, she took it quite well considering.
And within that same day I then started bleeding, and
the relief I felt I cannot even express. It was
(27:25):
a very mixed emotions of like, Okay, that's a little
bit sad, but at the same time, thank the fucking
Lord above, because I'm nineteen years old and I'm with
someone horrible. So I went to the doctor and they said, yes,
you were having a miscarriage. You need to go to
the hospital right now. I was literally went to the
(27:46):
doctor before I was about to start a shift at
Glorious Genes, where I was working at the time, and
I said, oh, well, can I just go? I'm literally
like about to It was in the same center, like
the doctor was within fifty meters of the coffee shop.
I was in my uniform everything. I was like, well,
I can't, like I start working five minutes. Can I
(28:06):
just go after my shift? And she said, no, you
need to go to hospital right now. If you don't,
if you don't get someone to take you, I'm going
to be calling an ambulance. Yeah. So I said, okay, sure,
sounds traumatic but whatever, went back to work and was like,
I can't do my shift. The doctor said I have
to go to hospital. I wasn't telling anyone why, just oh,
(28:28):
I think it's fine. I think it's just, you know,
she's just worried about something, worried about a test that
came up or something. I can't remember the lie that
I told then either. So drove myself to hospital, told
my mum. I think she came down and met me.
Went to the hospital and they said, basically, yes, you're pregnant.
(28:49):
Obviously G levels are all there, but did the scan
and couldn't find the baby in the uterus, and they said, well,
we can't seem to find where the baby is. You
should be about ten weeks long, so we should be
able to see. It's one of two things. Either the
baby's passing already and I'll put trigger warnings on all
(29:11):
of this, or potentially you're having an ectopic pregnancy, in
which case we need you. I'll we'll let you go,
but you need to stay close to a hospital because
it is life threatening. And I remember this doctor. I
remember her so clearly, this really beautiful kind Indian woman,
(29:32):
and she's and she said like, if it is an
EC topic, if you feel ABC and C symptoms, go
straight to hospital because you will bleed out and die.
And I remember her saying those words so clearly, and
my mom and I were like making jokes about it,
like you know, that's so dramatic, like I'll bleed out
and die. Like okay. So I went back up to
the Sunshine Coast with my mum, stayed with her. I
(29:56):
had a gig the next day and I was like, well,
I've got to go to this gig. Like I was
performing and it was really interesting it was just before
chris As time and I'll never forget. At this gig,
I sung the song River by Jodie Mitchell and it's like,
just felt it felt like a song to this baby,
(30:18):
and I'm not going to fucking sing it or anything,
but and I remember as I was singing it, I
just felt the only way I can describe it. And
I've had bleeding in my abdomen. I can never say
that word twice. And the feelings the same. It feels
like you can hear the blood sloshing around in your belly.
I don't know how else to explain it, but it
feels like that. And I've felt that feeling and I'd
(30:41):
been feeling pain. But when you have endemitriosis and all
those sorts of things, like you'd pain level like you
have such a distorted concept of what pain is. And
so I kept sort of doing this gig performing it.
After the gig, I sort of went back to my
boyfriend's house and I said to him, I actually am
not feeling great, like I'm in a bit of pain.
(31:04):
I feel a bit And I was like, am I
just coll mom, and I'll just get it to pick
me up? Cool, mum, and she's going, I'm going to
take you straight to the hospital. I was like, no, no, honestly,
that's very traumatic. I don't need that anyway. She did
made go to the hospital, thank god, because I basically
got in there passed out and it was zero to
one hundred. Don't really remember too much after that, aside
(31:27):
from just being rushed to the bigger hospital being told
you're bleeding out, we need to get you right into surgery.
And it wasn't like still. I just had no real
recollection of what was going on. I was drugged. I
was completely out of it. I felt like I couldn't talk.
(31:48):
I couldn't talk, I could just hear what everyone else
was saying. It wasn't until I woke up after the
surgery that I was told, you are extremely lucky. Like you.
The baby was on your right filipin tube ruptured it
because it's a ten week a long baby ruptured the
floapin tube. You'd been bleeding out for a while. You
(32:10):
needed a whole blood transfusion, the whole thing. We took
the floapin tube out, took the baby out, and you're
lucky to be alive. There's a lot of scarring there's
a lot of all these sorts of things, and was
in that moment told you'd probably never be able to
have babies again. We also found a lot of endmetriosis
in there. Also found out you have chlamydia as well
(32:31):
while we were there, so that was a lot to
hear as a nineteen year old girl sitting in a
hospital in a maternity ward with babies crying all around me,
and with the boyfriend who was the reason for it
all sitting there in the hall, heard about the calamitia thing,
(32:52):
and then that instantly just turned into it, you've been
cheating on me. I knew you've been cheating on me.
There's no way that I could have it. Blah blah blah.
And that's when it was the big wake up call.
And even my mum said, you cut you. You almost died,
You almost died, Like you cannot go back to him.
I've been watching this blah blah blah, and like other
people with going, you cannot, you just cannot. It was
(33:16):
the ultimate, like final realization and for me felt like
I finally had an excuse, finally has something tangible that
gave me the strength to actually leave, and leaving's not easy, thankfully.
I can't even imagine doing it with children with There
(33:37):
are women who just have been in this for so long.
They've got financial burdens, they've got a house, they've got
DeVos there. I had a woman message me the other
week who her friend. She's like, I don't know what
to do. I don't know how to help my friend.
She's got nineteen AVOs against her ex husband and he
(33:57):
still is chasing her down. He's still she's trying to escape.
She cannot, like, doesn't matter what to do. She's got
a son, she's like trying to hide. What can she do?
It's so fucked like, it's so hard to get out. Thankfully,
for me, I was able to eventually, and he did
the whole I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna kill myself.
(34:20):
It's all your fault. Blah blah blah, like call me
every name under the sun. I was a big cheater.
I was a big all of this. It was all
my fault. But thankfully because of I guess I was younger,
we didn't have house children, anything like that. I was
eventually able to get away. But fuck it fucks with
(34:42):
you and just your trust in yourself, your ability to
not even trust others, just mostly trust yourself and trust
anything that you experience. And I'd already had such a
distrust within myself and it takes a long time to
sort of rebuild that and learn to trust yourself again.
(35:05):
And sometimes when you experience very emotional abuse, you sit
there just going just punch me, please hit me, Please
have something, Please give me something that I can show
people that I can go, Okay, all right, this is
really happening, because before that you're just and I know
women who have experienced the physical side of it as well,
(35:28):
still going on it. But I deserved it, or like
you know, no, it only happened this once, and I
really I did make him angry and he apologized. And
we know the cycle of abuse oril. If you don't,
it's like, when you look it up, it's just the
love bombing it that everything's fine. It's that then they're angry,
and then they lose their shit, they lose control, and
(35:48):
then it's back to that I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
I would never and then we go back to that
entire cycle. Just in Australia this year, we've had I
think when I checked this morning, it was eighty four
women this year been by the hands of a man.
(36:10):
Eighty four women. The statistics when I did a podcast
a few years ago, when I was doing a podcasts
on DV, the statistic this was I think two or
three years ago, the statistic was one woman a week,
which is a lot still right, that's fifty two women
in a year in Australia and now we are at
eighty four and the year has not finished yet. And
(36:34):
I said in a speech one time, because I think
anyone who's experienced TV understands that it's the control that
is the biggest thing, and that's when it gets really
dangerous and really scary, is when they lose control, which
is why you become very submissive and you become very
I need to act accordingly for my own safety and
I need to keep him happy. They need to be
(36:55):
in control at all times because when they lose control,
that's when my life sucks. That's when my life sucks
big time. And I think because people are speaking out
about it and women are feeling more empowered to leave,
I think a lot of these men are losing control
(37:16):
and that's when it can become really dangerous. So that's
my sory, and I'm going to give a lot of
resources and the show notes will be full of numbers,
people to call, places to go, all of that for
anybody who is in a situation. And if you were
sitting there listening to this story, going, I think that's
me or that's what I experienced, that's my life, that feeling,
(37:38):
that fear, that eggshell feeling that the guys sladding, and
the feeling crazy, and that all of those sorts of
things like call the numbers, talk to someone to have
people valid date, because the thing is, you are so
convinced that it's just you who's just fucking crazy. You're
so convinced that it's like, well, this is just what
(37:59):
a relationship is, this is what it's supposed to be like.
Or you know he's not bad at the time, or
we have such beautiful or you know it's too all
of those sorts of things that we and they make you,
they make you feel so small. You end up becoming
the most small, fearful, completely lacking of confidence version of
(38:22):
yourself and that trust is completely gone, so you're just
believing everything that comes out of their mouth. And they're
great liars. And that's the other thing. Right, These people,
these men, hire's a lot of other people in this
world are upstanding citizens. They are very charismatic. Someone says, oh,
(38:45):
he's very charismatic. Red fucking flag right there. Okay, give
me an awkward doesn't know how to like fully carry
a conversation guy any day of the week. Give me honest,
give me like. And this is where you know, the
belief believe people and not just like. Obviously, statistically women
(39:09):
are the biggest victims. Men are as well, of course,
and you know there's going to be pign mad man
as well. Statistically speaking, it's predominantly women other victims, and
so we're not trying to like, I'm not trying to
create a fucking like man verse woman situation. I'm just saying,
(39:30):
here are the statistics, and it's you know, because systemically
women usually not you know, there's the gender pay gap.
We're not being paid as much, not able to financially
support ourselves alone, especially if you get into relationship from
a young age and they're in control of the money
and you get pregnant and so you've been having babies
(39:52):
and not been making money for a long time because
you've been looking after the children. And the all of
that sort of thing. So it's not that easy to leave,
and especially if they're in control of the finances, and
like like how do you even do it? And you know,
you've got the kids to think about as well, And
then also have to consider that it's even harder for
(40:16):
Indigenous women, like tenfold what they experience is again this
culture of it all means that they are in an
even more difficult position and dealing with police. It's not
just that easy to just go to the police, because
you go to the police and there are women who
(40:37):
were just told like, you know, you're making an up. No, well,
there's not enough evidence. You know, people think that, they're like,
there's so many stories, and I've heard them all because
when you become a safe space for people to share
those sorts of things with you, you hear all of it.
And if you're someone who is like, well, I've never
heard of this before, and you know, it's just the
(40:59):
crazy feminist under this and that, and there are women hated,
men hated, and blah blah blah blah. Maybe or not
a safe space, maybe you don't get to hear stories
like this because you're not a safe space for people.
And I'm telling you right now that there are women
in your life who have absolutely experienced this and maybe
(41:19):
right now experiencing it. People in your life whoever, and
maybe you haven't heard about it or no one's ever
shared anything with you because you're not a safe space.
I always think about how can I be a safe space?
But I get to hear the honesty from people. I
get to hear how they truly feel, what they're really experiencing,
(41:39):
what's truly going on, because when you make it like,
really have that intention of like that's why I say
like dropping the judgment being a safe space, like really
pulling away from the wrongs and the rights and that
this and that that and a man supposed to be
(41:59):
in a woman supposed to be No, there's no supposed to,
there's no should, there's no this is the way it
supposed to go, And this is how such and such
a behave. No, we are people. We're raising good people,
not good men, not good women. We're raising good people
who care about other people, who are safe spaces for
(42:22):
other people. And when you're able to be a safe
space for others, you're going to hear the stories that
others aren't going to hear and so you have such
an understanding of more of an understanding, and I can
barely scratch the surface of what's going on and what
(42:42):
people are experiencing and the just fucking horrors of it
and how it's it's you know, it's not that easy
to just leave, you know, the people. And again what
I was saying before about believing victims just because you know,
(43:03):
maybe they're not the perfect victim. I don't have to
be the perfect victim. Maybe the person like and if
the fucking ditty stuff and everything coming out in Hollywood
and the upstanding citizens and the people that we've put
into influence and power and given power to that are
(43:23):
now coming out like literally just yesterday, Alan Jones in
Australia was arrested for allegations of multiple accounts of sexual
misconduct and sexual assault against minors, others, all of the
above spanning over many years. And people who sit there
(43:47):
and they're like, you know, these allegations can ruin men's lives. No,
they don't, No, they don't. Literally, just on Netflix the
other day there was big fucking I don't follow MMA
or whatever that thing is WWE or I don't know
Wrestling Big Fight, Mike Tyson Verse some the fucking dude
who I don't know, both had not only allegations, not
(44:11):
just allegations, but he, Mike Tythan is a convicted racist
and has also very publicly like made jokes about bashing
his wife and all sorts of things, and yet they
can have a fucking doc Netflix spot. So yes, believe victims.
(44:32):
And I think it's important that we start to share
this stuff. And this is fucking terrifying for me to
do this, and I feel so insanely vulnerable and so
afraid of backlash or what people have to say or
people's opinions of how I shared my story and why.
And I'm afraid of the people that I'm even talking
(44:52):
about in the thing, the people who hurt me. But
I'm so inspired by the people who the women and
the men who have come out and been so brave
sharing their stories, and I watch them, I'm like, thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for being
(45:13):
the voice of so many of us who maybe you're
afraid to be that voice like I have been for
so long. And I think recently I've just gotten to
a stage where I'm like, maybe I need to be
brave too. Maybe I also need to be brave like
these people are, And if they can tell their story,
then maybe I can as well. And maybe if they're
(45:36):
like the way that their story helps me feel seen
and inspired and brave to stand up and make noise
about it and help others, then hopefully maybe my story
might do the same. Maybe we'll inspire people to seek
help and get out of relationships that are abusive and
(45:58):
awful and horrible, where your autonomy is taken away, where
you don't get to exist as you because you're existing
for them. You're existing out of fear. You're afraid, you're small,
you feel like a shell of who you truly are.
But I have no idea how to even get out
(46:18):
of it or escape it. And I know it's so hard,
and the system is set up in a way where
it's made difficult. But there are ways, and there are
people who can support you. And as I said, I'm
going to put all of this in the show notes,
there's going to be ways that you can access this
(46:40):
information whilst still really safe. And if I can say anything,
be safe about it, Be safe about it, have planned.
Remember that you are dealing with someone who when they
lose control, is willing to get worse. Okay. It is
(47:00):
not something that you take lightly and just click your
fingers and do overnight like. It needs to be well
thought out. It needs to be done in a way
where you are basically playing the role placating to be
able to safely get out, because there's nothing more important
(47:20):
than your safety. And sometimes you have to just be
in survival. Okay, you can do thriving later. Okay, you
can do surviving for now, and then once you have
gotten out of survival, then you can work on thriving
and really like building back everything that you felt like
you lost and returning back to yourself and working on
(47:42):
your autonomy and building a life that is yours, coming
from you, because it's your life and you don't want
to get to the end of it going. I wish
I wasn't living for everybody else. I wish I got out.
I wish I stood up in a safe matter of course,
(48:03):
it's not as simple as just fucking fine your voice,
finding your voice or whatever doesn't have to be speaking out.
It's like, okay, finding my voice for me, I think
like this is the what I needed to hear to
realize that I'm not making it up. And that's the
biggest reason why I felt like I wanted to share,
(48:27):
because I know what it feels like to feel like
you just make things up and feel like your head
is just a place full of lies, and your experiences
are lies, and your life is lies. Everything's just lies,
and you're making it up because you're crazy. Okay, this
is the village crazy Lady. But I spent a lot
(48:48):
of time genuinely thinking that I was actually crazy, and
it wasn't even the voices in my head that were
making me think that. It was the voices outside of
my head that were making me think that. And I
hope that if you were in that space, that this
(49:08):
might help you start moving towards a place where you
can get out and believe yourself and trust yourself. And
there's a happy ending to the story because then eventually,
after many also meeting more shit than not as horrible,
(49:34):
I eventually fell in love met my partner now not husband.
I'm not interested in getting married. Chris, who taught me
what it feels like, showed me what it feels like
to feel safe with someone so unbelievably safe, to just
be yourself, no eggshells, no walking on anything, no being
(49:58):
afraid all the time. I remember when I met him,
and I was terrified because I realized I was falling
in love with him. I remember having a full blown,
fucking panic attack about it. And he was so surprising
because I was like, this isn't what I thought. It
was supposed to be a lot harder than this. I
thought it was supposed to be very toxic, but it wasn't.
(50:21):
He was so kind. He made me fall in love
with myself more. He made me, not made me just
being around him, made me fall in love with myself more.
He put out parts of myself that I really loved
because I kept feeling safe, and so I just felt
the safer I felt, the more I felt like I
could be me more. And I just got crazier in
(50:43):
the way that fucking feels freeing and exciting and like me,
like I'm just being free to be me. And he
still is like that every single day, like literally just
my best friend, just the sweetest, kindest human being. And
so we all deserve that, We all deserve someone who
(51:06):
makes us feel so safe that we can eat ourselves
so completely, and for us to be that far others,
to just be a safe space, to allow the people
in our life or anyone to feel like they can
just be completely themselves, they can be completely honest and
(51:28):
free and real, because I know for me that has
what has brought me to this moment where I feel
so safe and free to help others and be doing
what I'm doing and be psychic, medium, have a podcast
and do all of these sorts of things because I
just feel safe to be freely myself and so to
be able to hold space for other people to feel
that helps the world. That does a ripple effect. Oh,
(51:52):
as I said, I know this is a fucking big, heavy,
wild episode and I'm probably going to want to hide
in a hole when it airs, and probably just even
after this as well, But it just feels like I
hope it feels free for me to be honest, because
it's something that I guess, as I said, like I've
(52:13):
been helping people and women for so long. I've been
up speaking, you know, in the streets, yelling and screaming
about it. This is why. That's why, And so thank
you for listening and for holding a space for me.
And if I do go into a cave for a while. No,
(52:37):
I'll probably come back out again. But as I said,
there's going to be numbers, websites, everything in the show
notes for you to contact or if you need them,
and if you do, please use them, please use them.
So thank you so much guys. Bye,
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