Will I ever be brave enough to leave and rebuild?

I feel the experience of domestic / family violence is so complex, with tentacles weaving throughout touching every facet of my life! it is hard to know where to start. I am a First Nations woman, a woman with a disability, a mother who experienced teen parenthood, a woman healing from childhood trauma, a woman healing from addiction, a woman who made it out of homelessness, and a victim survivor of family violence. I have been in my relationship for 15 years. Many times I have tried to leave, many times I lay awake at night hating myself for letting my child grow up around abuse. I am a shell of my old self, I have been cleaned inside out with the brush of abuse. I am a new person i dont really know anymore.

I met my partner online, and after meeting him in person the first time, I had decided " I dont like him, im not going to speak to him anymore". Everyday, he showed up at my house, I found out years later in a conversation he told me he watched my house for when i come home!

He basically refused to leave me alone and here we are 15 years later. The abuse began quite quickly, a calm man when sober and the devil when he drank. He would attempt to choke our friends and it was not long until i was completely isolated with no friends. We were homeless for 1 year, living in hotels and caravan parks (with my 2 yr old son). I finally got approved for a small unit and we moved in together. The abuse became physical upon moving in to my first house with him, he would strangle me and kick me and sit on me so i couldnt move. One day the assault became severe and i just called the police and hid my phone praying they were on the other end listening to the situation play out and would come to save me soon, and thankfully they did.

Since that day, my partner has not physically abused me, though i am confident he would have killed me by now if i did not take the step and make the call to the police that day. However, he is still verbally and psychologically abusive and constantly threatening to burn the house down with me in it if he does not get his own way. I remember one day thinking to myself "Ok hes not going anywhere, I may aswell accept he is not leaving, and just try to make a life for myself and live around him". I decided to go get my Bachelor of human services and Master of social work, and I now work in the feild of family violence and childrens servces, and I am studying a postgrad cert in criminology too, study / education is my escape from the violence i experience.

I dont know how I have managed to get here. I am proud of myself for being able to study and find some light in the dark. But then I feel like an imposter going to work in this field. However! my experience is allowing me to see the gaps! i am shocked at how victim survivors are treated by professionals on the front line. I am surprised that we still get it so wrong. I feel like there is minimal sensitivity, for example, some professionals i work with still dont understand why First Nations families get scared when there is a suggestion of child protection being called. I myself am scared of child protection, even though i work alongside them everyday, I feel the deep rooted fear still lingering intergenerationally from colonisation.

All of my experiences have given me strength and insight to see these situations from a personal and professional lens. I feel this story may be all over the place, I could write a whole book on my experiences and the systemic responses i have received over the years. I feel a sense of freedom and validation typing this story out, even if it does not get approved, it feels therepeutic to type out because I never speak about my family violence to anyone, not a soul! and maybe my scattered writing is a reflection of choking down the truth on a daily basis, it is hard work to pretend I am "normal" when all I feel is abnormal. Who knows what my future holds, I have faith the days will be lighter :)