I Became Her

There were many times I thought I could not go on.

Some weeks, I struggled to put food on the table and had to rely on food vouchers to feed my children. Other weeks, my anxiety was so severe I carried a bucket with me because I was constantly afraid I would be sick. There were nights when I locked myself in a bathroom while someone I loved violently tried to break down the door.

I have lived through fear, grief, abuse, stalking, financial control and the kind of exhaustion that settles deep inside your bones. But I have also lived through love.

I have watched my children grow. I have held them through fear and uncertainty. I have fought for their safety when they were too young to fight for themselves. I have built a career, walked away from a life that was destroying us, found safety and learned that starting again is not the same as failing.

I still live with panic disorder. I still have panic attacks most weeks. My children still carry trauma from the things they endured, and healing has not been a straight line.

But today, I am happy.

I live near the beach. I have a wonderful job in property management. My son Hayden is succeeding with his goals and has a strong support team around him. My other children are living their own successful lives, and I have two beautiful grandchildren.

Most importantly, I am surrounded by love.

This is the story of how I became her — the woman I was always meant to be.

Before Everything Changed

I met my former husband in 1998. He was five years younger than me, fun to be around and someone I enjoyed spending time with. Life felt easy in those early days. I already had a three-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, and when we married in 2000, I believed we were building a happy family together.

In 2001, I miscarried at twelve weeks. The grief was enormous, but not long afterwards, I became pregnant again with my rainbow baby — a little boy who brought hope back into our lives. My daughter was thrilled to have a baby brother and adored him from the moment he arrived.

Two years later, we welcomed another son. He came into the world so quickly that there was barely time to process what was happening. The moment I saw him, I fell completely in love. His name was Hayden.

But that same morning, our lives changed in a way I could never have imagined. Hayden was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome.

Today, I understand so much more than I did then. But in 2004, I knew very little about Down syndrome. I understood only that it was a lifelong intellectual disability, and I was frightened by what I thought that meant for his future.

If I am honest, I felt cheated. I felt angry with God. I wondered why this had happened to me when there were women who drank alcohol or used drugs during pregnancy and still had what people called “normal” babies. I felt guilty for thinking those things, but I was grieving the future I had imagined.

The hardest part was telling our parents. But what I did not expect was for my husband to tell me, while I was still in hospital, that he needed to leave. He said he could not handle the diagnosis and was going to stay with his parents for a while.

I remember telling him, “No. You are not leaving. I need you here. We need to go through this together.”

He stayed.

For the next eleven years, I would sometimes wish I had let him go.

Fighting for My Family

Hayden had heart surgery when he was only four months old. At eighteen months, we faced another terrifying possibility when doctors became concerned that he might have leukaemia. He underwent a bone marrow test and, thankfully, the results were negative.

I left work for two years so I could focus on him. Someone told me early intervention would give him the best chance, so I enrolled him in everything I could find. We attended classes to help build his muscle strength; I joined mother’s groups, we found a wonderful paediatrician, and I learned everything I could.

I became Hayden’s strongest advocate.

While I was fighting for our son, my husband began drinking. At first, I tried to tell myself it was how he was coping. He still went to work, but almost every night he would finish work at five o’clock and open his first can minutes later. On weekends, he often started drinking around lunchtime.

As the children grew older, the drinking became heavier. Then the verbal abuse began.

My daughter was seven years older than her brothers, but she loved them deeply and was incredibly protective of them. Our son Jackson started playing football and cricket, and we tried to create as normal and happy a childhood as possible for all three children.

But inside our home, life was becoming increasingly unsafe.

Finding My Own Strength

In 2006, I obtained my real estate licence, and I instantly loved the industry. I loved the work, the people and the feeling of building something for myself. I became good at what I did. In my first year, I won Rookie of the Year in our office, as well as silver and bronze awards through the company.

For the first time in a long time, I felt proud of myself.

My husband did not share that pride.

He became jealous of my job and began putting me down. If I dressed nicely for work, he questioned who I was dressing for. He accused me of sleeping with men in the office. He told me all my money had to go into his account and that he would give me an allowance of $100 a week.

He was taking control of my money, my confidence and my freedom.

The first time I left was after an incident that terrified me. My boys were staying with my parents during the school holidays, but my daughter was home. We had gone out for the evening, and I knew my husband was extremely drunk.

When we returned home, he became angry because my daughter had not washed her plate. He threw it at me, verbally abused both of us, and nearly broke my daughter’s arm.

I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. He came after me and smashed the door down.

I had never been so afraid in my life.

That night, my daughter and I went to a motel. I called my parents, who had known nothing about what was happening. My father came over, changed all the locks on the house and told my husband never to step inside again.

We separated for approximately ten months. During that time, my husband promised he had changed. He said it would never happen again.

Eventually, I believed him.

We moved to another town to start over and to be closer to his family. I thought a fresh start might save our marriage.

It did not.

The Day I Chose to Leave

I spent most of my time caring for the children and supporting Jackson with football and cricket. When we decided to enrol him at Ipswich Grammar School, where his father had attended, he began as a boarder. Every time I put him on a plane, my heart broke.

Meanwhile, my husband continued to drink heavily. I would cook dinner each night and leave it in the microwave because he would sit outside drinking and talking on the phone for hours. He rarely ate the meals I prepared.

Then his behaviour escalated. Because he worked as a salesman from his car, he began sitting outside my workplace for long periods. My workmates noticed and told me he had sometimes been there for hours.

In July 2015, I finally reached the point where I knew I could not live that way anymore.

I asked him to leave.

He moved in with his parents, and I packed up our belongings and moved to Ipswich to be closer to Jackson.

Then the stories began.

He told people I had left him for someone I met on Facebook. It wasn’t true. He accused me of having affairs with men I barely knew. He tried to destroy my reputation and make people believe I was the problem.

Within six months, he had moved to Ipswich too. The stalking and harassment continued. Every job I found became difficult because of him. My anxiety became so severe that I sometimes walked around carrying a bucket, terrified I would vomit.

I blocked him on messages, Facebook and Instagram. Every time, he found another way to contact me. One night, I received twenty-seven emails from him.

He attacked not only me but my children with his words. I tried to get help from the police, but at first, they would not do anything. Eventually, I obtained a two-year domestic violence order. He continued to breach it.

He waited near Ipswich Grammar School hoping to see Jackson. He waited outside our home for Jackson to walk back from school.

Jackson became so anxious and frightened that one day he said to me, “Mum, I hope I’m not the next Luke Batty.”

Those words broke my heart.

No child should have to live with that kind of fear.

My former husband claimed I would not let him see the children, but the truth was that he was drinking, behaving unpredictably and making them feel unsafe. The boys wanted nothing to do with him, and I refused to put them in danger.

The abuse was no longer limited to our home.

It followed us everywhere.

Finding Our Safe Place

Eventually, I knew we had to leave Ipswich.

My daughter was twenty-one at the time, and she stayed with Jackson to look after him. She became my saviour. She and Jackson were not only siblings; they were best friends.

I returned to my hometown with Hayden because I knew my former husband would not follow us there.

It became our safe place.

I found a wonderful job in real estate sales and property management and began rebuilding my life. I became successful, and I loved my work. Every second weekend, I drove back to Ipswich to see the children and support Jackson in his sport.

The harassment did not stop immediately. The police eventually extended the domestic violence order for another five years.

For six years, I was single.

Those years were difficult, but they were also important. I learned how to live without constantly waiting for the next crisis. I learned that peace could feel unfamiliar. I learned how to make decisions without asking permission.

Most of all, I learned that leaving was not the end of my life.

It was the beginning of it.

Becoming Her

In 2021, I reconnected with a friend I had known more than twenty years earlier. Over time, our friendship grew into something more.

He saw me.

Not the rumours. Not the fear. Not the woman my former husband had tried to convince me I was.

He is the love of my life.

He accepted Hayden as his own, and together we moved to Bundaberg so Hayden could access more support and opportunities. In the small town where we had been living, there were limited options for him. Moving gave him a chance to build a fuller life.

Five years later, life is good.

We live near the beach. I have a wonderful job in property management. Hayden is achieving his goals and is surrounded by a strong support team. My other two children live nearby and both have successful careers. I have two beautiful grandchildren through my daughter.

We still carry trauma. I still experience panic attacks most weeks. I am receiving therapy and support, and Hayden is in therapy too. We are all still healing from things we should never have had to endure.

But we are together.

We are safe.

And we are loved.

There were so many moments when I wanted to give up. I felt as though I could not take one more day. My children endured anxiety and fear that no child should ever have to experience.

But somehow, we kept going.

I used to think strength meant never being afraid. Now I know better. Strength is being afraid and protecting your children anyway. Strength is leaving when you have been told you cannot survive without someone. Strength is starting again when you have nothing left.

I may live with panic disorder and anxiety for the rest of my life, but they do not define me. They are part of what I have survived — not the whole story of who I am.

I am strong. I am happy. I am a mother. And I love my children more than life itself.

This is not the story of what was done to me.

It is the story of what I became.

I became her.