Survivor Stories

I used to see ads for retreats and retreat camps like some luxury way of healing. I would buy a magazine and see those glossy picture perfect images of a woman in a bikini sitting in a perfect yoga pose, meditating in the sun, next to an infinity pool. I would think if I could one day afford to go there. I could take time out to heal, and maybe, just maybe I would lose weight . Maybe just be, everything in my life would be fixed. But when I started my healing, you know what i

For almost a year, the boy who my parents trusted more than anything, abused me. He used coercive control, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, sexual harassment, digital abuse, stalking, gaslighting, and social isolation to manipulate, intimidate, and degrade me. He took almost everything away from me, but now I'm taking it back, I'm making it MY life again. I'm not staying silent anymore, here is my story. We briefly dated for less than a week, during which I felt powerless, scar

I was cut off from my religious family so I was really isolated when I moved to Australia and had been abused in my family before. At the time I wasn't aware that I was gravitating to the same kind of people because feeling worthless was my base state. I then met an Australian guy and when my house mate disappeared to the Philippines, he moved in to help with rent. He had lied about having a job and the money he was using was his inheritance until his mother told me the truth

I was a troubled 17 year old girl when I met my abuser. He was 25 years old and he’d abused other women before me. I was actually warned by a friend of mine. He told me to "be careful Amy, he just tied up & tried to pour power steering fluid down his ex partners throat." To me it sounded so insane that I thought it was a made up story, especially because the man I thought I knew was “so kind”. Soon after I started dating him he introduced me to ICE (methamphetamine). We smoke

M y DV story starts in 2014. I had met my first sons father when I was 14 & he was 24. By 16 I was living with him, by 17 I was pregnant, by 18 he’d hit me once and I took our son and I walked out. You’d think my story ends there but it does not. Instead, I met and fell head over heels for Dean. He appeared to be everything I wanted. I was going through a nasty custody battle and he seemed to understand that took first priority. Within 5 months I’d fallen pregnant despite usi

I was 16, at a friend's birthday party. I’d been drinking, but I was still aware of what was happening around me. When the night was over , I went to bed and asked another friend for a blanket. He found me a blanket and came into the room, and what happened next was an example of crossing the line and not understanding boundaries . He forced himself on top of me, kissing me, whispering in my ear to “ just relax”. I tried to tell him to get off, but he ignored my words. I had

To whom ever is reading this, I’m giving you a trigger warning now as my story is traumatic. It is a story that I’m wanting to tell because I’m sick of my family trying to scare me into not telling it.  I grew up in an abusive household- it was only my mum, my step dad, and my 3 siblings. From the shy age of 12 my step dad was sexually assaulting me in the same house as my mum and siblings. He would do it with the door open whilst everyone was asleep. He would do this up un