Many believe that the criminalization of coercive control is an overreach into private relationships — this is why they are wrong.
Trigger Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual assault, abuse, and domestic violence that may not be suitable for all readers. Fearless community, please read with care.
It’s 5.32pm. I pull into the driveway and walk quickly to the front door. I’m late, I take a deep breath and brace myself. The reprieve is over, 14 hours until I can again drive away to the office, what I refer to in the privacy of my own mind as day release. Tomorrow is Friday.
I hate Fridays.
For years my real workday commenced when I got home from the office. Unlike…
Perimenopause, Ovarian Cancer or something else?
I’ll never forget ‘Stacy’. Mid forties, two kids, a smile so radiant that you noticed it before the lack of hair and slightly sunken eyes. She was so grateful that she was able to access a lawyer to help get her affairs in order. A lawyer that she could not afford, who was provided for her through a program to help people like her.
As a volunteer for the Cancer Council’s pro bono lawyers scheme I have met, and I like to think in a small way helped, many people facing the harsh reality of cancer.
But no-one impacted me…
I’m about a third of the way, here’s what I’ve learnt so far.
In August last year I wrote one of those pieces that just comes out, start to finish in a few minutes. I pressed publish, was delighted when it was curated, and thought little more about it.
Until two weeks later when it really took off.
The story was about my 80th since I started writing on Medium about a year earlier. Until then my most popular stories made well under $100. …
That sounds awful and I hope your son can find the strength to get away. However in many cases the perpetrator does not have a mental health issue, they have an entitlement issue.
To say that domestic violence is gendered does not say that women cannot be perpetrators, they can. Often when they are, like in the case of your daughter in law, there is a serious mental health issue.
However in most cases it stems from a man's belief that he is entitled to power and control and that a woman is someone to be subdued and dominated.
The relentless agony of an estrangement neither of us want.
This time last year I published a tribute that I wrote for my only child on his 19th birthday. It was written through tears of grief, my agony of not seeing him spilling out onto the screen.
Since then I have written many articles about the struggle I have had, since, escaping a long term abusive relationship, to maintain a relationship with my only child, a stunning, young man with autism and a severe intellectual disability.
A young man who turned 20 a few weeks ago.
If you have been following my story you will know that I won the…
A year ago Medium changed the topic “Women” to “Feminism”. They are not the same thing.
Last night I published this piece about Ovarian Cancer. It was self-published and I did not expect it to be curated. This morning I noticed that it was and went on the obligatory search, thanks to Medium no longer telling us what topics our work has been distributed in, to find it. After not finding it in Health or Self I was surprised to find it in Feminism.
Ovarian Cancer is not a feminist issue, it’s a women’s issue.
Feminism is essentially a movement of people who are committed to social, economic, political and personal equality (not sameness) of the…
I can’t believe it either.
Early last year I was sitting in my office and, just as I had many times before, took a bite of a protein bar. It tasted ghastly.
Don’t ask me why but I had another bite to make sure.
Within minutes the room was spinning, I quickly developed a raised red rash all over my body and my lips began to swell.
I was having an anaphalactic reaction.
Looking back I realize that the incredible human body has a built in defense mechanism. …
Hi, I think you ask fair questions. I have a couple of thoughts. Firstly, for me personally, the reason I write on these topics is not because I'm under some illusion that my writing will somehow cause perpetrators to stop controlling and abusing their partners.
First and foremost I want women who are trapped and confused in these insidious 'relationships' to know what I didn't know when I was trapped in one. That how they are being treated is NOT normal, it IS abuse and with help they can escape and recover.
I write for those woman, not in some…
An examination of the bizarre #CallThemOut campaign championed by the ‘Brotherhood of Fathers’.
My interest in the ideology behind Men’s Rights Activists was first birthed almost six years ago when I escaped from my first marriage, a relationship in which I was coercively controlled and emotionally, physically and sexually abused, at gradually increasing intensity for more than 18 years. When I finally got away the first thing my ex husband did was join a support group.
A support group for male victims of domestic violence.
I was astonished. After eroding me to the point where I felt I had no soul and that suicide was my only option, he turned the tables and…
The hard to face consequences, of our mind-numbing habits.
What comes to mind when you think about the word ‘addiction’? For me it’s cigarette smoking. They say it’s one of the hardest habits to kick.
Maybe you think of people addicted to drugs, or gaming machines, or alcohol?
For those of us who don’t harbor a destructive habit that has or may cost us everything, that has the potential to destroy our family, ruin our health, erode our security or decimate our relationships, we probably think of addiction as something that happens to other people.
Until recently, that’s what I believed.
Maybe it’s something to do with pushing 50…
