This is a topic that falls very close to my heart. A topic that I have never spoken about to anyone. I am one line in and my eyes are already watering just thinking about it. It is a very deep and dark subject that I am sure many others have experienced and can relate in some way.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.

Having set the bar at physical abuse, which is where our society still keeps that bar to a large extent as well, women in these situations often feel that if they aren’t being hit, they aren’t being abused, and they therefore have no right to complain, let along initiate a divorce or breakup.

Growing up you always pictured your life would turn out some what like a fairy tale, you meet your prince charming fall in love and live happily ever after. You never thought that love could bring you such harm, that there are different kinds of love out there that can destroy you. Tear your walls down completely and make it hard to fall in love again in the fear of opening that hole back up in your heart that was never fully repaired in the first place. When I was 16 years old I met a boy he was this dreamy hot thing that every girl at school used to drool over. He had a girlfriend at the time but when he laid eyes on me it didn’t stop him from talking to me. We caught up one night and we ended up kissing, he cheated on his girlfriend with me its not like me to be that girl that causes a breakup but I was so intrigued by him I couldn’t help myself. We started dating for a little while but little did I know he was still dating her too. I ended things when I found out and we parted ways.

Four years later after absolutely no communication I had not even seen his face in this time we ran into each other. There was this instant connection again, butterflies filled my stomach as we started to talk. We exchanged numbers and we began to message each other quiet frequently. One night he asked to catch up he wanted to apologise for everything that happened when we were younger, so I did, we had the most amazing night I could feel all those feelings come racing back that I fell for him when I was 16 years old.

Little did I know that in those 4 years of no communication he had gotten himself in a bit of trouble, he had a pretty bad drug addiction. When we started talking again he was smoking weed to bring himself down off the harder drugs but then became addicted to weed. Back then I was very much a pushover, weak and a people pleaser. I would do anything for anyone just to be liked just to feel love and be loved and feel accepted and appreciated. At this point I was so drawn to the connection we shared and the feelings that were arising that I pushed aside the fact that he was in a very dark place and ignoring the fact that this relationship was far from right for me. I had always been very against everything that he preached and I let my walls down and threw aside everything that I believed in to please him.

Things started off really good we fell in love with each other very quickly and then that’s when it all started to spiral out of control. At that age I was very social, went out and partied a fair bit, played a lot of sport, worked, had an abundance of friends and spent a lot of time with my family. He was the complete opposite, he didn’t have a job lived off his parents, wasn’t playing any sport at the time, didn’t have many friends, didn’t go out hardly really left his house or show his face in public. Over time these differences started to come into affect. He started getting very jealous about the people I would talk to, hang out with play sport with, even with me being at work or with my family.

His addiction then started to become worse. The first thing he would do when he woke up in the morning was smoke a bong. And if he didn’t have any weed available he started to become very angry. This anger was mostly taken out on me. It got to the point that the only time he was happy or sane was if he was stoned. This became very hard for me to deal with because this wasn’t the life I wanted to live but I began to feel very trapped like there was no escape. He didn’t have an income so his only source of income to feed his addiction was his parents or myself. I only worked casual hours at a pub I was barely making enough money to cater for my own expenses let alone someone else’s, but if he was unable to get money from his parents I felt obliged to give him some only for the fact I was so scared to see the dark side of him come out. I was so in love with the person he was when he was sane, so I tried to make sure he never ran out.

It got to the point that I felt like I was dating two completely different people. I seen a side that I loved a caring, loving, fun and adventurous side. Then I also seen a very dark, angry, twisted side that scared me to death. The anger spurts got worse as he continued to tell me he would never hit me, never hurt me he would never lay a hand on a woman as he would punch walls, throw things, break things tear apart his house and ruin his belongings. But the violence isn’t what tore me down I would have much rather been punched in the face and have it over and done with then to have someone screaming in your face for hours telling you how much of a slut, whore, town bike, worthless, loser piece of shit you are that nobody loves or cares about. Constantly being put down, constantly being made to feel like I don’t even deserve to be alive. This kind of abuse came about almost every day for months. I was no longer allowed to talk to a single guy friend, I couldn’t play sport anymore as there would be boys there. I was then pushed away from my girlfriends because they hanged out with guys and then I was being pulled away from my family because I wasn’t spending all my spare time with him.

All I wanted to do throughout this relationship was try to help him! That’s why we stay longer than we should. Because it hurts to watch something you love transform into something you should hate. We sit and wait for it to return to its original state, in denial as we ignore the fact that what we see was always there and what is now, will always be. The violence and abuse got worse my car copped most of the damage many broken windscreens, broken side mirrors, dashboard punched in, graffiti all through the inside of my car with horrible words such a whore, town bike, sucks cock for cash, filthy dirty slut. I spent weeks trying to scrub it all off before I could let anybody else step a foot inside. I started slowly losing all my friends as they couldn’t understand how I could stay with such a monster and disown them in the meantime. I called up sick to work all the time, my family started to hate on me as I began to lie so much about my whereabouts what I was doing and why I wasn’t going to work or coming home.

My loyalty and my whole life was completely devoted to him and him only I stopped caring for anything else, I put all my energy in trying to fix him help him get through this darkness that overtook his state of mind instead of just walking away but I found myself falling deeper into it myself, changing as a person, slowly falling into a world of depression, anxiety and hate. We stopped going out in public together I deleted my social media accounts, I stayed at his house every single night, I kept calling up sick for work, I stopped seeing or speaking to my friends and family. And even after doing all this for him he still couldn’t trust me or see that all I was trying to do was help him get better. And then one day he did lay his hands on me he strangled me as I was in the drivers seat of my car he sat on top of me and strangled me until I turned blue then he realised what he was doing and stopped. He tried to say he was sorry but I just ran, ran away so fast and quickly out of there leaving him with my car and car keys I just needed to escape.

After this happened I stopped caring, I stopped trying to change him I gave up on helping him and wanted to leave. He started to threaten me with suicide saying if I leave he would kill himself or harm others. This put me in such a difficult position I wanted/ needed to get out of this toxic relationship but I couldn’t bare the thought of someone taking their own life because of me. So I stayed. And nothing changed. I kept trying to leave over time but kept getting my self pulled back in I would be at work and he would ring me saying he has a rope around his neck so I would leave work and go and see him. It got to the point where I just lost it and started telling him to just fucking do it already as horrible as it sounds I just hit the point of not loving him anymore and turning that love into hate wanting him to just disappear.

The breaking point for me that made me finally walk away was he told me he had slept with someone else, someone that we were both very close too and had spent a lot of time with. This hit me hard, so hard that the moment he told me I drove to his house opened the door and just started throwing punches. Punch after punch after punch and he took it. I have never been a violent person, I have never hit another person in my entire life but this adrenaline and anger just came across me like nothing else. After all the months of being abused for being untrustworthy being accused of sleeping around betraying him when I was absolutely 100% loyal. He went and done that, after all that abuse this hurt me more than anything. I wasted so much of my time trying to prove my loyalty, trying to help him with his addiction, trying to keep him calm, putting up with all that bullshit and for what. That’s when I finally walked away.

Few months later I packed my bags and moved to Warrnambool to live with the only real friends I had left that still stood by me. Seven years later and one of them is still my housemate.

At the end of the day I could rattle on so much more, I could go into further detail about the events that occurred as it was so much deeper than I have described but I struggle to speak badly about people. Because I always try to find the light in their darkness I always think that there is a reason they act the way they do, they might be fighting their own demons and this is how they retaliate… Even though this person hurt me more than they know I still struggle to find those hating words I wish I could say about them. I seem to have this act for wanting to fix people, wishing I could help them… But if they aren’t willing to save themselves then sometimes they just aren’t worth saving… It took me  a while to work that out.. too long.. until it was too late and I was in too deep messed up in a life I didn’t want to be involved in.. Drugs.. violence.. anger.. jealousy.. betrayal.. lies.. instead I forgave them and moved on with my life, well tried too.. I think once you’ve been mentally abused those images those hurtful words stay within you forever.. You can try to hide it, forget it never happened but eventually something triggers and you relive those moments over and over again until you break! And that’s when my depression kicks in, that’s when my anxiety kicks in that’s when I start doubting myself thinking I’m not good enough, thinking I don’t deserve to be loved, thinking I don’t deserve to be happy, thinking I’m worthless, thinking the world would be a better place without me…

Mental abuse can do more harm than physical abuse ever will, bones will heal but the mind scars never will…

I still wish to this day I got the help I needed back when it was all fresh in my mind, when I could remember every single detail of every single action, word that was said, clothes that were worn, music that was played, people that were there. Now they are just voices in my head, random visions that I can’t even find the words to say to speak about. All I know is that it was a really messed up time in my life, but today I thank him, as it has made me the person I am today! I am stronger, I am wiser, I am a warrior, I am a queen.

Being a survivor of emotional abuse is fighting daily battles in your head with a person you no longer have contact with. I truly hope that he has turned his life around for the better, truly hope that he has found happiness in life, which I hear he has and I am happy for him. Because that is the type of person I am, despite everything he put me through, I don’t want to hate him, I forgive him, as I believe I just got mixed up in a dark time of his life. My scars may not heal but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in anger and hate for something I had/have no control over.

This subject is not something that has been easy to write about. While I am being honest this has taken me months to write, I haven’t gone into too much detail with everything as I have always been scared to say the wrong thing in fear of retaliation or judgement. But I feel better for putting this out there, I feel better for speaking up. If you are someone that has been through something similar and are still battling with your own scars, don’t be afraid to speak up, or at least write it all down. I can guarantee you will feel some what at peace because of it. Once you can move pass the fear of judgement, that is when you will find your true happiness in life.

“You are not required to set yourself on fire in order to keep other people warm”

Living with anxiety is like being followed by a voice. It knows all your insecurities and uses them against you. It gets to the point when it’s the loudest in the room. The ONLY one you can hear.

Do you ever feel like you don’t belong, like every single person is judging your every move, like you’re the ugly duckling in a pond of swans, like everyone is against you? That’s anxiety. It can mess with your brain in ways that nobody else would understand. Make you feel worthless, unloved, underappreciated, like you are never good enough. Anxiety is the most common mental health condition in Australia. Up to one-third of women and one-fifth of men will experience anxiety at some point in their lives some more so than others. When we’re very anxious, we have intense feelings of worry or distress that are not easy to control. Anxiety can interfere with how we go about our everyday lives, and make it hard to cope with ‘normal’ challenges.

When I was in primary school, there was this girl, I didn’t know who she was, she was just a year below me. One day she went up to my friend and asked her if that Erin Maxwell chick was dropped on her head as a child because she looks like a fish from the side. Probably the most ridiculous comment someone could make about one’s appearance. But for me this comment affected the rest of my schooling. From that moment until I graduated year 12 I was so cautious of letting people see me from a side on profile because I was so petrified of the fact that people would think I looked like a fish. Maybe it’s my big brown googly eyes, small button nose and flat face that resembles Dory off finding Nemo I don’t know but that comment hurt me. Some of my friends started calling me fish head, it wasn’t in a mean way to upset me that was just my new nickname. I tried to go along with it as a joke but deep down it hurt and it affected me more than they knew. I even made my snap chat name as fishead_maxwell to make it seem like the nickname didn’t bother me. I still to this day look at photos of myself in disgust because I feel like I look too “fishy” in them. This is what it is like to live with anxiety.

The constant fear that people are talking behind your back, the constant worrying about every little thing said to you. Someone tells you your top is ugly; you throw it out even if it is your favourite piece of clothing. Someone bullies you about a body part of yours you laugh with them at first then cry yourself to sleep that night. Someone tells you that your breath stinks one day, from then on you are constantly worrying about what people are thinking when you talk to them for basically the rest of your life. You worry about the tinniest things, and pick yourself apart when you make mistakes. You remember conversations or events you may have had years ago that embarrassed you or upset you and still to this day those memories affect you, even though those around you would have forgotten all about it that same day. You strive to feel accepted, wanted, loved even though you already are.

Anxiety can affect the relationships you have with friends, family and partners. Some people don’t even know they are suffering with anxiety and I feel like once you do finally realise you have mental health issues and you admit that you need help it becomes easier to control. For me anxiety has affected my relationships the most. I am a happy girl most of the time, I am fun most of the time, I am caring most of the time, I am adventurous most of the time. But sometimes out of nowhere I can go from being over the moon happy to a ball of complete depression and anxiety. This makes dating very hard for me, when the person you are dating doesn’t understand what you are going through. They can’t seem to grasp how someone can go from being so happy one day to being so upset and down the next. Your mind is continuously working against you finding any way possible to make you feel inferior. You scream for constant reassurance of that person’s feelings for you, the constant need for affection, needing to know what they’re thinking, what they are doing, their whereabouts when you aren’t with them. Without this, in your head you are coming up with the worst possible scenarios imaginable to the point you then start a fight out of nowhere to try and make that person confess to something they aren’t even doing such as cheating or lying.

Eventually that person gets tired of fighting an ever losing battle with your mind because they simply just don’t understand you. They start to tell you, that you need help or that you have serious issues that they can no longer deal with. Dating someone with anxiety is difficult but having anxiety and dating someone without it is even harder. You want that person to understand what is going on in your head so badly but you just can’t find the words to explain yourself. It isn’t something that is easily explained, everyone suffers in different ways and there really isn’t a cure other than finding something that helps you to control it. For me healthy eating and regular exercise is the only thing I have found that keeps me in a calm state of mind. I also like to keep myself busy the busier I am the less time my head has to fill up with self-doubt and negativity. I am very lucky that I have met someone that understands me now as he himself suffers a little so he can understand how I am feeling from time to time and relate. He knows how to calm me down when I am in a panic, he knows how to react when I am trying to pick a fight over nothing, he knows when to be silent when I need time to breath and he knows when to speak when I can’t find the words to say. He never has to ask me what’s wrong he just knows when something is not right. He has stood by me no matter what I throw at him with my emotions and actions and I am ever so grateful to have someone so understanding in my life.

Anxiety can make you feel so alone when you are surrounded by people. You are not alone, there are many others out there that are fighting the same battles that you are. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help, you can and you will beat this illness! You just need to find something that can help you to control it. Anxiety is like quicksand, the harder we struggle to escape, the deeper we sink. If you feel like it is starting to take over stop for a second, stop what you are doing and take a deep breath, breathe in and breathe out 3 times. Look around at your surroundings and think about 3 things you are grateful for, 3 things that make you happy, 3 things that make you smile. Hopefully this can help you to forget whatever was troubling you in the first place. Remember you are strong for getting out of bed in the morning when it feels like hell. You are brave for doing things even though they scare you or make you anxious. And you are amazing for trying and holding on no matter how hard life gets. You are no less of a person than anyone else for struggling, for living with this illness, you are superior! It’s exhausting fighting a war inside your head every single day while smiling on the outside.

” The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of us but those who win battles we know nothing about”.

You ever wake up in the morning, have a shower, do your hair and makeup, have breakfast get in your car drive to your 9-5 job, finish your 8-hour shift get home cook tea watch some lame ass show that’s on TV then go to bed. Only to wake up and repeat for another 4 days until its Friday and you’re sitting at your desk saying TGIF looking forward to not working on the weekend? Yeah me too! But why? Are you truly happy living such a routinely scheduled life? Don’t you get bored? Because I sure do. I work at an insurance company, and as much as it pays rent, bills and children supplies I can’t say I am waking up every morning bouncing for joy to make people spend a lot of money insuring their goods. I don’t hate my job but I sure as hell don’t love it. I am not passionate about it, I’m not unhappy working here but it is not truly what I wish I was doing. So why do we do it? Why do we work for places that we don’t really give a fuck about? Because it is comfortable! So many of us are living our lives comfortably and that’s okay if it makes you happy. But aren’t you dying to be working in a field that you are absolutely 100% passionate about! That you wake up in the morning and you cannot wait to get involved in work. You go to bed thinking about what you are going to achieve tomorrow, making more plans for your future career. Enjoying every single day of your life instead of just two days a week Saturday’s and Sunday’s when you don’t have to work! Instead we are wasting precious moments of our life, our time, to only wake up in the mornings pressing snooze on the alarm 5 times and trying to think of any excuse possible to get out of going to work that day.

This one time I was working at a café in my home town that I hated I wasn’t there very long. It wasn’t the job I disliked it was my boss she wasn’t a very nice person. Anyways I rang her up one day when I was supposed to work and said I am sick I can’t come in, which I wasn’t really I just did not want to go to work that day. I had some personal issues going on I was not at all feeling up to dealing with people serving on their hands and feet. She replied that’s not acceptable there is no one to cover your shift you have to come in or you will lose your job. So I started driving to work I was about 200 metres from my work and had the mentality of FUCK THIS as I swerved my car straight into a light pole. I literally slowed right down to about 10km per hour and hit a light pole in hope that I wouldn’t do much damage to myself, my car or the pole, just hoping to get myself out of work that day. This is by far the dumbest, stupidest idea I have ever had/done in my entire life. I don’t have many regrets; I believe everything happens for a reason but safe to say I fucking regretted doing this. A guy came running over from a bar across the road to see if I was okay and asked what happened. I literally didn’t even know how to explain myself, do I straight out tell everyone I crashed my car to get out of going to work or would they think I was a lunatic. So I said I just blacked out and don’t remember anything. I then had to repeat my made up story to the police, my friends and family my insurance company and so on. But hey I got out of going to work that day and quit my dumb ass job a week later and never returned. That stupid pole cost me $2000 to replace plus the damages to my car and increase in insurance premium plus the all-round title of being a fucking dick head.

So moral of my story is if you hate your job that much just quit! if it is making you unhappy, QUIT! Don’t make the stupid ass mistake that I did, it was not a smart move and you will regret it! If you can’t be in your dream job right now then set yourself goals. Give yourself something to look forward to, something to work towards a reason to stay in the job you don’t care about. Otherwise you are just working day by day, week by week for no purpose other than to pay bills. You may not know exactly what you want to do with your life right now, what career path you wish to follow, if that is the case then search for what ever it is that makes you happy! Don’t ever give up! Your dream job is out there waiting for you to attend to it. You may never work out exactly what you want to be but don’t get yourself stuck in such a routined life. If you enjoy reading books, make it interesting see how many books you can read in a month, start a book club. If you enjoy working out at the gym, challenge yourself see how quickly you can run 1km and try to beat that each week. If you enjoy cooking, be adventurous and create your own meals out of random ingredients. Just do something out of the ordinary! You don’t want to get to 80 years old look back at your ordinary life and be disappointed you didn’t achieve everything you dreamed about. You want to be able to look back and tell yourself and the world that you have lived an extraordinary life! Don’t let constant failures set you back, pick yourself up and try again. Don’t let other people influence your choices, this is your life, you can live it how ever and which ever way you choose. Stand out in a crowd of people in all black, be YELLOW. Don’t ever give up on your dreams because that is why we have them!

I have a vision, I have a goal that I am working towards I know exactly where I want to be and the steps that it’s going to take to get me there! But for now I will continue to stay in a job that I am not 100% happy with, but I will never ever give up! I will get there eventually no matter how long it may take me or how many times I fail. I want to live an extraordinary life! My gravestone is going to read Erin Maxwell died one happy mother fucker! She achieved GREATNESS!

“Overcome the notion that you must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be EXTRAORDINARY!”

Since my son Cael is only 2 and a half years old he has already experienced 12 plane flights 3 different locations. That’s a lot of travelling for one little adventurer.

And each flight has its own horror story I tell you what this is probably a post about what not to do rather than what to do when taking your children flying.

Cael’s first ever plane flight was on a trip to New Zealand, I haven’t mentioned yet but Cael is part Kiwi. He was only about 1 years old at this point just learning to walk but still stumbling around. Our holiday did not start off with a bang more like an explosion… A poo explosion. Yes, you heard me poo, human feces and lots of it.

We were waiting in the Melbourne airport about half an hour before our plane was departing when Cael started screaming the entire airport down out of nowhere. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. He had just recently been fed, I had changed his nappy, gave him a bottle, his temperature was fine. But there was some funky ass smell coming from his be-hind even though I couldn’t see anything when I looked down his pants. So I took his nappy off in front of everyone and spread his legs and there it was one rock hard nugget! Continue reading “Flying with children 101 (it’s a shit storm)” →

When I was younger I always imagined my life would turn out in the footsteps of my parents. They met each other when Mum was only 16 years old fell in love then Mum decided she needed to venture out on her own spread her wings and discover what she wants to do with her life before she settled down with a husband and a family. So they broke up went their separate ways. Years later fate brought them back together they had stumbled across one another at a party and soon enough they were married and had 4 children. They are still together to this day and all of us kids are closer than ever. This is how I pictured my life to be. I imagined that I would be married with the love of my life and also have 4 children of my own by the age of 20! ha I know right THANK FUCK that’s not how my life story unfolded.

Over the years I have experienced my fair share of relationships, a few heart breaks and breaking others myself in search for “the one”. My last relationship before I moved away from my family was quiet a traumatising one, one that I thought I would never be able to move on from and made me give up on finding love. The only way I knew I would be able to get on with my life was to move away from the town he lived in so I moved to Warrnambool away from my home town of Mount Gambier. Within only a few months I had met my sons father, we didn’t see eye to eye at first I was very distant but eventually he grew on me and I fell in love. I thought this was it! I thought I had found the person I would spend the rest of my life with. Within a year I had moved to a small country town where he lived. Shortly after, our relationship began to deteriorate I became very unhappy within myself and I was just about at breaking point when I fell pregnant. This was not a joyful time for me I was not over the moon about this pregnancy. This was more of a holy fucking shit I am pregnant fuck my life! What am I going to do situation. At one point I even considered getting an abortion. I feel terrible now for even having those thoughts because I love my son but at that point in time I was very unhappy and was not at all ready to become a Mum. And I think that’s okay, it’s okay to have those feelings of doubt and to be scared of the unknown. It is a massive change to your lifestyle to take on parenthood, raising a child that’s your own. It’s not easy and if you are simply not ready then I don’t think you should be discriminated for making decisions like abortion. I personally couldn’t do it, I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason and I thought maybe this will fix my relationship, maybe I will finally be happy. Continue reading “One of the hardest parts of life is deciding whether to walk away or try harder!” →