Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers
TRIGGER WARNING -
THIS PODCAST CONTAINS THE STORIES & EXPERIENCES OF THOSE WITH LIVED EXPERIENCES OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE. CONTENT MAY BE TRIGGERING.
Welcome to "Conversations with my Sisters' Keepers," dedicated to normalizing the trauma recovery experience of survivors of complex trauma and gender-based violence (GBV). We bring awareness, share stories, and promote healing-centered conversations for lived experience professionals and allies in the gender-based violence and recovery sectors. By sharing authentic stories and experiences, we hope to break down stigma, promote understanding, and celebrate the self-discovery within healing.
Together, we’ll explore strategies, resources, and insights to support wellness, recovery, and leadership. Join us as we challenge stigma, celebrate autonomy, and normalize the healing journey.
Let’s build a community of understanding and empowerment—one conversation at a time.
SUBSCRIBE NOW - DON'T MISS A SINGLE EPISODE!
Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers
When the System Fails: Michelle Faye's Fight for Justice and Change (Part 1)
Michelle Faye, a domestic violence survivor and candidate for the Australian House of Representatives, shares her powerful story of surviving 17 years of abuse and transforming that experience into advocacy for systemic change. She speaks candidly about her journey from being trapped in coercive control to becoming a passionate advocate for other survivors.
• Experiencing gradual escalation from subtle controlling behaviors to life-threatening violence
• Facing post-separation abuse including surveillance, stalking, and threats
• Encountering repeated failures from police and support services meant to protect survivors
• Dealing with the impact of trauma responses years after escaping the relationship
• Launching "The System" campaign to highlight survivors' stories and advocate for meaningful change
• Reclaiming personal identity and overcoming fears that were instilled through years of conditioning
• Transforming lived experience into political action by running for Parliament
• Championing the value of lived experience leadership alongside academic knowledge
If you've been impacted by domestic violence, please reach out to support services in your area. Remember that your story matters, and you are not alone in your journey.
Welcome to Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers, the podcast where we bring awareness, share stories, and promote healing-centered conversations for lived experience professionals and allies in the gender-based violence and recovery sectors.
I'm Shamin Brown, and together, we’ll explore strategies, resources, and insights to support wellness, recovery, and leadership. Join us as we challenge stigma, celebrate autonomy, and normalize the healing journey.
hello everyone and thank you for joining us for conversations with my sister's keepers. I'm here today with our sister's keeper, michelle faye, a domestic violence and sexual assault advocate, as well as candidate for the house of representatives in the federal parliament of australia. Michelle is a passionate advocate and lived experience mentor for survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence. With deep empathy and understanding, she provides holistic support to women on their recovery journeys, offering peer mentorship and guidance. Recognizing the complex challenges survivors face, michelle addresses issues such as mental and physical health, legal struggles and relationship difficulties. Her commitment is to walk alongside these women, empowering them with the tools and accountability needed to achieve positive, lasting outcomes and create a sustainable future. Through this work, michelle has been inspired to drive systemic change from within, which has led to her candidacy for the House of Representatives. Determined to advocate for meaningful reforms, she is dedicated to amplifying the voices of survivors and ensuring that their needs are met at the highest levels of government. Welcome, michelle. It's so nice to have you here. How exciting.
Speaker 2:Hi, thank you for having me. I'm really excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, conversations with my sister's keepers are crucial for survivors and survivor leaders everywhere. It's time to advance beyond trauma-informed and resilience-based narratives of surviving, thriving and leading, and to embrace a healing-centered focus on wellness and recovery. Today, we aim to challenge the stigma and judgment that many survivors encounter during their healing process. By sharing insights into our own recovery and wellness journeys, I believe we can normalize the ongoing and cyclical nature of the recovery experience. What are your thoughts about that, michelle?
Speaker 2:Absolutely agree. Through my own journey, I had a lot of difficulties in even speaking about it because nobody else was and it was a little hidden secret. So I think it's really, really important that we share so that other people actually understand that they're not the only one, and I've learned that I'm not the only one as well.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. As you know, I'm the Canadian chairperson of the G100 Anti-Human Trafficking Wing and I'd like to run some of our goals by you and see what you think, if you have any feedback for us. We aim to promote lived experience leadership and autonomy, support the wellness of lived experience staff, develop survivor-led, informed and facilitated prevention and intervention programs, and identify ally organizations that are invested in survivor leadership. What do you think about these goals for G100 Canada?
Speaker 2:I think it's absolutely amazing and I don't think that there is enough of it and through my own experience in becoming a lived experience mentor and advertiser, it's been a battle to actually be recognized and become credible within the sector, because I didn't have a piece of paper, mine was lived experience. It was very difficult to get to where I got to, because there's a place for academics and there's a place for lived experience, but generally lived experience is not recognised in the same way as academics, so it was very difficult. So I think it's a great initiative.
Speaker 1:We're so happy to have you here and we're so happy to have your voice and your expertise. I would totally agree that you know. Lived experience is not given the same epistemic recognition as academic expertise and knowledge, which is unfortunate because there are some things that you simply cannot learn in a book and that should hold more value than the things that are, you know, there for a price for people to learn. The price that is paid for lived experience is much different, much more costly and should be, I believe, valued in a much more meaningful way. Speaking of your journey and some of the things that you've been through, would you, Kerida, just walk us through some of your lived experiences, with the dues trauma, addiction or mental health? Again, you know, whatever you're comfortable with and feel safe sharing with the world, yeah, so I have.
Speaker 2:I had a really, really intense relationship, and I say the word intense because it was the entire relationship. I was very young when I got into the relationship. I was in my early 20s and I actually didn't understand that even in the early days that I was actually a victim of domestic violence, until many, many years later when I was first physically hit. That's when I realised that I was in a domestic violence relationship. So my entire, pretty much my entire adult life I knew relationships to be. It was normalised to have violence within the relationship and you know, it started very I suppose, very mild. In looking back now where it was, you know being told who I could talk to, and not in a way where it was you can't talk to that person. It was coercive control. So it was in a way where you know like I'm sitting here waiting for you and you're on the phone and it was like you know, get off the phone, get off the phone, or you know you want to go out with your friends and it was like, oh yeah, but I wanted to hang out with you and those kinds of things and at that time I didn't even understand that that was coercive control. Or you'd put something on to wear and he'd turn it around and say, oh, are you wearing that? You know why are you wearing that. You don't change. And you know when you're very young and you're being conditioned to be controlled very young and you're being conditioned to be controlled it's hard to even identify that. That's not normal. And you know he was very clever at. You know the love bombing which I learned 17 years later, when you know it took me 17 years to actually learn that. And you know when something had occurred or when he'd done something. You know, I remember the first case it's very, very clear to me when we had only been together for a very short period of time and it's so vivid in my mind.
Speaker 2:We were driving my car along the road and it's back when we had cassette tapes and I had a Shania Twain cassette tape and I had a plane and I was driving. He was in the passenger seat and he turned it off and I said no, I want to listen to the tapes. And he said turn it off. And I said you guys, I don't like this crap. And I was like but I like it.
Speaker 2:He pulled the tape out of the tape deck and threw it out the window of the car and at that time I was like you can't do that. So I actually dropped him off at home and I went back to my home and we weren't living together at that point and I was like no, that's you know, like the boundary was there, you can't do that. I was, I wouldn't talk to him, I just went no, this isn't for me. 24 hours later, I had a bunch of flowers turn up at the door and I had gifts turn up at the door, and that was when I was being love bombed and had no idea till 17 years later that that story would be Hoovering.
Speaker 1:Oh, they sprung you back in, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's so. That story is so vivid to me now and I've never forgotten it. And now that I look back and understand how you know these coercive control, how it actually works, that story is relevant now. It's meant Because those parents I had, with that love bombing and that hoovering and being sucked back in, and you know, even in the early days where it was, you know, I remember once saying to him you know, I've never seen the snow. And within two weeks we were holidaying on the outskirts of Canberra in the snow. And here I am thinking you know how lucky am I to have found this perfect person. Well, the perfect person for me.
Speaker 2:And so throughout that next 17 years, I basically was being controlled, but I didn't even know that I was. I was just while I was towing the line and I was doing everything that he expected of me, which was everything working, looking after the children, everything that I was doing, and he didn't do a great deal. And while I was telling those lines, I didn't have access to money. So there was financial control. He would give me access to money. It was fine, he was fine with that.
Speaker 2:And it was at the time when I started to assert independence and set boundaries and say you know, this isn't right. Something about this just isn't right. I can't go with my friends. I don't have access to money. I've got to ask for money. You know, if he doesn't like something that I'm doing, he'll slam a door. And then I fall into line and I actually started to work that out and I started to assert some you know independence and say no, like enough's enough, and he didn't like it. Some you know independence and say no, like enough's enough, and he didn't like it. So at that point it got worse.
Speaker 2:So he started to come down even more and started to become more aggressive and yeah, and I asked for a divorce and he hit me for the first time and at that he basically said if you leave, I'm going to kill you. So it was almost like it went. If I had have continued to have, I suppose and I say toe the line if I had to continue to stay within his you know expectations, I probably would never have been, necessarily wouldn't have escalated to that point that it escalated to, and it was just that I think one day I went this isn't right, I'm not allowed to do anything. I can't you know. And even to the point, if I put makeup on, why are you wearing makeup? Where are you going? I'd go to the allowed to do anything I can't you know.
Speaker 2:And even to the point of, if I put makeup on, why are you wearing makeup? Where are you going? I'd go to the shop to do grocery shopping and it was like well, you've been gone for half an hour, when are you coming home? So it was I think I just started this isn't normal, like this isn't a normal life. But it took 17 years to get to that point of realizing that it wasn't normal. And you know people say to me how did you realize that it wasn't normal, and I think for me it came with maturity and so it came with just getting older. My children got older and I wanted to do all of these things and I wasn't able to because I had them in visible prison restrictions.
Speaker 2:Restrictions, yeah, the lines everywhere that I went. And you know I wasn't allowed to go on holidays with my friends, I wasn't allowed to go on nights out, because you know it made him uncomfortable because not because of me, I trust you, I don't trust everybody else. So it was those kind of statements and you know, once the escalation started, it just kept going. So it didn't matter after he hit me for the first time, it didn't matter how well I behaved, it still worked. So it didn't matter what I did, I would do every single thing he wanted me to do. And the escalation still got worse and you know, it got to the point in the end by the time sort of it came to an end and he was forcibly removed from the home by the authorities through an intervention order. You know I was being strangled every couple of days. That's how he was controlling me.
Speaker 2:And you know what I didn't understand, I think, at that point, was when I looked back, when I was in the thick of when it was really serious, it was really dangerous. When I was in the thick of when it was really serious, it was really dangerous. I didn't understand how it went from that point of being like it was almost like I missed a window where I could have left and I just sort of went. It just escalated so quickly that by the time it got to that point there was no chance of getting out alive or without intervention. And somebody said to me throughout this period but why don't you leave? And I'm like you've, you actually can't. Like I had traffic in the end. I had trackers in my car. There was recording devices around the house. He was checking my mobile phone. He knew where I was at all times. I physically.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the signs that he sent me about how much danger I was in was when I actually went to my counsellor's office and went to counselling and I'd actually been had. It been assaulted the night before, like hours before that, and it involved strangulation and my camp. There was a police station close to my counsellor's office and he said we're going to the police station and I was like I can't, he's gonna hurt me. He's office. And he said we're going to the police station and I was like no, I can't, he's going to hurt me, he's going to. And he said we're going to the police station or I'm going to report it. This is going to happen. And I went to the police station with my councillor. He left. I was there for about two hours and I knew I knew that he's going to be like why is she gone for so long? And I walked back to my car and he was sitting on the back of my car and that was when I went.
Speaker 2:I'm in trouble here and because he walked from the police station knowing this had just happened and at that point I did know that strangulation was a preterist to feminist vibes. I did know that strangulation was a preterritor to feminist vibes. I knew that and it was probably the most terrifying day because I was you beat the police station. He knew because the police station was down the road from the shops, so there was nowhere to go, there was nowhere to turn, and it wasn't until he made a fatal mistake where he was finally arrested and the police took action and put in a knock. And that was actually how I finally got free of it. And even following that, it didn't end there. The post-separation abuse continued.
Speaker 1:This is an important conversation because I see this with a lot of my clients too. There's that separation that happens, but that abuse sometimes even picks up lots of belittling, lots of demeaning, lots of you know, really damaging for the self-esteem but fear-provoking as well. Sorry, please continue yes.
Speaker 2:You know, there were periods after he was removed. I mean, he stayed five nights in the watch house. Then he received bail for a serious assault. It's another issue, but you know that's another issue with the system, which is, you know, probably for another day. But the post-separation abuse was so bad I didn't sleep, so every night if I heard a noise outside of my house, I was up. It didn't matter what it was, it could be a twig or a branch. I for months awaited him to come and kill me and I believed that was going to happen. And it was just. You know, he would.
Speaker 2:Following our separation, I didn't understand the amount of control that he had and the amount of surveillance he had on me until I would bump into him in places that he shouldn't have even been, you know. Suddenly I'm in there, or I go and do my groceries and he drives past me in the car, or, and he was just appearing everywhere and I remember that this isn't champs, that he's, you know, appearing everywhere and it was clear intimidation, like he was trying to intimidate me. And then I discovered that because he had control of my emails, he had google tracker on, so even after the situation, he was tracking me through my email account. So I cleared all that up and, you know, even with you know, I was trying to co-parent with him for a few months. Following that Tricky Well, the advice that I'd received from police actually was that I needed to. How old were your kids at this time? My children at that time were my goodness, hang on a minute. So my eldest child was 15, 13, 11 and 8. So they were the age where they could speak and where they could tell me what was happening. But it was an awful feeling.
Speaker 2:So a police officer actually told me that I had to ensure that I encouraged a meaningful relationship between him and the children. Now I would later learn that that was absolute garbage and that that actually put me at risk because, as a protected parent, I wasn't being protective. But here I was coming out of this situation following advice any advice that I could get, because I didn't have anyone telling me how to do things. I didn't have anyone supporting me. I was listening to all of this advice and the officer actually said to me you need to ensure that you're assisting the children to carry on a meaningful relationship with their father.
Speaker 2:And you know, in my head it went against my grain and I'm thinking how can you possibly I'm handing my children over to a man who's committed serious acts of violence not only against me but also against my children. So that went on Probably. So I said to the children if you don't want to go, you don't have to go. I said, if you tell me you don't want to go, I'm not going to force you to go. And you know it was the four children, the dependents, that were at home. They slowly dropped off. So you know, one of them went.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm never going back and I'm like, okay, and she, you know she came home saying all he does is talk about you and tell us how horrible you are and evil you are. And you know that parental alienation had kicked in already really early in the day. And then it was, you know, the second child had come home after the second visit and thought I'm not going back, so we had down. And then the third child went a couple of times and she turned around and went I'm not going back. And then it was one of my children, the youngest, and he continued to go, of which he would. I had to actually suspend. Three months later I said it's not happening anymore. All of these things.
Speaker 2:And then I learned about how important it was to be the protective parent, which I knew deep down was the right thing to do. But when you're being told that you can't risk your death, you kind of, and you don't want to look bad for the family court and you're trying to do all of the right things. And he actually, one day he came home and I said that was really the chat. I said you're not going to be going back and I explained to him why and he turned around and burst into tears and my heart just broke because he was eight years old. And I said you know, talk to me about what you're feeling. And he said thank you, mummy, thank you mummy, thank you, mummy. And I said what do you mean? And he said I don't want to go back there. He goes. I was only going back there because I was afraid if I didn't go he would hurt you. It was probably one of the most heartbreaking days because, as a little boy he was going
Speaker 2:there he was being protective. So that has stopped at that point. And you know, then, obviously, following that, that alienated him even more and yeah, I just kept pushing forward and every breach of intervention order it didn't matter how small please consider it was I reported every single thing. And we're now four years on and he's expected to. After four years he's expected to be sentenced in two weeks in the district court. So it's taken four years to get through the criminal court system.
Speaker 2:So it continued in the criminal court system and when I've heard people talk about systems abuse and I'm like, well, how can that even happen? You know there's all these balances and all these people involved. Yes, he was able to adjourn repeatedly. He was able to change representation for reasons about the proceedings. He was on the third sentencing hearing, so he's managed to adjourn it twice already by not providing the right psych reports and you know, his first lawyer in the sentencing period earlier in this year actually tried to claim it was a turbulent relationship to mitigate his sentence. It's been very traumatic all the way through, absolutely.
Speaker 1:What does that look like for you in terms of continuing parenting and accessing support, especially while you're doing some of this advocacy work?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I didn't get a lot of support throughout my you know, what was the turning point for me was I knew something wasn't right. You know I'd done report breaches or, during the domestic violence actually occurring, the police had been to our home on multiple occasions, so it wasn't like on one occasion police turned up and they took action. They had been to our home five or six times, police had been called and the perpetrator would continually he'd pretend he didn't remember. He would pretend he was in a psychotic kind of state, didn't know what was happening. He was accused and police would take him in an ambulance to the hospital and say there's something wrong with him. I believe there was something wrong with him. He was telling me there was something wrong with him. You know he would pretend to fall over. He would fake these physical, I suppose, conditions that had never eventuated into anything He'd be at the hospital, they'd send him home.
Speaker 2:But what didn't happen in my case on every one of those occasions is the policeman would follow, so he would go in through the hospital and he would come back out through the hospital and I would never hear from the police officer again.
Speaker 1:And you are on the island.
Speaker 2:Let down in a way, and that is really difficult for me because I do have trust issues with the system. On one occasion after separation, I reported a breach to the police and the police said oh look, here's the number. You know the drill call 1-800-RESPECT. And here's a referral to these people. And I remember making that call on the way home because it was quite a serious breach. There were threats made to my son and all this kind of stuff. And the officer said look. I said, is this an escalation? Like he was already on bail for 16 charges. The officer said yeah, I believe it is. And I said so what happens from here? He said from here, I'll give you this card, you go call that number. He goes it's out of our hands. And I remember thinking so you're the police, you're telling me there's an escalation, this is a dangerous perpetrator, I've been classified as a fire risk and you're letting me walk from the police station and he's like this is how it works. And he's like this is how it works.
Speaker 2:And I came home and I contacted the number because in my gut I needed to be out of the house. I we shouldn't have been there. Uh, in what relation? It was a really odd thing that he did, considering that he was on bail and all these things. And I called the number and I told them what was happening and and this was our support, our national support service. So they've been like yep, safe housing, all that kind of stuff, what do you need? And when I told her what had happened, I said we need to get out of the house. I said I'm really frightened that he's going to come here. And she turned around on the end of the phone and she said to me I can't help you unless he turns up.
Speaker 1:Unless he turns up.
Speaker 2:Unless he turns up.
Speaker 1:If he comes to your home, if he comes to my home. He will help you when you're dead. He's going to kill me and she said I can't help you.
Speaker 2:And it was at nighttime and she said I can give you referrals to other places that might be able to assist and all that kind of stuff. And I said, okay, there's nothing more I can do. I tried, I pled with her, I need something. And I got off the phone. I got a text message from that support organisation and it had a list of all these other services that I could call. They were all closed.
Speaker 2:I was left by police, by support services, to just wait in my home. I didn't do that. I walked out and I said everyone get a bag, we're getting out of here and we went and stayed in a hotel because I had serious concerns for our safety. So throughout my process, or throughout my experience, I've been let down by if there's not been a system that's worked for me and the turning point happens for me when I'd had enough and went, this isn't right. Something's not right about what's happening here. If this isn't happening to me, this is happening to so many other people. And yet we have people questioning how and why women are being murdered by their partners when they'd previously sought help, and for me I just went. It's really evident why that's happening. So I actually went. I sent an email to my local Member of Parliament outlining exactly what had happened and that I'm not getting help and that I believe that I'm going to be killed. I see-feed family and friends in that email so that everybody was aware that I believed I was going to be killed and that nobody was.
Speaker 2:The next day I was in my MP's office and within about half an hour I had a safe house for a month. I had security cameras being put on my home, I had a duress watch being put on me and I had. She was on the phone to the police, commissioner, to say what are you doing with this case? And everything moved in half an hour and I think me. At that point I went it's not a matter of it can't be done, it's a matter that people aren't doing it. It's just not being done when it can be. Because if an MP can make all of these people move within half an hour and all of the things that I needed months before that happen within half an hour, then we can be doing that for all of the other victims that come forward too I love that.
Speaker 1:It's powerful, um, and that brings us to your international campaign that you launched last month. Do you want to share a little bit about that, or are you asking more questions?
Speaker 2:yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So about probably about two months ago, I received a message from an inspirational journalist that is a survivor, and he messaged me on Instagram and said hey, I've read a little bit about your story and I'd really love to have a chat with you Now. Prior to that, I had had contact with other journalists and I felt that people wanted my story, but it was all about clickbait and it was all about, you know, make this headline and I'll look at this gruesome story. It just never felt right so I'd never gone down.
Speaker 2:When I spoke to to Shannon and we actually had a conversation, it was a different vibe, it was a different energy.
Speaker 2:He had this whole view of bringing awareness and actually trying to change the system and trying to do good with my story, which felt far more aligned to me than what I previously had in the past conversations. And, being the fact that he, too, was a survivor and he has his own books, I actually felt safe. I felt safe because he's been there. He'd been in a position where he actually does know how I feel he does know. You know how important it is that it came out in the right way and how important it was that it's a sensitive topic and I think that that comes back to our lived experience. He had that lived experience, so we had a chat about that and from that the campaign called the System was born with newscomau, and it was about raising awareness and my story was told first and from there Shannon asked for other people to come forward and tell their stories, which is exactly what happened. So we now have all these stories in the media and where is that?
Speaker 1:How do people access that?
Speaker 2:if they want to check it out, that's on a website, newscomau, and if you do a search for the Sister so it's called the Sister they'll be able to find all of the articles that come with that. And I think what's really, really important is that when somebody is killed, it hits the headlines, not all the time, but most of the time, and it always hits the headlines as you know, gruesome discovery or remains found or you know this, almost like they're trying to project this horrible thing that's happened. But what's not hitting the headlines is all of the other victims that are going through every single day, lives destroyed. Their stories aren't being told. None of these are stories because they're not gruesome enough and they're not, and you click on and really want to read.
Speaker 2:Yet what nobody understands unless you're in it or you've seen it and I work with women every day is that most of these women are that have been through what I have been through. They end up financially decimated. They struggle to find employment. They struggled about that, financially, emotionally, in relationships, like I know, in my situation. I mean, I've now been single for four years and don't get me wrong, I actually love my independence and all that kind of stuff. But you know, I'm very acutely aware that there is an element of trauma that plays into that. There's definitely trauma as to why I'm not. You know people say to me oh you know, you're going to start dating, I'm not, because I just have that fear. So that's a trauma response. And I think what people don't understand is being a victim of sexual or domestic violence. It affects every aspect of your life. So, yes, you may have survived, but you're never going to have that life that you would have had pre-trauma unless you have been killed and this is what people don't seem to understand I'm dealing with.
Speaker 2:you know, at the moment I've got three really serious cases that I'm dealing with and these are women that their partners are lawyered up in the family court system and they can't afford a lawyer because of the financial control in the relationship.
Speaker 2:So to get access to the money they have to go through family court. They have to go through family court self-represented and as a victim and a survivor. To do something like that it's really tough, it's really hard. So the campaign is to actually show that you know A how many system errors there are, and all of the cases I deal with there are errors in our system. There are mistakes made in every case. There has not been one where an error hasn't been made and I don't think even the people that are actually in the system, without that lived experience, understands just how critical it is to get it right, sharing the stories of those that will probably never, ever ever get another platform to share it on and, yeah, I just want to even giving a voice, and some of these women that have come forward have gone. You know, thank you so much. You've given me a voice to be able to even sharing. It has helped them on their journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said a couple things that are just standing out for me. I was taking some notes while you were sharing, so I'm hearing that there is a lot of value in, you know, being able to talk to someone else with lived experience who also had, kind of you know, written a book and done some work with their story in a professional, official or formal advocacy type way, and so having someone who understood the experience but also had some of that other experience was really supportive for you in your journey. One of the things that you said about that that kind of stood out for me was that he understood how important it was that your story comes out in the right way. Can you tell me a little bit more about what the right way is versus the wrong way for a story to come out?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think whenever a story, whenever you read stories in the media, oftentimes they're reported on, they're not reported in collaboration with the parties involved and there's a really big difference. And you know, I can read a story and know full well that they're being reported on, not reported with, and I think what the media really need to understand is that any reporting needs to be collaborative to prevent re-traumatizing the victim. So if I had got up one day and read a story on me that was reported on me even without my name but knowing that it was my story, that would have been nothing short of traumatic Because it's my story to tell. So I really think it's important. He understood how important it was that it was actually my words and my voice and, as I said with the, you know, sometimes people are getting reported on, it's traumatic for them.
Speaker 2:So I feel like, once you're involved and it's a collaborative process, it's just much easier and it's a much nicer process. So I actually felt really good about sharing my story and I'm glad that I never woke up to some awful article on me that I never gave permission for. And you know they say oh, we didn't. You know we didn't. You know, give the name or whatever, because you know the laws prevent that. But it doesn't matter If you know it's your story, you're being reported on. It's not a nervous feeling. I think there's an element of privacy and I think we need to find a balance between that privacy and how important it is for the public to be aware, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So we actually discussed what was going to go out, which was really important. Yeah, so I'm hearing that there's a kind of a difference between sensationalizing the story even thinking about what you said earlier about you had lots of opportunities to say your story but you felt like it just wasn't getting out there in a good way, it wasn't being used right, all the horror stuff right Versus using the story as a source of empowerment, where you have you get to kind of decide what parts of that story are valuable to the community that you're telling the story for.
Speaker 2:Exactly and send the right message.
Speaker 1:Send the right message.
Speaker 2:And I wanted you know 90% about the message and 10% about what actually happened, and I think it's all about that grisly story, but then at the end of it it finishes with the grisly story. That's the mantra, and I didn't want to be involved in anything where it was a grisly story that ended without something coming off the back of it. And you know I'm doing so much work in the sector that I would have been quite devastated to have had a story written on me that didn't include what I'm doing about it, Because I've taken my story and I've turned that into a change maker. Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Let's talk about trauma response. I've got to pick at you a little bit. Yes, you were talking about relationships. You said trauma response. You know that's something that you still carry and, of course, this is a conversation that you know. It really is universal, I think, to experience people, this idea of the ongoing recovery, right, just because it's not still happening, we're not still there, we're not still whatever, there's still healing, that happens right, psychologically, emotionally, sometimes even physically, depending on your relationship with your body following the trauma. Right, there's so much there and so just curious about what that's looked like for you over the last four years and where that sits for you now, like, I'm sure there's things that initially you were a lot more worried about and impacted by, whereas now you, like, we have, you know, some, some coping responses for that. But there may be some other things that are challenging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, look, I'm very acutely aware of my trauma responses, whereas in the early day I didn't even understand what her trauma response was. Despite having a therapist and a counselor, I didn't get it, like it didn't click in my head. So, you know, to finding the connection and understanding why I do the things that I do, and you know, I think for me probably the biggest one is on relationships, because it's still something that I am working on and I have a real, genuine fear of relationships, a genuine fear because I actually feel that how did I not identify it the first time? Is there a possibility that I'm going to go into that faith again and get caught up again in emotions and end up back in the same place? So that's probably the most evident, I suppose, response. That's still there.
Speaker 2:But in the early days, I mean, I wouldn't go out at night, I wouldn't drive my car at night. So driving my car at night was a very, very difficult thing for me to do, was a very, very difficult thing for me to do. And it was a difficult thing for me to do because a lot of the I suppose the incidents that occurred that created the trauma, were at night and I was chased down in a car on many occasions. So for me to drive at night was I was looking in the rearview mirror, my heart rate would go up, I would actually feel sick. So I'd avoid it. I just thought I can't drive at night, like I just can't drive at night, and you know it's fine. I didn't know that. That's what I just kind of thought, that you know, I just don't like driving at night. You know we've got this light night and you this and some people don't like driving at night. That's the thing I figured out. What was the cause of it? I could work through that. I could do positive reinforcement while I'm driving at night and go. I'm actually fine, this is okay. And when you don't have that understanding, there's not much you can do to even talk yourself down from that.
Speaker 2:So there was quite a few things like that. I wouldn't go to the shops at night. I wouldn't, you know, have all my food delivered. You know places where I had previously bumped into him post-separation, I wouldn't go to the shop, I'd change where I shopped and that was a really difficult thing for me to get back to shopping at those places. And you know, there were times when I even would try and convince myself. I was just shaking it up. I was avoiding that physical feeling and that anxiety of going to those places because I knew it happened when I went to those places. And you know, even in building relationships, it was very difficult for me to build relationships in the early days with, you know, friends and family, because they'd all been destroyed through this process, because he'd isolated me so much that I actually wasn't secure and you know, I'd go into rooms where there was a lot of people and I would get my heart rate would go up and all these things that happened to me.
Speaker 2:I couldn't understand why I had social anxiety. Social anxiety, I'm not, I'm not. So, please, well, social anxiety, and I should fix myself that. I just had social anxiety.
Speaker 2:What I didn't realize was that that was connected to the fact that I didn't have an identity. So I'd been told what to think and been conditioned for so long I actually didn't even know who I was. So when you walk into a room or you're trying to meet people or have conversations and people would have a conversation and it would be about, you know, a topic I'd say they're quite quiet, which is an odd thing to look at now that I'm actually running federal politics. I wouldn't even give my opinion because my opinion would always be wrong. So I'd learnt and adapted that I needed to just shut up because it was wrong and I was going to be told it was wrong, so I had this fear of speaking up. So all of these things I had to actually identify were from the trauma to overcome them and yeah, it was quite difficult and to actually realize and come to the realization that I didn't have an identity, because the identity I had was falsely created by somebody else.
Speaker 1:So you're conditioning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was that big, big thing for me when I finally understood. And you know, it's so bizarre because I always thought I was scared of heights. I always thought I was scared of heights and rides at Dreamworld and all sorts of things, and it's obviously come from I'm not exactly sure the incident, but it's come from the trauma. I love that stuff. Now I mean, I want to johanna, like, whereas before I was so terrified of everything, I was scared of everything and oh no, I can't do that because that's scary. And I can't do that because that's scary and I don't want to go whitewater rasting because that's really scary.
Speaker 2:And now I'm like, give me more, I want to do it, I want to do this stuff. You know, like I recently my daughter paid for, uh, for my birthday, she bought me parasailing on the back of a boat and you're up and you have a couple hundred meters in the air and I remember that's scary, that's really scary. And I was like, no, I'm gonna do it, like I, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna get up there with you and I'm gonna do it. And I got up there and I got up in the air and I went. This isn't even scary.
Speaker 2:There's absolutely nothing scary about this Whereas throughout these 20 years that I was being conditioned I believe that I was being conditioned in a way where I needed protection. I needed to be scared Because the world was unsafe.
Speaker 1:They don't really give a trust to the world, so everything feels terrifying, yeah.
Speaker 2:Everything was and I was just scared of everything. I was scared of trying new food. It was it's. When I'm back now, I go like I missed a lot of life. I really did, and I have no regrets for what's happened. None at all, Because I believe that my purpose has now come out and unveiled itself and I know how much I can do with it. But at that time I believed that I was a really frightened person who was yeah, I was in a constant state of anxiety. And now this same person, like even traveling, like I was terrified of traveling. Yeah, I know I can't travel. I can't go anywhere, Can't, no, can't travel. Now, you know, this year I've been on three international holidays and I go, I love it, I can get to the airport on my own and I can, I can do all this stuff that 20 years.
Speaker 2:I needed him to do for me, because he would carry us or he would show me how to check, he would take all this stuff because I couldn't do it. I wasn't capable and I was in condition to believe that I wasn't capable. And now I'm like no, I'm the one holding all the passports. And I recently went on a trip with my children and a friend and she came with me and you know, I was that person that was constantly like, oh, what do I do here? And I'm like, no, I've got this. I'm checking everyone in. And you know, those moments for most people are not that scary For me.
Speaker 2:They're huge. They For me, they're huge, they are the moments, my stones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I suppose thinking about your recovery in front of the struggles. I'm hearing that there was geographic triggers, episodic triggers, circumstantial triggers, just kind of connected. One thing that I heard that stood out for me is the fear of men being rooted in a mistrust of your own judgment. Right, it's not feeling that you can trust yourself, so being afraid of what you might choose. I heard a couple other things there Struggles with identity, self-determination, the ability to self-advocate and feel like you really know yourself and feel confidence in your skin and then just to kind of circle back to coping.
Speaker 1:One thing that really stood out for me is when you were telling the story about driving the car, driving at night, how you're able to identify that trigger or that response and then kind of deconstruct it in your mind, unpack it, look at it, reframe it no, I'm okay, right.
Speaker 1:And then do some self-soothing. So this is kind of the things that I heard there in your process is like okay, I know where this is coming from, I'm not there anymore, I'm going to tell myself and remind myself that I'm safe, you know, and I'm going to face it head on. Thank you so much, michelle. I am just so honored that you took time to share your story with us and, of course, impressed by how powerful, how brilliant, how passionate you are. This was our sister's keeper, michelle Fay, and we are so happy to have had a moment of her time. Stay tuned to conversations with our sisters keepers to hear part two of michelle faye's interview, where she talks more about her recovery, but also her career and the ways that she's grown and is giving back to her community. Check out her website at michellefayecomau and all the things she's doing with her story revelation. The business in a box and the national campaign that she's launched.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much and thank you so much for having me. It's been, it's been amazing. Thanks so much everyone.
Speaker 1:This is Real Women, Real Lives, Real Talk. Thank you for joining Casual Conversations with our Sisters Keepers. Until next time.
