Recovery and Survival
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The Following link opens a new page
The following links will open PDF files; suitable to print and put on the fridge
Tips for Keeping yourself safe
Tips for Taking Care of yourself
Survival Strategies
Tips for Legal stuff
Tips for dealing with the ex
Tips for taking care of the children
The following information has been provided to us by women who have separated from their partners and have kindly provided us with lots of great information about how they have recovered and survived
A series of focus groups were conducted throughout Australia for women who had experienced the separation process. They provided us with information regarding their experiences of the range of systems that they had involvement with. Our goal was to gain information about the usefulness of the various systems, what information would have been useful to them at the beginning of the separation process, and survival strategies for dealing with the separation process.
We wanted to gain as wide a range of experiences as possible taking into account regional and rural perspectives and perspectives from women with specific needs.
We have therefore conducted focus groups in Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
A specific focus group was held for women from Non-English Speaking Backgrounds in New South Wales organised by the Immigrant Women’s Speakout.
We would like to express our extreme gratitude to these women who took the time and effort to provide us with this great information. They truly are strong and great women.
We would like to thank those women and organisations who organised and ran the focus groups for us.
Dawn House – Darwin, Nt
Immigrant Women’s Speakout, Cabramatta Community Centre – NSW
Fairfield Migrant Resource Centre – NSW
Women’s House Shelta – Brisbane, Qld.
Marnja Jarndu – Broome, WA
Annie North Women’s Domestic Violence Service – Bendigo, Vic.
Patricia Giles Centre – WA
South Eastern Domestic Violence Service – Mt. Gambier, SA
Keeping a diary
It is useful to keep a diary of any communication you have with your ex-partner. It is useful to keep notes of any conversations. Write notes of your discussions as soon as possible afterwards. Put the date of your conversation and the date you wrote the notes.
Record any threats that he makes to you and any verbal abuse.
It is especially important to keep a diary of incidents of violence or abuse. Use a cheap diary with one day to a page so that you can record dates and times of any abuse that happens to you or your child. Often you can be so busy just surviving that it is difficult to remember dates and times of abuses after the event.
Information that you put in the diary should include:
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What day and time did the incident occur? |
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What happened? |
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What was said by whom? |
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Who was there? |
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What form did the violence take? |
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What specific injuries were suffered? |
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What previous acts of abuse were suffered? |
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What action was taken, if any? |
This can assist you if you need to apply for a domestic violence order, police will want times and dates. It will also be useful to use in Family Court proceedings. You will need to show the court when the incidences of domestic and family violence occurred.
If anything abusive is written to you by the other parent make a photocopy for your records.
Although abusive notes and messages can be difficult to hang on to and you may just want to ‘move on’, don’t throw it away, keep a special folder for this kind of stuff, and keep it somewhere safe.
Down the track if you continue to suffer violence and abuse from your ex partner you could find yourself needing a restraining order or may need to prove to the family court a history of domestic violence. The courts will need dates and times when violence happened it is better if you have an accurate record.
Keep records of all contact with police whether on the phone or in person. Always ask the name and badge numbers of the police who investigated and write it down
If there has been an incident ask for a ‘police incident report’ receipt number.
Record any Hospital visits for you or your child including the name of the doctor and what occurred.
If you or your child have had medical help for any injuries caused by your ex partner record these and ask your doctor to record on your medical file any injuries sustained.
It is also useful to keep a diary of all appointments, court dates and interviews with all of the agencies that you become involved with such as child protection services, Centrelink, child support, legal services etc. and a brief outline of your discussions with these agencies and professionals.
Keeping a Communication booklet
Use email or a communication notebook for all communications with the other parent and to use at handover times. This hopefully avoids either parent using the children as messengers. It also means that you don’t have to talk extensively to your ex-partner at handover times.
What information to record:
About the child - health, clothing, feeding, plan for the day.
Any changes in arrangements for the following weeks.
Do not respond to any abusive messages that your ex-partner may write in the communication book. Anything you write in the communication book may be used as evidence in court.
Personal Journals
If you write a journal please be careful that this cannot be accessed by your ex partner. There have been cases where personal journals have been subpoenaed or stolen and used as evidence in court.
Survival Tips from a survivor
The positive survival strategies through the period of separation that
were most beneficial in my situation were to leave with documents.
Document everything.Be prepared to forgo all material possessions.
Gather friends and family and give them the reality of the situation.
Ask for assistance. Create support networks.
Find appropriate role models. Get the children to counselling if necessary. Be prepared to do parenting courses, and divorce and separation courses.
Move on in such a way that your credibility is established.
Be prepared for it to take a long time, to face discrimination on a daily, subsiding to weekly, monthly, then very occasional basis, as your example speaks for itself.
Keep steady for the children. Do not talk to them about the issues,
rely on your support system for this need and ensure that the children
are not exposed to any of the negative feelings associated with the
separation and your (theirs and your) safety.
1. What information would have been useful for you to know at the beginning of the separation process?
No amount of bending over backwards to appease an abusive ex-partner will change the behaviour. This sort of behaviour may continue for well over a decade.
The authorities are not able to do much about protecting you and the children without proof. You must have witnesses; your word is not enough.
Friends and family may be used by the abuser to create difficulties for you and the children; however they may not be aware of the role they are playing.
None of the systems and the staff associated will want to get involved and ensure your safety.
If your mental health is in question you must remain calm, reasonable, and unflappable, under extreme pressure in all situations. No amount of asking for your rights to be taken in to consideration will be effective until you have established your credibility.
2. What advice would you give other women about to go through this process?
Document everything. Diarise all abuse and the children's behaviour,
and have no contact except to write letters regarding the children to
the abusive ex-partner. It will eventually be your strength, that you
have maintained appropriate parenting and have not resorted to the
behaviour of the abuser.3. What support systems were available to you that you found useful?
Throughout this entire process only firm friends and family, were
eventually, supportive. Every other system maintains a careful stance,
first of all not to get involved, secondly to ensure that the
children's best interests are paramount (safety of mother and the
children without proof is not relevant), and until you have established
yourself (in our case over five years later) the Police, Family Court,
etc will be unable to do for you what they say you need to do for
yourself.When you have fully recovered from the abusive relationship,
you will have established firm boundaries, these will eventually only
be occasionally breached by the abuser. You may cycle through the same
feelings you had when you left with each breach. Eventually this cycle
will take minimal time.The system will maintain that resiliency in the children is more important than their safety, unless they regularly sustain major injury. Psychological injury will not necessarily be disclosed at counselling, however, this process is a resource for the children and will give them the opportunity to disclose to someone
else. This may be due to the extreme fear the abuser has established
in the children, or be much more subtle.It is very important to have friends around that can play an active role in your children's lives. We have a pseudo Grandmother, Uncle, and many close friends with children of a similar age. These relationships normalise life while
with you, and will combat extremely inappropriate parenting,
undermining of yourself and your boundaries, and influences from
elsewhere.It is important to have the children in extra-curricular activities that will give them a physical and emotional break from the feelings that they have to deal with if one parent is involving them in the breakdown of their parent's relationship. The leaders in these activities can also provide strong mentor type relationships which will ensure the circle of people supporting the children are large and
accessible to them.4. What things did you do to make life easier for you and your children?
I spoke to the children about personal responsibility and included them
in a very limited way, appropriately for their age, in most household
decisions. We discussed our feelings in all sorts of situations, and
play acted various scenarios, to ensure their coping strategies were
effective. None of these were directly about the situation they
experienced while visiting their abusive father, however the skills
were and are easily transferable. These skills also are of use in the
playground.We also ensure that we spend a lot of time having fun.
If the children are particularly vulnerable upon return we would use
activities to distract, and normalize home life as soon as possible.
All discussions with systems and people of import in our lives were
documented either by a follow up letter, or email.5. What helped you and your children survive?
A just world belief. Positive thinking at all times.
Friends to witness incidents and intervene.
The police service eventually.
Family.
Never reducing myself to any behaviour that did not fit with
my morals and ethics, therefore able to discuss my choices with anyone
who asked, and sleep well at night.Building my legitimacy to the point where most attacks on my status are ridiculous and unable to be given credence.
Having great success in child rearing, ensuring the children had opportunities for a sense of achievement, being involved in their lives and interests, and after establishing strong foundations building a life for us which will optimise our choices.