She describes the final night as a shattering. The eggshells she had been walking on shattered. The invisible tension that warned her anything could trigger a torrent of abuse shattered. And the green ceramic pot that he threw at her head in a furious rage shattered. It split her lip open, causing a deep gash, then broke into dozens of shards on the cold, hard floor.
“I remember saying, ‘I don’t want to go to hospital’. That was part of that deep humiliation and shame. You know, ‘these things don’t happen to us’ … and the fear that he was going to come back,” Rachel recalls.
She’d been living in fear, but the terror had crept into her life so slowly that she hadn’t noticed how bad it was until it was too late. Coercive abuse, sometimes called intimate terrorism, is a methodical process whereby abusers strip away their victim’s liberty and sense of self. Isolation, gaslighting, surveillance and malicious criticism are all symptoms. Rachel’s abuser threatened self-harm if she left. She describes it as like being in a hostage situation.
“Even though people say to you, ‘It’s not your fault,’ you think, ‘Of course it’s my fault. I invited trouble into the door’,” she says.
In the months since the night she was assaulted, she has thought a lot about the manipulation that ensnared her, and what she can do to change things for other victim-survivors.
“My life at this moment feels like those shattered shards of ceramic,” she says. “I’m trying to pick them up one by one. How did this happen? How did I get here?”
Early warnings
This story is from the July 2020 edition of The Australian Women's Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the July 2020 edition of The Australian Women's Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Where to go in 2024
Who doesn't love fantasising about their next trip? We've gone for lesser-known locations, and whether you're seeking bright lights, striking natural scenery, serenity or excitement, here's where you're sure to find it.
Money matters with Effie
Didn’t reach your financial goals in 2023? While a new year won’t wipe away pressures like rising costs, there are a few things you can do now to refresh your money mojo in 2024.
Bright stars in a rugged land
The hot, dusty opal fields around Lightning Ridge in outback NSW have traditionally been a man's world. Now The Weekly meets the women who have been struck by opal fever.
The gift of life
Maureen Elliott had just months to live when she went on St Vincent's Hospital's transplant list. Thirty years on she's one of the longest living heart-lung transplant recipients in the world.
An uncaged heart
After more than two years in Iranian jails, Kylie Moore-Gilbert has forged a new life that's brimming with love, and a determination to help others who have been wrongfully imprisoned.
The woman behind The King
As Sofia Coppola's biopic Priscilla readies to hit screens, we look back at the early life and great love of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley.
Say hello to the Cockatoo cake
When we put a call-out to our readers for their best children's cakes we were inundated with recipes, and this clever cockatoo was ahead of the flock.
The French revolution
Dawn French quit her sketch show because she felt so ugly. Now the \"roly-poly comedian\" wants us all to stop fretting about our faults. She talks body image, surviving the 1980s and owning her mistakes.
Trump's women
Will it be the jailhouse or the White House for Donald Trump this year? The women in his life could make all the difference.
Can you buy a good night's sleep?
Forty per cent of Australians have trouble sleeping, and the market has responded with a mind-boggling array of sleep aids. But do any of them actually work? The Weekly goes in search of slumber.