As a child, I remember quite vividly the first time I was backed into a lie.

An Uncle of mine had visited that weekend with my Auntie, commenting that he had noticed something different about the door to our games room. Something appeared different about the glass in the door, but he couldn’t quite work out what.

He asked me what had happened to the door.

Wanting to just forget, to just pretend, to ignore the memory of glass being smashed,

I said, “nothing happened”.

The look on his face told me that he didn’t believe me.

Even I wouldn’t have believed me.

But I was so young, so young, maybe nothing older than 12 years old. If I spoke the truth, not only would I be in trouble for spilling but I would have to face that the fantasy I was living in was actually suppressing the true reality of what I had been seeing, what I had been hearing, what I tried to ignore because I was scared.

My normal was doors being smashed, voices being raised, money being hidden for illicit drugs, secrets, lies, sexual abuse.

My normal was family switching university courses and being told they had brought shame on the family and a body being pushed against the wall.

It was my normal.

Yet she stayed.

I watched them, hardly cuddle, never say “I love you”, yell at each other, break objects, punch doors, talk each other down when the other wasn’t there, argue after family gatherings in the car.

I told myself everyone’s family was like this, that everybody argued like this, that I should be grateful I even have somewhere to live, food on the table, clothes.

I had become so desensitized to violence, both as a witness and a victim, that I didn’t know what healthy was. Not really from my family, not from my friends, not from myself.

From the time I was 17 years old to 34 years old, I didn’t truly know what a healthy, loving relationship is – my definition of this was very muddled. What I witnessed as a child became my standard for what I would accept. I became so tolerant and understanding, so empathetic to a fault.

I let others hurt, control, coerce me whilst I gave them the opportunity to work on their demons whilst I suppressed my own needs. I even tolerated verbal and physical violence in previous jobs repeatedly because I did not know any better.

When I watched Blake Lively’s new movie “It Ends With Us” just last year, I didn’t see a glamourized version of domestic violence – like many critics have seen. I saw the aspect of domestic violence that makes it so difficult for someone to walk away – the person they love does have many positive qualities to them.

They could be reassuring and validating with their words, they could be good providers for their family, they could be hard working people in their jobs, they could have every intent in their body not to want to hurt the people they love – it doesn’t mean they can’t or that they won’t hurt you in another respect.

For so long, my passion for working in the field that I do – Community Services/Development – was driven by my need to help others, to see the good in people, to not hold others’ pasts against them.

But when I finally had the courage to walk away from what was happening to me as an adult, when I learnt how to assert boundaries, when I learnt to stand up on my own feet – I realized that understanding inappropriate and violent behaviour helps us to look beneath the iceberg, it doesn’t justify behaviour. There is no justification for hurting other people.

Emotional regulation is not so easy for everyone but there is no excuse for violence that has the intention of intimidating others, yelling at the people you love, using fear and anger to control others.

We have to be held accountable for our actions, for our words, for the hurt we cause others.

As a mum of three teenage daughters, I have learnt that my children’s choice in partners will, of course, not be up to me. But the role I play in choosing my partner, my friends, in showing them what I will accept in my personal life and in my job – will be a determining role in the successfulness of their relationships.

I wasn’t in control of what I saw as a child, what I was told to lie about, what I grew up believing was ‘normal’.

But I am in complete control of the decisions I make now, in what I am willing to accept, in the loving marriage I have with my husband, stepfather to my 3 children.

Domestic violence is pervasive. It is not just physical abuse. It could be control, manipulation, verbal abuse.

It could be making someone feel they have no choice. It could be making someone feel guilty for wanting to leave or choosing to leave.

It could be either a victim in the form of a man or woman. It could be both people in a relationship hurting and being toxic to each other.

It could be what children witness, how scared children feel in their own home, the psychological impact of what they grow up believing ‘healthy’ really is.

What I also know, is that whilst domestic violence can have many faces, that domestic violence does not live within my life any more. That it does hold me hostage, that I no longer suffer in silence, that I am no longer a victim of my circumstance.

Domestic violence really does end with me. I am living proof that that there is hope beyond domestic violence.