I have updated this to be more reader friendly as the story was a bit confronting.

My name is Cat and I am honestly humbled and would have never dreamed of asking for help because I’ve always been strong willed and wanted to be my own hero. But I’ve just made too many wrong or bad decisions and often been too trusting, trusting the wrong people.

If you continue, be warned, this is a confronting story involving suicide…

Because the slice to my throat wasn’t lethal, the act was considered an act of DV, which is ridiculous, because at no time did I make any threats.

After he told me we were no longer compatible and after several of his close friends and family had pre-warned me that his mind was made up to get rid of me and my girls earlier in the day. I asked several times how he could do this to the girls and I and change his mind so quickly when we had merely (officially after a trial) two weeks before moved in (unofficially I had been there for almost 8 months - I needed time despite his insistence sooner to trust to move officially) and how he had the audacity to call my girls his step-children to everyone he knew and the community (he excitedly enrolled my daughter into school with me).

Our relationship was kind, gentle, sweet and exciting. He spoke of proposing and getting married. We looked at buying homes together. He said he was excited to be and loved being a family. I couldn’t fathom the why to his ending, apart from my mind being preoccupied for the preceding few weeks.

After he could give me no answers other than “we are no longer compatible”, I walked upstairs on my own to the ensuite where I had already placed the knife. As all day I could think of no other way out of a very dark place, since I had trusted this man and moved my children in with him and left my job because he asked me to - I thought we were in love and supposed to start our business together. He ultimately asked me to stay home and care for him because he liked to be taken care of and looked after - I guessed like any other man.

I was hanging between both of these ideas because I was afraid to ultimately lose my financial freedom - which I had already done believing at the time was only temporarily. But I was hanging between these two ideas also because my mind was elsewhere. I quietly had another battle even more private and traumatic than this one (he obviously knew about it {and I know you’re thinking how could it get any more private}), which had been consuming me with a depression and guilt for sometime prior unfortunately for him.

This same day, the conclusion of this legal battle was also given to my family. Which although was relieving news, it was also confirming of unimaginable trauma to my loved ones by someone else that we should have been able to trust, that I felt/feel a great deal of guilt for.

This day, I felt this unimaginable guilt, grief and also came to the realisation that a person I loved (another person that I had trusted) was leaving me in a place where my girls and I were homeless and without a job.

I just felt such despair I thought if I ended my life, since he had the financial means, he would look after my children… because everyone close to him told me how he loved them like they were his own (I know, I’m fucking stupid/mentally ill).

So after I went upstairs on my own in tears, behind closed doors - before I took the knife to my throat, in this order; I equally transferred all of my money to my children and sent out one prewritten long goodbye note to my parents and brother before slicing my neck open to the point my fingers were two deep. He walked in and obviously freaked out, removed the knife from the bathroom (which was no where near my hands) and then wrestled me to try and apply pressure to my spurting neck. I had thoughtfully chosen my end place as the shower as I thought this would be the easiest place to be cleaned up. As I tried to push him away from me and applying pressure the shower was slippery with blood/I passed out and hit my head.

I thought for sure those were my final moments as I was losing consciousness between shaking and gagging.

But I woke up in the surgical ward of a hospital.

I never thought of, intended or threatened to physically hurt anyone other than myself. But this is considered domestic violence. At first I didn’t understand it because I only intended to harm myself, but when I was on the respondent end of a DV order, I realised that I wasn’t the real victim here, MY girls were the real victims, and I subsequently made him one too for that lived experience. So I conceded to a DV order because at the end of the day, it wasn’t going to change anything and the future looks bleak anyway, so what do I care if I’m not to go near him - in my head, I’m thinking “I don’t want any to be here anyway”.

But really, I’m ashamed about every part of it, which just adds to my anguish and reluctance of wanting to be here. But I must, because the biggest lesson of all of this is - I am my girls only real protector and I haven’t done a great job of it till now.

Many of you have known me for many years and known my or shared some of my struggles but up until recently I have mostly been private about these issues. As I have been on the aggrieved end several times and never wanted the shame of being viewed as a victim. Most people that cross my path would never imagine any of this and know me to be kind hearted, would do anything for anyone, could tell anything to, talk about anything with me, give whatever I could and would think that I have almost all because I try to love everyone.

If you know my mum, you know how incredible she is in the community and how many fundraisers she has organised for various organisations over the years.

But really is a slap in the face when he gets to claim DV like it’s some sort of badge of honour and hold a fundraiser for DV abuse collecting second hand workwear because I failed taking my own life. And then to hear he has hired “body guards” because he is threatened for his safety. Give me a break - I’m 55kgs soaking wet, couldn’t kill a grasshopper and now after a CT scan from the blow to my head during my attempt to take my life, have been diagnosed with a brain tumour. Potentially non-life threatening but we await an MRI on Tuesday.

Live what me and my girls have lived through, then let’s see how any of you judging would hold up, because you have only seen a sliver of what we have lived.

And boy, I couldn’t be more embarrassed or ashamed that I haven’t been a better mother, human or partner. But I’m putting this out there not only because I need help and support, but for awareness and in hopes that even if you don’t like me or what I have to say, you help my girls by creating a massive wall of support around them for the rest of their lives.

I pray they never feel alone, hurt or without love for themselves.

I also need to ask for help in finding a job, home and furniture so that I can give my girls a future. Preferably in North Brisbane as I moved my daughter’s school for this failed relationship and she loves it there after coming from a school she was badly bullied.

While I was being treated in hospital, a CT scan was performed and a brain tumour was found. Likely benign, this was a blessing in disguise because it allowed me to reconnect with god, myself and the universe and realised that I haven’t prepared my children or made sure that they are safe and okay for when I can no longer be here for them. While it isn’t the first time, we are currently staying with family and whilst we appreciate them very much, my two daughters and I need to have our own space again and I need to do everything in my ability to give them that and stability from here on out.

Everyone in their lives have failed them in some way and they deserve their own home and some serious stability. I’m trying to break the pattern.

My girls originate from a wild DV relationship and I do not receive any child support, because he is one of those parents that chooses to evade the child support agency despite making a lucrative living.

We’ve come from DV, sexual abuse, family law court x 2, children being hidden and kept from me for years, mental abuse, financial abuse. We just haven’t had a break. When I finally first got my girls back, they were scared to even get a cup of milk from the fridge. After trying to carry the heavy load on my own for so long and people we opened our hearts to and trusted with every fiber of our being betrayed us, I just cracked because I felt like I had failed my children in every possible way.

We are doing it tough trying to move forward and get ahead. If you can help us with furniture or a job, please let me know. I am open to anything. I’m kind of useless (a phrase that I am familiar with being called by the girls father) and pathetic at the moment, but I am trying for the sake of my kids.

My gorgeous mother does a lot of work in the community trying to help others. So we aren’t strangers to giving to others and kindness. If you even donated $1 to our cause, it would mean the world that you care.

I also ask for compassion and kindness because none of this is an easy thing to admit, ask or air.

We appreciate even your warm wishes, moral support and prayers.

This family has so many more scars than can what even be seen. Please help us find some stability. I know it would mean the world to my children and I. -xo-