Disclaimer: This story contains details of domestic abuse that may be upsetting to some.
Story by Gennady Sharpe
Let me give you a brief overview of me.
I am 29 years old and have lived in New Zealand for most of my life. I grew up in on a horse farm, where I was an only child. I went to an all-girls school, where I left at the end of the 6th form, as school was not really for me.
I started my career in sales as I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to do with my life but knew I had a great skill for talking and thought why not give sales a go. While I was in this job, I met an amazing man who was older than me, had a great job and seemed to really have his head screwed on and there was just something about him that had me head over heels. Everything moved very fast from there, we were inseparable and after a few short months we were living together. He made me laugh and pushed me to do so many things that I never thought I would do.
After about 6 months, the relationship really started to take a turn for the worst. He would force me to go to the gym because he didn’t want me to get fat and when I say force I mean forced me call me every name under the sun until I was in utter tears and would leave the house. He would portion my meals to small sizes for my weight and started choosing my clothes and how I would style my hair. This was my first “adult relationship” so I just assumed it was normal.
I started to drop weight like there was no tomorrow. My friends were shocked at how small I was getting and how I changed my look completely then they started to ask the questions, does he treat her okay? Is he controlling her? Is she happy?
I remember vividly the first time he hit me. I remember the feeling of utter fear as I looked in his eyes and couldn’t see him… I remember laying in fetal position on the ground until it was over and looking at him, telling him I was sorry. Me, I was sorry?
I had made him leave town after a night out as he was too intoxicated. This was all my fault. I sat next to him, holding him, begging him not to be mad at me. I know what you’re thinking. If that was me, I would leave him straight away… I used to think I would too. The next day he told me he was so sorry, it was just the drink and it would never happen again. Ok I said to myself, I do dumb things when I’m drunk too. That’s all it was. He was just drunk. Little did I know that was the day my life would change.
It wasn’t like he did it every day and it wasn’t like every day was bad, but my life became like I was constantly walking on egg shells. What’s going to happen when I walk through that door? I pushed everyone close to me away, anyone who might be able to see through my lies and the layers of makeup to cover the bruises. My bosses sat with me at work and begged me to tell them why I had marks around my neck or a black eye and I would tell the how I had fell off my bike or tripped over at home.
If people knew, they would tell me to leave him and I was not ready for that at all. I guess that’s the thing about these kinds of relationships… On the outside looking in you are asking yourself, why is she not leaving him? But when you are the person involved, it’s a whole new level of control that you really don’t know how to get out of and don’t really understand.
We had many issues in the years that we were together. There was a child involved (his child) and following that, a drug addiction, which was also a huge factor that soon took over his life. I was so sure I could help and change him. I did everything in my power, but every step I took to try help him was a step that meant that I got more and more hurt mentally and physically. I felt extremely alone and felt like this is what I must deserve in my life. I felt like a tiny insignificant human.
I went to my doctors and broke down. I was 60kgs, which is tiny for me. I was eating only plant-based foods, as that was our house rule and he could never marry me if I ate meat. My OCD was through the roof and anxiety had taken over my life. I was a wreck. I told her everything about our relationship, apart from the physical abuse. She put me on anti anxiety medication and advised me to see a counsellor. I figured I must be the problem. If I fix me, that will fix him, and we could live happy ever after, right? That’s something I used to think a lot. If I take these steps, life will be great, but life wouldn’t be great, and I was let down yet again.
After I started taking the medication, I started to see things a little clearer. My eyes were a little more open to the reality of what was happening in my life. The abuse continued to happen more and more frequently. He put me down so much that I believed these things about myself and thought, if I left who would want someone like me anyway? As the mental and physical abuse began to take its toll, the police were called more often and not by myself, but by the next-door neighbours hearing my cries. There were a few times I remember thinking, this is it, this is how I die. That’s how bad it got. I had no energy to fight back and I had nothing anymore. He sucked all the life out of me I felt hardly human.
But again, I did not leave. It took the final straw to make me pack my bags and leave. It took broken ribs and a broken hand, to tell me this is enough, your happiness is far more important. I think one of the reasons I could not leave as I didn’t want to admit to others that I was un happy that I had lied that their views of my perfect life were wrong.
I went to work battered and bruised and told my boss everything. He sat there with tears in his eyes and said,“Gen that’s not love that’s not how people that love you treat you”. He told me to get my pets pack my bags and leave. This meant I had to tell my best friends and family something that I had tried so hard to protect them from. I started by telling two of my girlfriends.
Have you heard your friends heart break before?
I hadn’t until that day. I felt utterly sick, how had I hidden this from them? Next was my mum and dad, who were just completely and utterly hurt and broken for me. But none of these people were mad, they were proud of me. This was not the emotion I expected, they were proud of me for having the courage to leave and for telling them.
I packed my bags, got my pets and drove to my best friend’s farm where I felt safe. This may sound like I had my shit together, but I was an utter mess making my way away from my house. I told my group of friends and the support was overwhelming. These girls truly loved me and cared about me and were so proud of me. They were there every night in bed with me, holding me tight while I cried, and on the phone, when I needed them. These girls did everything in their power to show me support. I was important, I did deserve to be loved and oh boy, did they show me love! FINALLY, I HAD LEFT!
But the pain didn’t leave as I came to terms with the mental and physical abuse that I had been through. Anxiety soon became an emotion that took over me and I had to learn to control it. I found that healthy eating and fitness was something that helped me feel in control over my body again and gave me back a small bit of control I had lost. I loved going out again with my friends and going on adventures to the hillside, getting out amongst nature and going on road trips. But it wasn’t enough. Afire had been lit inside of me that I could not get rid of.
I signed up to help with local charity’s and the Woman’s Refuge. All small things to try help people. But I wanted to help more, I wanted to spread the word to women like me that are stuck and let them know that there is light at the end of this dark tunnel and that people love you, and that you can get out and start again. I did research into mental and physical abuse in New Zealand and that’s when it really started to hit home. Did you know that New Zealand has the highest rate of family violence in the world? And that police here attend a family violence case every 5 minutes? I went on to read that one in every three women will experience domestic violence in their lives… I was one of these women.
As I read on there was a sentence that really stuck with me… “This is not something that happens in some parts of New Zealand this is happening across every single social and ethnic group we have to acknowledge this is happening on every single street and every community, we need to make people think and talk about this maybe the more aware the less it happens”
When I left my ex, I remember the police coming over for the last time to my beautiful villa in a fancy part of town with my white fence. My gardens were perfect, my home looked like a house from a magazine and I remember saying to the police officers, “I’m so embarrassed” and he replied, “We are called to this neighbourhood more than any other”.
I decided this is it, I’m going to make a change, but how?
I signed up for Reality love show, not for love not for money and not for fame, but for something far more different … to have a platform to spread awareness regarding domestic violence, controlling relationships and mental and physical abuse. I needed a social platform to have a voice, and this was a good way to start I thought. I truly believed this was my calling.
I had made it through the other side with the will to help others. My confidence was already knocked, I thought very little of my looks and my personality, as I had been told so often that I was “fat, ugly, stupid, nobody would ever want me”. I didn’t really think that I had a chance, but how bloody great if I did? I feel like someone watched over me during this time in my life, I was chosen to be on the first season of the Reality Tv show here in New Zealand.
This show mentally challenged me on so many levels and really pushed me to breaking point. I was on an island with a handful of strangers. I remember telling people on the show of a bad ex partner but not really going into detail as I was still very embarrassed to speak about it and nobody really understood abuse or maybe it made them feel uncomfortable to talk about it.
When I left the show my social media blew up people were following my Instagram and people cared what I had to say. This was my time to tell me story of abuse this was my time to create awareness to a taboo topic that nobody speaks about. This was my chance to gain the strength to help others leave and let them know there is light at the end of the tunnel.
The first post went live and the messages rolled in from around the world from woman and men same story of abuse just different person. This is when it hit me I was in an extremely abusive relationship I was one of those woman you read about in your thriller books… but it was my real life. This made letting go of him and what he did easier I guess as I felt I needed to do it for others. I felt other people needed me to be strong. I wanted to make sure this happened less and less. I want to be someone young girls and women look up to. I want them to know just how beautiful they are, and I want to be honest with my life struggles and be a voice that lets people know it’s okay to be who you are and you deserve to be loved.
I have a vision for my future and I am grateful for the hurdles I have overcome. I want to use my social media to spread an honest and truthful message to people. I don’t want people to look at my life and think it’s perfect, I want them to relate to me or think, I have felt that too and see there is a way out.
For me to create an impact and make change, it needs to be something great, so watch this space as I have no intention of letting go of my goal. I struggle everyday with my past, but I feel like it’s made me the person I am today. I want to be able to be me, raw and real and help change people’s lives. I don’t know how yet or what my full potential may be, but just even being able to write on my social media telling other people how I started to find the me I always wanted to be is a step closer than I was yesterday. I am grateful every day for the people in my life who helped save me and I will never be able to thank them enough as I truly believe they saved my life if they were not there I would never have left and I am so glad that no matter how hard he tried to remove them from my life they never left.
But my story is not all doom and gloom a few months back, I was out in town celebrating with my friends as I was at the bar I felt my shoulder be pulled and it was my ex my heart dropped he asked to talk I didn’t know what to do I took off to the taxi stand to go home I was crying and scared and in shock but had my friends there supporting me. I got out of the taxi and felt something hit the ground. I picked it up and it was a large wallet. I looked inside and found $100 note and a lot of cards and photos of two cute wee kids.
I messaged the lady and added her on Facebook and did all I could to try get in contact with no reply, so I put her name on my Instagram saying, “does anyone know this lady, I have found her wallet?” the messages rolled in. She called me 5 minutes later, absolutely overwhelmed that somebody was retuning her lost wallet. She told me she lived a few hours away and had returned home but would get one of her kids to come and pick it up from me. She gave me her sons number to contact him and arrange for him to collect it from me.
That night there was a knock on my door, and we had a brief chat … now three years later he is the best thing that has ever happened to me. He loves me like I have never been loved before and shows me utter kindness. He is already my best friend and I think when you are truly ready for love, the right kind of love, it finds you just like this modern-day wallet Cinderella story brought him in to my life.
You can follow her journey on: Instagram, Facebook and Website
