If you are experiencing homelessness, visit homelessnessaustralia.org.au for a list of services. Lisa McAdams

From a very young age, I understood how important it was to have my own financial security. I’d grown up in an abusive family and, while we weren’t poor, I’d seen how my mother had struggled after the restaurant she and my aunt owned went under. My father was a controlling man and she had to hide her wages from him, hoarding her money to buy household items like a washing machine.

I worked hard to save for a house deposit. When I was still quite young I got a job with Inland Revenue and at night I’d work making parts for loud speakers. I’d finish my government job then quickly run home for an early dinner before going to the factory. Every other Saturday I’d work at my friend’s shop so that she could have a day off.

I wanted to buy myself a little home in the south of England, but my boyfriend convinced me that if we pooled together we could get a flash house. We had met at a party when we were 27 and started dating. We’d only been together a short time when he first hit me. I thought I could help him. Coming from child abuse you tend to want to rescue people. I didn’t understand his intelligence and the depth of his psychological abuse.

For my 30th birthday he flew me first class to Paris. The morning of my birthday he gave me an expensive, hard-back interior design book. Unfortunately, that becomes a horrible weapon when you’re trapped in a small bedroom in Paris. He didn’t like the way I said thank you and became enraged. He threw it at me then hit me over the back of the head with it. Once I was on the floor it went on and on. And then he said, “Okay let’s go out, we’re going to the Eiffel Tower today.”

From the outside, we looked like the perfect couple. You tell someone he’s abusive and they don’t believe it, saying, “He flew you to Paris – I wish my husband was that controlling”. What people don’t know is that, the week before, he’d beaten me up so bad it actually hurt me to sit on the flight. I was in Paris wondering, why am I here? You get so pre-conditioned. You’ve had everyone telling you he’s wonderful, so you start to believe you’re the one who’s wrong. He had a way of making it seem like I was the one in control.

In 11 years, I tried to leave six times. The first time I threw him out he went to stay with friends but somehow we ended up back together. It was all very subtle. He’d say: “Look, I’m going to have to rent somewhere and that’s going to affect my ability to pay the mortgage. Wouldn’t it be better if I moved into the spare room?” Weeks passed and I thought, “We’re back together. How did that happen?”

He broke me down so slowly that I didn’t notice. There were promises of therapy and change but that change never happened. We got married and moved to Australia. I genuinely thought if we got away from England it would get better, but it just made me more isolated.

In England, I’d had a good job doing corporate financial analysis. The company had tried to figure out a way I could do my job from Sydney, but back then the technology wasn’t as sophisticated as it is now. I’d worked so hard to get there, and to prove myself. I think I could have gotten ‘me’ back quicker if that part of me was still alive.

Once my husband and I reached Australia we moved around a lot, which made it difficult for me to build connections. The last place we lived was in a lovely area. We even had a celebrity neighbour, but then somehow I found myself with two kids under three and no home. They were tiny and they were looking up at me with these eyes that said: “You’re my mummy; I’m going to be alright”. And I was petrified.

When I told my therapist my husband wouldn’t let me leave the house, she said, “You’ve got to tell him that is no longer acceptable.” I drove home thinking, I’m so pathetic, I haven’t even got the guts to do that. I now know that not having the guts was my intuition telling me that would get me hurt.

Everything changed one day when we were having lunch. Our one-year-old dropped her food and my husband got up to hit her. My two-and-a-half-year-old punched him in the back. I just froze. I could see exactly where my kids were going and I thought, not my kids. Not on my shift.

When I called for help it was a Wednesday and there were two rooms available in the whole of NSW. Fortunately we were able to get a spot in a refuge. I remember standing in the refuge hallway, a few days after we arrived, unable to find my room. My baby was crying and my toddler was so stressed he was banging his head against the wall. I realised I had no one. I was petrified – frozen petrified. I thought, I can’t do this – I just can’t. Later, one of the workers came out with a cellophanewrapped care package tied with a bow, and I thought: I forgot about kindness. We never went back. I call the day I left my husband and went into the refuge Freedom Day.

It took years to understand how his abuse had disempowered me. If I could go back and sit with the person I was, I’d say: “Come on, we’ve got this, I’ll show you what to do”. That’s where the workers in the refuge come in because they know what to do. They gently and firmly push you and guide you to where you need to be.

Now I teach corporations how to support employees who are experiencing what

I went through. AWW