Life Uncut - MY EX TRIED TO KILL ME - Talking coercive control with Dr Angela Jay

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

Lifers, today we have one of the most serious and most harrowing episodes we have ever done, but it is something we feel is so important to speak about.One in four will experience violence at the hands of an intimate partner and the most dangerous place for a women is in the house. This statistic unfortunately rang true for Dr Angela Jay when she was attacked in her own home by an ex partner. It was 2016 when Angela decided to download tinder and start dating again after ending things with her husband. That is where she met a funny, intelligent, tall dark and handsome man by the name of Paul Lambert. Things started off well, but went downhill rapidly, so Angela ended things. It wasn't long before he would try and kill her.Angela bravely talks us through what happened to her and discusses the signs she missed, life after the attack and where you can go for help if you are experiencing any form of domestic violence or if you need to exit a toxic relationship.If you haven't already join us on insta and our facebook discussion group @lifeuncutdiscussionPlease, hit 5 stars, leave a review and share the love, because, well, we love love xIf this conversation brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). This 24-hour national sexual assault, family and domestic violence counselling line for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.If you are in immediate danger call 000. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut, I'm Laura and I'm Brittany and Brittany's angry at me because we've literally done this intro five times now but The first one sucked, and then the second one sucked, and then the third one sucked, and then Britt made a mistake on the fourth one. I mean, I didn't think they were that bad, to be fair. I was like, that was pretty good. But here we are.

It's irrelevant. Five times is a charm. That's what they say. That's made up. No, you made that up because you're making me do it five times. Five times is a sweet spot. I remember when I used to do it five times a day. It's been a long time.

I do not remember that. No, no, it was before we were friends. how was your weekend um my weekend was good matt's mom came and stayed with us for the weekend finally borders have reopened and so she came down from queensland and it was the first time that we'd seen her since january so it was like really nice to kind of had that normalcy of last year in 2020 i was like that's what your face looks like not on facetime how weird that we don't see our family for you i'm flying to the gold coast tomorrow morning to see my brother who i haven't seen in a year well speaking of britney leaving tomorrow guys that does mean

that we have a little bit of a switcheroo happening for you later this week i'm just gonna tease this into the episode oh you big tease you big tease okay so we've done it once we've done it twice before where maddie j has filled in for me and brit and matt have done this like weird couple swap episode ask uncut wife swap wife swap while i had to sit in the corner and watch them it was like you know when you hear about those like people have sex fetishes and they, like, watch their partner doing it with their friend. I mean, it was normal for me. This is all weird for Laura.

Basically, that's what's happened in the past. But this Thursday, our Ask Uncut episode is going to be a very special episode because it's going to be me and Maddie J. So you guys can all listen to us bicker like we do live on the podcast. You guys can listen to what I hear all the time, but you can hear it live. No, I'm very appreciative, and I hope you guys understand because the borders have been closed, obviously, my nephew my niece and my brother I have not seen them in a year so this obviously I feel like this

was if there's ever going to be a reason for me to miss an uncut it was this one my sister and I going up to see him we're so excited my nephew I went last time I saw him he wasn't even talking now he's like running around like a maniac he speaks two languages I'm like well that happened quickly I mean the more that we have Matt on the podcast the more he's going to start thinking he's a permanent fixture so like don't get used to it Matt this is my very first episode I've missed and it will be my well I don't want to say it's my last just in case but like I expect it to be my last anyway guys that's a treat for you for Thursday so like I know we're just pre-warning you about this but that's your trigger warning that's your trigger warning for Thursday's episode

um yeah so this weekend do you know what I do want to say something that happened to me this weekend just really quickly it's not a funny story it's actually like a little bit of a of a parental warning story I learned my lesson I guess um so we bought a blow-up pool over the weekend like a big massive it cost 36 bucks from kmart it was a very very like bougie that's that word i can't say bougie no i was like very impressed i was like we're gonna have a real australian barbecue day with our blowout pool and all the kids and anyway we had a barbie on sunday loads of kids were around like all the nieces and nephews and um put the pool in the backyard and we have like a bit of a weird backyard we've got two separate sections so if you're in one section

you can't see around to the other section and you know there was lots of adults there so the good thing about having lots of adults is that there's always someone watching the kids and like Matt and I were kind of taking it in turns while one of us was cooking or one of us was getting drinks etc so I was inside getting drinks and Matt was outside with the family and I assumed he had Marley which is the biggest mistake never assume that somebody else is watching the kids I assumed he had Marley he assumed his mum had Marley his mum had no fucking idea what was going on and everyone thought someone else had Marley yeah and I walked outside and I realized and then I walked around to where the swimming pool was and there's Marley by herself zero adults she'd climbed into the

swimming pool all by herself and was just standing in the wading pool playing and like nothing bad happened there was very little water in the pool we only put about maybe 10-15 centimeters of water in the pool but it just made me realize how quickly something can go wrong and like if she had slipped over when she'd gotten in because the sides are really high like she's one and a half it made me sick like this moment of fear of like how quickly shit can go wrong and how you just cannot assume that somebody else is watching your kids ever well that's the thing I think a lot of people forget too is like when you say there wasn't even a lot of water in there there doesn't have to be you can drown in two centimeters of water and I'm not saying that to scare you or

anyone else I'm literally it's just I think it's important to say that now if we're going to have this conversation it's that you only need the tiniest tiniest little bit so I'm so glad obviously nothing happened to her but yeah definitely a warning to people to keep that in mind especially coming to summer in Australia yeah it was one of those things as well like we went to bed last night and like it it just stuck with me like I the fear that I felt when I saw her in there by herself Matt and I went to bed and we lay in bed last night and we had a big conversation around it because like obviously it's no one's fault like no i'm not going to blame him he wasn't going to blame me like we didn't have a fight about it but we will almost something that i'm

grateful happened because it's made me so aware of how quickly that can that situation can happen and it's made me have a much greater i guess like understanding of when these things have happened to other parents or other people there's a little bit of you that judges that's like well why weren't you watching your kids you know you think that there's that that where they're going to think the same thing to you 100 there's going to be so many people listening to this who's like well i can't believe you took your eyes off her but it's it's so easy so I just wanted to I know that's not a fun or funny story and usually we come here with the lols for the start of the episode but I just thought it was such an important thing that happened and it was such a life lesson for me that

I haven't been able to shake over the last you know 24 hours so I really wanted to share that with everyone well thank you for sharing that and bringing that to the podcast it is a very important message that's my public service announcement for today anyway how was your weekend I'm like I don't know can I can I tell funny stories now I don't know no they're like okay we've got an actually really solemn episode for you so I feel like we need to bring the lols before we take it to the real serious part look I'll quickly touch on my weekend before we get into our accidentally unfiltered I had a great weekend I'm sorry to say that Laura went after your story but I snuck away nothing really funny happened actually no something did have funny

happen but that's gonna be my accidentally unfiltered in a second so sit tight but um no I snuck away up to up the coast and I went hot air ballooning and I had some wine and I had my family Christmas party which is like exhausting because like 50 people get in this beach house with 50 kids and it's manic like we're sleeping on floors it's not this is not a luxury retreat kids this is like kids jumping on you at 3am in the morning but I rock up at the recording today and Britt's like I'm so tired and I'm like because she got up at 3am this morning to go hot air ballooning I got up at 3am this morning to deal with an explosive diarrhea shit that was all through a cot and I was like do you know what yeah me too babe me too but we're both we both got up

at 3am and that is the consistency here we are both fatigued it's a relevant one no I mean I'm lucky that i did get to go up hot air ballooning i did take sherry and jay hot air ballooning and unfortunately the only time that they do it is sunrise oh it must be so awful what a horrible thing to have to do it must be so horrible to go to a winery without children and drink wine and go on a hot air balloon at 3 a.m you know what's funny stay in like luxury accommodation i was on the floor of a pool table with in a lounge room um with like 20 kids on this mattress with springs in my back like this was not a luxury retreat I am glad that you did spend the weekend with children how annoying are they so annoying now it's all my nieces and nephews and I love them

it's at a time where Christmas it makes Christmas magical again because I don't do anything for Christmas I live alone I throw some tinsel maybe if I'm feeling luxurious on my palm tree but that's it so it was really nice to sort of up the ante and you have you have all the decorations and we had presents and you know Santa was coming early for them and all of the above so that was really really nice but I did go hot air ballooning this morning and just like 15 minutes ago as we were recording this episode I get a message in my dms from this girl that I don't know she's like I thought that was you this morning I was on your hot air balloon and then she sends me all these like horrific footage of me trying to roll up the hot air balloon at the end I fully got in there

like it was the amazing race he's like we need some volunteers and I was like a volunteers tribute so I jump in there and I'm trying to roll this hot air balloon up it was actually really hard work she's like I knew it was you and then she proceeds to send me all these hideous footage of me I was like thank you that she was like paparazzi well she goes she goes I wasn't sure it was you I don't know if you saw but I put it I put a story up today saying hey guys got up at 3am with no makeup and dressed like a boy and because I did I looked like a boy I looked like a 12 year old boy and that's why she obviously didn't recognize me she's like I thought you looked familiar she's like I'm actually a huge fan but I didn't recognize you she's like what do you wait is that what you look

with our makeup and instagram yeah well is that you it wasn't great guys but other than that it was just chill man it was just nice to get out of sydney why did i just sound like i don't know but i was just about to put you up it was chill man and then we like smoked some splurfs and just had a really tubular time anyway the bondi is really getting to you bondi yeah bondi girl well anyways guys we really don't want to spend too long on this intro this morning and that is because this is a really massive massive episode that we have coming up we're interviewing Dr Angela Jay and now I'm sure that some of you guys will actually know this story or would have read it in the news or seen it in the papers I mean that's also reading in the news so I'll stop saying the

same thing in different ways um you guys might know about it um Angela is a doctor who at the time was living in Port Macquarie and she met a guy on online dating on tinder it's a story about how the man that she dated paul ended up jumping out of a closet and stabbing her 11 times um it is an incredibly harrowing story but it's also a really really empowering story and the reason why we wanted to get angela on the podcast is because we brit and i we've talked about this loads and we think it's really important for people to really understand the fact that like this sort of thing can happen to anyone violence against women domestic violence it doesn't just happen people who are poor or who are uneducated or who make bad decisions. Angela is an incredibly

intelligent woman who has all the education in the world. She's a doctor and she was the victim of such an incredibly abusive and frightening attack. And so we really wanted to share this with you guys. This is a trigger warning for anyone who doesn't want to listen to an episode on domestic violence, but for the rest of you who can, there are some really, really important take-homes from this interview I think and you know we aren't going to jump into it just yet we're going to talk about an accidentally unfiltered story so we have some funny things to tell you first however I just wanted to put that out there because it's a it's a really great episode that we're both super proud of but it is a very big one and and it's definitely probably

the most heavy one that we've ever done it's a very very surreal story and I remember being from Port Macquarie I remember when it happened it just like I mean blew up all of Australia it was everywhere but it was all anyone talked about in Port Macquarie but there's so much that we talk about with Angela and she's so brave and so open to share her story with us and we're so appreciative but she is going to go into quite a lot of detail about every aspect from the beginning from how she met him why where she met him the beginning of that relationship what what appeared to be red flags in hindsight but she didn't really notice at the start the things that started to go downhill and how soon they started to go downhill to the way the police dealt with the situation

to the fact that she spoke to people about it and told friends about it and a neighbor about it and that is what ended up actually saving her life she speaks about what you can do after the fact if you are experiencing domestic violence if you're in any sort of a situation that you are uncomfortable with she's going to go into a lot of detail about that as well so she literally touches on every single aspect of this story and I was just I had goosebumps I had tears I was on the edge of my seat and I just can't wait for you all to listen to this because I think it's such such an important message yeah and one of the big things that like I mean I know that you just touched on every single thing that she talked about but one of the things that she did speak

about in this episode and something that I think is like one of the biggest take-homes about the whole ep is this idea that you know when somebody is in an abusive relationship or they're in a toxic relationship we still think well why don't they just leave like oh well if things are bad or if someone's displaying these characteristics like why don't you just leave and there is this onus on the person who is the victim that they've made some bad decisions or that they have gotten themselves into the situation and I think by listening to Angela's story this could literally happen to anybody and it's not as easy as just leaving because sometimes it's a slow boil sometimes you don't know that you're in a toxic relationship sometimes you don't know that things

are being manipulated around you and that's something that listening to her talk about I think was really really really empowering and I do think that if you listen to our narcissistic episode you will get a lot out of this one as well if you did get something out of that so please stick around for it but before we do get into the episode it's our favorite part of every episode which we just can't miss and that is accidentally unfiltered however we've kind of gone rogue on this because we both had our own semi-accidentally unfiltered that happened to us this week my mom is actually going to kill me my accidentally unfiltered is coming from my mom at least like you don't have to bear your soul for the podcast at least you're throwing somebody

else in the ring maybe this is the episode she doesn't listen to but i just died for it and it's not it's actually I don't I want to say it's like a cute one you know how we say it's those innocent ones it's those innocent mistakes that's what this was but she was mortified long story short my mum was at her day job on a weekend just like the day that she drove down to see us for the Christmas party and she's like it was really busy cramming into Christmas I knew I had to get away you know to come up the coast and see you guys and she was like I just wasn't thinking so she's serving this customer this customer this customer this woman comes up to her she's in her 50s and she has a glass eye obviously she's lost her eye and so she has a

glass prosthetic prosthetic eye and mum said it wasn't a great one but she's like I was doing my very best to maintain eye contact with her good eye not make it feel uncomfortable at all because it was it's very standout ish so they're going about their business and which is like an interesting thing because like when you look at someone in the eyes you kind of just look at both eyes simultaneously exactly so you never just look at one person's singular eye that's what mom said she's like usually you you dart between eyes she's like but i was making the conscious effort to like look at this one eye and then she's like every couple of seconds it would glance over she's like but it was fine the lady was asking about a sale that they had on the lady was like i i'll take

this I saw that it was on the 15% off rack and my mum said oh no sorry like that's only on the 10% off rack and she's like oh but it was on the 15 she's like I know I'm so sorry she's like but you still get 10% off it's better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick oh my that's actually what she said to her it's better than a poke because that's a saying my I say too from my mum my mum has always said that saying and she said as soon as it came out of her mouth she was like what the fuck Nikki like what have you done she's like you can't you cannot escape from that this is like an over-the-counter exchange she didn't even say anything she didn't even apologize to the same thing she's pretend like it was a normal comment got away with it sold the woman a thing and got

out of there okay I have another accidentally unfiltered that I did this weekend myself well I blame my sister actually it was I was really mortified though so I just said my whole family get together there's like 30 of us and we do a kris kringle so everyone gets one person's name that they have to go and buy the present for we have a price limit so we all sit around in this huge like circle in the lounge room and it's all very much you focus on the one person and we make a joke when it's their when it's their time to unwrap it it's like focus on laura and everyone looks at laura and then you open the present so at best it's like our tradition him anyway my sister Sherry had gotten there the day before me and then she messages me and she

goes shit I forgot half of the present for my Kris Kringle person the Kris Kringle that she got was my cousin's girlfriend so she's um 20 odd really girly girl so she goes I forgot the present can you do you have anything at your house that you might have just had left over or had sent to you that you can just bring and i can add it you know like lip gloss or something as in like something that a brand has sent you like an influencer thing and you're like can i re-give this to my cousin yeah she literally goes just just like because she had half the present but she left she left half and you've got to make the dollar value up for the present so she's like just something else to add in and i was running out the door literally and i was like you know what

yes i have a lip gloss and a compact mirror great who like beautiful everyone uses that grabs them went out the door and sharon's like you're a lifesaver thank you i'll add that to the present we're all sitting around my cousin's girlfriend she's quite shy she's new to the family she's only been in the family a year and my family's pretty intense as i'm sure you can imagine she's opening her present up everything is silent i'm just imagining there still being like a like an envelope or a letter inside that's like hi britney we really hope that you like this lip compact please please tag on instagram she opens the present and she looks up and everyone looks at me and i'm like what because

no one knows it's a secret santa fuck off and they go britney was this you and i'm like no and they hold up the mirror compact and it has been embroidered with my name britney and i was like I nearly died and she looked at me and she's like was this from you and I was like I panicked and I was like oh my god that's so weird no I that was absolutely I did not get you as a present they're like but it's got your name on it and I was like I was like she thinks I fucking that I've got her re-gifted her a gift anyway at the end I was like I can't take this anymore we did a big announcement and I was like I need to explain what happened because I can't have you thinking that I'm such a povo that I got you and gave you a gift that I've already been

given I was like and I explained the situation anyway everyone thought it was funny she's like do you want it back and i'm like no you're like i didn't want it in the first place some brand sent this to me and that's why i gave it to you i just thought i was saving my sister and i said to sharon why didn't you look in the present to see what it was and she's like why didn't you and i was just trying to blame each other i also love that this is like this could only happen to an influencer and it's like my worst nightmare anyway you deserve she laughed it was funny well i haven't accidentally unfiltered as well well this is really escalating we went from having like nothing so no this was actually the accidentally unfiltered i was bringing to

the story today so okay i spend a lot of time naked these days just so you know yeah i'm hot i'm wide everything is swollen everything is swollen and i just can't be bothered to wear clothes so it's fine yeah look it's fine i do that and i'm not pregnant well yeah but you look better naked than i do right now it's available okay continue okay so basically like our our apartment is very cavernous we're on the we're on the bottom floor which is like it's a little bit down from like road level at the front but it is road level at the back if that makes sense so if you're going to come to the front of our apartment you if you're going to buzz the buzzer there's a window right there that you're looking directly into right in our hallway we always leave that

window blind closed because it's just a bit intrusive right I would never open it anyway so I'm walking around the house in my liberated naked self wandering around the house anyway I just had I'd been doing laps from the bedroom to the lounge room whatever I needed to do I've got this one hallway cupboard which is right next to the entrance of our apartment which is also right next to this window so I walk over to the cupboard I'm getting some stuff out I bend over I get the stuff out and bend over again to get some more stuff out this process is going on for about three minutes and then i closed the cupboard and realized that there's a dhl delivery man staring making eye contact with me with your butthole well he would have been making eye contact

with my swollen vagina and the whole thing as i had been bending over multiple times and he was just standing there staring like in shock i think i don't think he was being a creep Was it in shock? I wouldn't be staring at me right now. Look, unless the man's got a pregnancy fetish, I think he literally must have just been in absolute – like he'd just been raped in the face by this woman. And what happened?

We stood there and made eye contact. And then I was like, better – I mean, you've already seen it. Come on in. Just buzz you in. I just kind of like ran out of view. And then Matt wasn't home, so then I had to kind of stay – I was stuck.

I couldn't go back down the hallway because I was nude and the window of a blind would be open the whole time. Fucking hell. You just literally made his Christmas. You think that, but I really don't think he did. No, pregnant women are hot naked and I've seen you. Everything, I'm not even joking, guys. I talked about this at the beginning of the podcast.

I was like, eventually I'm going to get to the point where things are real swollen. We hit that about two weeks ago and I haven't seen it for a long time and it's very badly shaved. Like, we've talked about it. It's not a sight to behold. It's a bit of a drain wreck. i'm so glad that this happened to you

anyway so that happened to me on saturday and i'm still recovering and the dhl men still outside my window yeah all right guys it is time to get into the episode and we did touch on before what we're talking about today and that is that we do have dr angela jay in and she is telling us her very traumatic story with domestic violence. So we just thought before we introduce you to Angela we just wanted to tell you some pretty rattling statistics. Mission Australia states that 16% of women which is 1.5 million and 5.9% of men which is 528,000 have experienced physical violence from a partner since they were 15 years old. So on average one woman a week is killed by

a current or former partner and one male per month is killed by a current or former partner and these statistics are all Australian based as well all Australian based and these statistics are so concerning and when I was reading them I knew they were high but when you really delve into this and you stop and take a second to actually think about it that is insane and I don't know what we can do as a nation or as an individual to to help with that but this is why we wanted to speak to someone like Angela because one in four will experience violence at the hands of an intimate partner and the most dangerous place for a woman is in the house this statistic unfortunately ran very true for Dr Angela Jay when she was attacked in her own home by her

very recent ex-partner somebody she did meet on tinder a very tall charismatic intelligent handsome man that she thought she had won the jackpot with who ended up hiding breaking into her house hiding in her cupboard and covering her in petrol and stabbing her 11 times he literally tried to take her life because she no longer wanted to be with him before so we do have Angela in to tell her story and it's such an incredible story and we are so grateful that Angela has taken the time and is brave enough to share what happened to her with all of you. Angela thank you so much for making time today to come on the podcast and to tell us your story. Now guys like this is a very different story to what we would normally have on the podcast and so it's a very harrowing

story but we think it's a really really important conversation to be had. So before we get into all of the details Angela please tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and who you are. Thanks so much for having me. My name's Angela. As you said, I'm a doctor working in obstetrics and gynecology, which is all things pregnancy, birth, and women's business. Well aware. Don't worry. I've been speaking to a few of you recently. Last week, we thought Laura was going into labor, so we're happy to have you. It's all right, guys. It turned out it just was gas. it's like a common mistake I grew up in the US I have Aussie mum and dad and moved to Australia permanently when I was

in high school finished well did all of my medicine and training here in Australia and since then I've gone on to have a romance and young marriage when I was 23 to a navy boy so we met through mutual friends when I was still at uni and yeah like we just kind of clicked straight away and because at the time he was moving down to Melbourne to do his initial navy training we did long distance for a while and then due to kind of the technicalities with the with the military it seemed easier at the time to get married so that we'd be recognized in a relationship so we actually knew each other for like how long we were dating for six months or something and got married it was like very quick um and yeah it was fun while it lasted but you know um as some things do

didn't work out in the end and in 2016 we separated for the final time and at the time I was working in Port Macquarie on rural secondment and that's when I started dating again and at the time I had never used online dating but I thought I'd give it a crack because heaps of my friends had used it successfully and met really nice guys and that's when I met my ex Paul who went on to try to kill me. I just have so many questions but it's just even that the most powerful statement you don't even know what to do with that you know my ex who tried to kill me. Every time I've read your story I've heard you tell your story it's just it doesn't get any easier to listen to and I know that there's going to be a lot of people listening to this who find this really difficult

but like we said I do think it's a really important conversation to be had. Before you did meet Paul and knowing that you'd just come out of a relationship and you were online dating what was it like for you online dating after just finishing a relationship like after being divorced and going okay i'm gonna put myself out there again because i know that that is probably a very common thing that you know people feel like okay i'm going through such a big life shift where i thought i was gonna spend my life with this person and now that's not happened well online dating itself is daunting like especially if you haven't done it if you were young and i'm going to assume it was your first ever time you were young you were married then you've gone i

mean I'm a veteran right now on the online world but it's really really daunting so was Paul the first person you met or did you meet other people before him I went on a few dates and yeah I kind of just felt lost and didn't really know what I was doing because all of my previous relationships had been people I'd kind of met through friends of friends or kind of through social networks I guess at the time because I was away from my usual social circles being on rural secondment I wasn't meeting people other than a few people at work so it kind of was a time that I was feeling really lonely and that's when I turned to it was like well how is somebody going to meet people and so I'm told this is how you meet people these days I think it I mean I don't know how people do

it over and over again because I found it so exhausting but I think oh yeah I get minimal sleep I'm really putting in the hard yards out there but I found that I was having a lot of the same conversations over and over again and everything was quite superficial and met a few like really nice guys that I went on dates with but there wasn't really any spark and then when I met Paul for one he seemed a bit more mature and it was actually just really easy to talk to him straight away so when we started chatting over the phone you know we could just talk for hours on end and he would make me laugh and he seemed very intelligent and kind of ready for the type of relationship I was looking for which was something serious and I had obviously had my

trust hurt before but he seemed really genuine and caring and that's what really kind of attracted me to him initially. Did you feel that there was this overwhelming sense of chemistry when you first met him and we've spoken a little bit on this podcast before about how misleading chemistry can be and how sometimes when you meet someone and you have that overwhelming bowls you over feeling of like oh this is this is it this is amazing perfect yeah that you can then almost become blinded by chemistry because you're blinded to all those red flags that otherwise you would see in someone yeah absolutely um the conversations that we had we had a lot of things in common and it was yeah really that strong chemistry and he then wanted to come up to port to meet me which

was you know this grand gesture that I was like oh my gosh like someone is interested enough in me when I felt like I was at a time in my life that I've really felt like I was unlovable in a way having been through a recent separation so that kind of gesture was really really took me aback and I felt very smitten at the time and when we did meet in person we got along really well and he was very charismatic took me out to dinner and yeah like I had those you know early relationship butterflies and was very excited and very happy. Did you meet him when he was in Sydney and you were in Port Macquarie? Yeah. And so did you match because you had crossed paths with your radius when you were in Sydney or had you just said opened your radius up to look in different

cities kind of thing? I think it was when I had been down in Sydney for a weekend and he actually super liked me. Oh, oh, okay. So really boosting the confidence too, because you've got a super like and now he's making the effort to come five hours to meet you for the first time okay yeah yeah so I think that's why he actually came up because of the super like so even though I'd been in Sydney like the day before or whatever um so that in itself was kind of like oh like even if it's someone you wouldn't really think about usually I think it really kind of sparked my interest well because you only if for those of you listening that don't know you only in Laura you wouldn't know you know what super like was around when I was online dating yeah come on I'm

like 500 you only get like one super like a day or so is that right well unless you pay for the premium package guys then you can super like your ass off but i mean like i know when you do get a super like the whole point is them saying you're the person that i've chosen because i get with this one shot unless i pay 100 a month i get one shot and i'm hating you for the yeah so okay you've matched how long did you talk for before he came to meet you so how long were you talking on the phone or messaging or skyping do you do video calling like what did that look like yeah so I think we it was a it was really quick it was about like maybe two weeks that we were talking and talking pretty regularly that he was like look I just want to meet you um I don't want to wait

until you're not working a weekend and you're down in Sydney like I'm just gonna fly up and see you and I was like okay like yeah so that was in itself very exciting but also I guess from a relationship point of view good to kind of move things forward because there's only so much you can do over the phone you just kind of need to physically meet to know if there is actually a connection there and was there an expectation straight away that he would come and stay with you or was it more he's going to get his own place and you're going to date properly or yeah he was going to get his own place for the weekend just like a weekend trip and then we were going out to dinner which we did and then because he was staying the weekend then we caught up for breakfast

the next day so I think that in itself made it a very intense first date that it was kind of a few dates in one and the fact that he had come all that way to see me yeah but I guess as well like the fact that he had come all that way but booked accommodation I think that that sometimes when someone makes that effort there's this instant expectation that like oh well I'll stay with you and that in itself is a red flag because you can be like oh no pal like yeah sort yourself out but it kind of seems like he was doing all the right things to really win you over at that point in time so talk me through what the beginning of your relationship was like before things really started to change for you the first few dates were really lovely like we opened up to each other and

although you don't like to talk about your big baggage like the fact that you ever uh you're technically still married and are separated yeah usually you try to gloss over that for a while but that's like a date three conversation you've been on two failed reality tv dating shows but uh yeah I feel you on the baggage front but yes I think it was like even towards the end of our first date when we had dinner that it came up and he also disclosed that he had been married before so and like it was kind of this huge relief that's like oh like the one thing I kind of didn't want you to know about you do know about and actually that's connected us further that we both have a shared experience that we've gone down the marriage route like may have looked differently for each of

us but ended and now we were like kind of learning from our mistakes and trying to move forward from that from that point on like he came to see me a few more times in port when I was down in Sydney I'd see him and it just was the kind of usual early dating thing where you just have butterflies you're texting all the time speaking on the phone he also did things like would send flowers to my work which i'd never had um an ex that had done that before so he was really courting you yeah yeah and like in a way that i i'm already imagining if someone was doing that to me it's in a way that doesn't happen anymore so when you think that you found someone that's like who sends flowers anymore who makes all this effort who flies up to see me of course you're like this is the real deal

like this is a really special person that yeah i'm lucky enough to have found we talked about this a little bit when we did the narcissist episode for anyone who hasn't listened to it go back and listen to it I highly recommend I mean this conversation and story obviously goes way beyond just someone who has narcissistic personality disorder but this idea of love bombing which really gets you sucked into a relationship which when it's happening it's sometimes hard to see that that's what it is it's hard to see all those warning signs as warning signs because it just is so amazing and so too good to be true when was it that things started to turn for you when was it when you were like there's something not quite right about this

and even if all of those beautiful grand gestures were still happening when did you start to feel different towards him so it was many weeks in little things like he picked up on what the password was to my phone he seemed to like always know when I was online on social media he would do things like sometimes when I was in Sydney and I was staying at a hotel he would kind of call ahead and get me my room upgraded a lot of it would be under the proviso of taking care of me like very early in our relationship it was very much about you are a doctor you take care of people for your work I can tell that you put a lot of your energy into that and you have never had someone just take care of you and I am wanting to do that for you so he would do things like the

room upgrades or if I was in Sydney at the time I was a bit too lazy to organize an e-tag for tolls for instance and he like called up and would organize that for me just like little things here and there the time I was like oh he's taking really good care of me but then over time it started to at the time I didn't really recognize it as control but in retrospect that's what it was you know he would start he started to get really jealous jealous of other men in my life and would say like I don't want you to hang out with that person anymore or talk to that person like the intensity was really ramping up I guess for me the initial thing was actually not even feeling like his behavior was uncomfortable or even feeling like there was any red flags per se

but it was more so because he was so he seemed so smitten and told me that he loved me that I started feeling like oh once I think the kind of new relationship butterflies wore off I started to think I don't know if I'm quite feeling as strongly as he is and wanted to really pump the brakes so it was more so when I tried to end it the first time just a matter of look I actually don't think I'm feeling as strongly and I'm I think that we should probably just actually see other people that that's when things really started to change you said that when you tried to call it off and you said that you know let's see other people that that's when the intensity and that's when things started to change what changed what was he doing what was that behavior

like and and at what point were you really startled by it yeah so initially it was just being very upset when I knew that it wasn't really for me anymore I waited till we were together in person to have a conversation about it and he started crying became really upset started saying things like you know you're the only good thing in my life you're just scared you haven't given me a chance and it made me feel really I guess guilty and I started to think well maybe you know he is a really good guy and he's done all these lovely things for me maybe I haven't given it a chance and I am you know just recently out of a serious relationship maybe I am just scared about the commitment that initially then kind of was like okay well let's give it another chance

and it kind of happened a few times and that you know particularly because we were doing mostly long distance I'd be like okay we'll give it another chance and then I would be then like we'd be on our own like he'd be in Sydney I'd be in port and I would think well no I don't want to be in this relationship I just need to be firm and end it like yes you'll feel bad and it's never nice to hurt someone else but you just have to do what's right for you but then it did turn into threats of suicide so then he got upset but then to the point that he you know disclosed that he had had issues with his mental health and that he had nothing good in his life and the one time that things got really intense for me was I was at his place and kind of said look it's over and I drove

off and I was planning just it was like late at night and I was just planning to drive back to port and he called me saying that he was like wandering the streets and he was going to jump in front of a truck. So I drove back to his place and stayed at his place. I slept with him that night and I just felt disgusted with myself. I just felt really trapped and I didn't know what to do. From that point there was kind of multiple attempts on my behalf to try to get away from him but then was really kind of drawn back by these threats of suicide and it got to a point that I wasn't sleeping well and he was kind of calling me constantly and we had previously planned to go to an event that I agreed okay you can come with me because we had previously planned to attend

together but we'll go as friends and it was at that event because a few of my friends were there that I had a few drinks and then I kind of just really opened up to my friends that I was like look I just really want to get away from this guy but I don't know how so they helped me get away from him that night and I went to my sister's place and that night he kept calling me and actually showed up my sister's house which he'd only been to once before and started to say things like that he had previously been in trouble for being violent in relationships and that he didn't know what he was capable of and obviously from that point because my sister could tell I was so upset she encouraged me the next day to go to the local police to just ask for advice oh my gosh and

when when you went to the police station the next day and you sat down and said like this has happened I guess the thing that we hear so much when people say oh they went to the police to talk to them like nothing has happened yet you know and there's often this feeling with going to police we're like well unless something's actually physically happened we can't really do anything so what was their advice and what did they say to you if you're sitting there and you're like I'm scared and I need to make you aware of this situation what does the what do they please say what do they do what can they do yeah so at the time I mean I just felt like I was really going crazy at that point because I didn't know what was really going on and I felt like you

know I was trying to get my like basically dig myself out of this hole because I felt like this was my own problem my own fault like I started dating this guy and you know I've obviously really let him on or done something wrong to make him act this way and I honestly would not have ever gone to police if my sister hadn't really encouraged me because I was kind of like well what are they going to do like he hasn't like it's just like a bad breakup and I guess it probably was intensified by the fact that you probably had a little bit of guilt because you went back and forth and every time you go back and forth it magnifies it a little bit more and a little bit more and almost like you take a bit of responsibility because you're like oh well I've

made him behave like this because I've I've you know given him a little bit of hope and then taken it away again yeah and exacerbated the situation yeah I think the thing with women too is we don't want to cause a fuss over nothing and we think that like I'm not going to say he hasn't done anything because he has but in your mind I can see why you're like well he hasn't actually done anything yet he hasn't actually come and said I'm going to hurt you he hasn't actually so I guess it's really easy to talk yourself out of the fact that oh they'll probably laugh what are they going to do they're going to laugh me out like it's not like he's actually physically hurt me yet but yeah absolutely I felt like I felt yeah I just felt like really like I

was going crazy and I was but I also was like well what are police going to do like he is you know this is a bad breakup he sounds like he might have a bit of a troubled past or whatever but at that point the main reason I went to police was that because he was threatening to kill himself and I was going to be returning to port where I lived alone I was just a bit worried about like oh and like because he had mentioned things from his past I was like well maybe I should just check that there's no kind of like huge red flags on the system about him and just get some advice as to what I should do if he does continue to say that he's going to kill himself so there the police officer that I met with was actually really lovely and really validated my feelings and

had a look on the system and said like look you know it sounds like he's more danger to himself than anyone else if he does call you and threatens to hurt himself just call us and then we have technology we can track mobiles and check in on him and stuff so to kind of say like look he's he's not your responsibility anymore like that's fine and he also recommended that I when I got back to port because I was worried about going home that I kind of let my neighbors know that I was kind of going through a breakup and like at the time I felt really reassured by it that I wasn't just laughed out because I thought I was like like what are they going to do and like they have real problems to deal with not just someone going through a bad breakup or guys acting a bit

erratic yeah so I felt empowered by that but then unfortunately when I did get home to port he was already waiting for me there so what happened when you got back to port and he was at your house yeah so I told him that he had to leave and he said that he was there just to collect some of things he had left at my house so I went inside got got his things said to never contact me again and that's when he told me more that he couldn't control himself and that he had previously stalked women and basically it was like kind of like he was trying to caution me that he didn't know what he would do and so I kind of yelled at him to leave and locked my doors and at that point because when I had met with the officer earlier in the day he kind of said if you have any issues just

call your local police so I called the police in port and said look you shut up my house and unfortunately I didn't get quite a great response that time when I called the officer was like what do you want me to do about it and I was like oh I don't really know I just guess I thought I wanted to give you the heads up yeah so then I tried to kind of just go on with my night but then he started like calling and texting me saying that like I should call the police and that he was telling me that you're not safe in your house so that obviously freaked me out so then I ran to my neighbor's house and called police again and then they came because then he had sent me like texts actually kind of you know menacing texts and threatening me then they took

me to the station and helped me file for an AVO and luckily I had a cousin in town that I got in contact with and stayed with for the next few days because I obviously didn't feel safe at my place anymore and my mum came then and stayed with me for a few days as well. At this point in time did you actually think he was capable of hurting you? I don't know I think I was really afraid but then I also was kind of telling myself like you're being paranoid like now particularly because he had called my phone while I was at the police station and they kind of said to him like look mate he's we're filing an AVO like you need to just leave her alone and they recommended that I block his number and block him from social media which I did so I in my mind I was kind of in two

minds in one mind I was really unsettled and like really afraid but then also thinking oh like come on like he's gonna he'll get over it he knows there's an AVO that I've contacted police and because I had blocked him I wasn't receiving any more calls or anything from him so I started to kind of later that week start feeling a little bit more safe and kind of like come on Ange like you're not that great he's not like you know crazy in love with you like just like get over yourself and try to kind of just like push that aside um and when my mom had to go back to work so head head back um home and I was still staying at my cousin's place but I wanted to duck home to feed my cat and get some like clean undies and stuff and it was after work and it was daylight

outside so I decided I'd just stuck home quickly and that's when I went into my room and he had broken into my home and was waiting for me. Was there anything in your house that let you know that someone was in there or any signs did you get a feeling or? No it was really weird actually I think because I was on call at the hospital the night before so I hadn't actually slept very much because I'd been in and out of the hospital with births and seeing patients so I just then finished a clinic and it was daylight and I felt like strangely calm that day compared to how I'd been the week before and I can't really explain it and every time I'd been at my place prior to that that week I had done a full sweep of the house I checked behind every door like under my bed

checked like it was quite a big property like I literally did like a full sweep of the house with like a knife in my hand but that day I just felt calm I was like oh like it's okay like I feel like we're turning the corner and I actually initially when I got home I had dinner I watched some telly I was just kind of like chilling out and then it was starting to get towards like dusk so I was like okay you should probably head over to your cousin's place so I was like all right I'm just gonna go do a wee grab my things and go and that's when I walked into my room and he was there so I was not I was like basically just hanging out in my house I did not expect that he was there the whole time he was just waiting from what I know he jumped out of the cupboard where he was waiting

yeah what did you do what happened in that moment he was in kind of a walk-in linen closet when I started walking into my bedroom and the first thing I thought was just like oh my god he's actually come for me like I'm not crazy yeah like yeah like this was what I was worried about and here he is and it was like literally like he's come for me was it like I'm just trying to I'm just trying to play it out did he just come out and present himself and sort of start to talk to you and be like plead his case or I love you or was it just like a jump straight into an attack like you didn't even have time to think about what was happening no he he jumped out and then um I screamed and then he um wrapped his arm around me and um put his hand over my mouth

to like muffle muffle me or muffle my scream and just said like you need to be quiet and if I take my hand away like I won't hurt you if you are quiet I obviously like nodded like okay and he I could see he wasn't wearing a shirt he was just wearing some shorts and looked very like I want to say crazed but it's not the right word he just looked very intense and he had a knife in his pocket so had you seen the knife at this point did you know he had a knife at this point yeah like when he was when he was um had his hand up against my mouth I kind of was like looking at him and I saw it quite quickly because it was a big knife were you trying to do this thing where you're like I'm in this situation let me look at my surroundings let me assess what he is were you

in a state of mind that you could actually acknowledge the situation and start to think of a way out or were you just panicking no I think I don't know I think it's just flight or fight response that like it was only kind of very small moments that were passing but like when I think back on it like I'm actually surprised by like little details I remember how vividly things are in my mind at that point um I was actually busting to use the loo and I like my the first thing I thought it was like I need to I need to go to the toilet which sounds really weird but it's like but also it's one of these situations where like you never know what your mind is going to do right like you never and like it's such like nobody listening to this

unless they've experienced something similar could even remotely relate to how they would react in this situation yeah and when he said to you I'm going to take my hand off your mouth but don't scream don't make any noise what did you do did you make noise or did you obey him no I did what he said and he was just saying like I just want to talk and I can't remember exactly what I said to him but um I think you know I was saying like you make me really worried and that's when I said like well can I go to the loo so then he followed me into my bathroom and like watched me as I did a wee and like I couldn't at that point like control my legs like just everything was obviously trembling and I was like at that point like it was kind of nice to have a

moment just to even though he was watching me to kind of think like like oh my gosh like collect your thoughts like how like what's happening like how am I gonna get out of this and then after that he told me to get on my bed and was like I just want to talk and he started kind of interrogating me about where I had been and who I'd been staying with and what was I staying with another man and I was just trying to kind of answer his questions to the best I could because i obviously didn't want to upset him at that point and earlier in the week i'd actually put some um a few knives in my bedside table because i was really worried and i think he could see me like i must have glanced at the bedside table and he yeah so i think he saw me

glance at the bedside table and said i've already taken the knives away oh which is like in your mind is like that was your safety net wasn't it and i was kind of like thinking like well okay how do I get help but you know obviously he's like there watching me I can't like really scream or do anything because he's just gonna you know he's got a weapon and he's just gonna hurt me and I think at some point I kind of like I knew that he wasn't just gonna we weren't just gonna like have a nice chat and then he was just gonna let me go I like I don't even know like some people say like I basically made a decision to run and I don't know whether it was like an active brave decision or if it was just like my instincts but I just made a run for it and that's when he caught me straight

away and started stabbing me Angela you were stabbed 11 times and then Paul then proceeded to pour petrol on you how the hell did you get away I still don't really know I think most of it is luck because things could have like gone very slightly differently and obviously things would have ended um very badly but I think honestly the petrol was kind of my saving grace because it made me slippery and I managed to just get out of his grip for a moment and just made a run for it and luckily he didn't catch me before I got out my front door and then you got to your neighbors yeah did you this might sound like a strange question but did you feel like were you aware that he was stabbing you over and over or was there just so much adrenaline and so

much going on because you hear a lot of things when people are in a situation like that that they say they're not even aware of what's happening or how severe their injuries are because the adrenaline and this fight or flight and this save trying just trying to save yourself is so all-consuming that you don't even know the damage that's being done did you find that or were you aware of every single thing that was happening no it was very much slow motion and I didn't really feel anything it was kind of the best way I can describe it is when you watch movies and they have a slow-mo scene and they've got some sort of like music playing like classical music playing it was kind of like that things were just really slow and if anything I was just kind of like

oh my gosh he's actually stabbing me and it would have just been happening very quickly but in my mind it was very slow and I certainly didn't know that he had stabbed me 11 times until much later like I knew it was a couple of times but I could only see a few wounds that I noticed straight away it wasn't until much later that I started to feel pain and actually started to notice some of my injuries and where where did he stab you so he stabbed me um a bunch of times in my legs and thighs in my left forearm in my um he like almost chopped off one of my fingers my left hand one on my kind of back kind of rib cage area and yeah the rest were basically affecting my legs and thighs it's crazy how you describe it as being in slow motion but when you actually think about it like

the physical action of trying to stab someone 11 times is not a quick process so I feel like it does happen in slow motion even if it's manic and rapid but there's that's so much action that's happening that of course it would have felt like of this prolonged period because it's like I just can't I cannot even imagine I also the fact that you got away like it's I mean it's a fucking miracle really yeah it absolutely is a fucking miracle and I mean I know that you then got out and your neighbors were there to help you what happened then so you're safe from the situation I'm sure you didn't feel safe but there were people there to help you what happened yeah so I mean I was just relieved when I opened my door and I I saw my neighbor Steve there and

um I was just like help me like I've been stabbed so who was at your door yeah I think he had heard me screaming so it was not far outside my door and then there was he helped me up to his garage and there was other neighbors around and in my mind I was still just so panicked and I was just thinking oh my gosh I'm just going to bleed to death um and I was still convinced I was going to die so I was very panicked but um luckily I guess I'm quite used to I wouldn't say ordering around but um I guess directing to doctor like put the pressure on my leg here tourniquet this call the ambulance this is how you resuscitate me used to having a leadership role yeah so I was just basically ordering everyone around to um to put pressure on wounds and um I asked one of the

guys to get some water to help wash petrol off my face because it was burning my eyes and I was asking people to you know call for an ambulance and I remember even when as as you can imagine as protocol in those kind of situations the police and firemen got there first to make sure it was safe for everyone but I just remember feeling really annoyed yeah I was like um where's the ambulance and I remember even being a little brat because I knew how long it took to the to get to the hospital like it takes exactly like you know 11 minutes to drive here to the hospital because I was constantly driving to work I just stop you there I don't think that makes you a brat like you are bleeding out I think you are completely entitled to say I know how long it's gonna take

me to get there that's what I remember mostly is being just really I think just a bit crazy like I was panicked so I was convinced I was gonna die and I was ordering people around but then also once things were a bit calmer and like the head pressure on my wounds and we were just waiting for the ambulance I remember just having some like really bizarre conversations with the neighbors like I remember saying to one of the guys like oh shit I'm supposed to be working this weekend like I wonder like oh maybe if they like stitch these up I could work and he's just like like what the f like don't worry about that like I guess it's because as well like this is something that's so far out of the world of normal right like your brain can't comprehend it can't wrap

its mind around what has just happened or what is happening to you that it's like of course you're going to go back to your normal preset and kind of try and make rhyme and reason of what exists in your life that is your your baseline of normal so for you to be talking about work and obviously like when you're a doctor and you work in such high-pressured situations like you don't get to take many sick days you don't take many days off so you're thinking like oh okay i've got to figure out the rest of the week but it's probably just your mind and your body trying to cope with actually what's just happened you can't take on all that trauma in one go yeah your body's stress response is you literally cannot put a finger on what how someone will react in a situation as

stressful as that in retrospect I think I was a bit like out of it from maybe the blood loss and the adrenaline and just and then um eventually at the hospital because I eventually said yes to some painkillers I was probably a bit off my face and saying weird things but um but I think also I I was kind of I guess anyone who works in healthcare can relate you tend to have a bit of a dark sense of humor so I remember kind of like cracking jokes and things as well when I was in the recess bay and with the ambos and I think that was just me trying to cope but also just being a bit like oh what's just happened well also I mean I've told you and for everyone listening um Angela and I worked at the same hospital I grew up in Port Macquarie I worked at that hospital for five six

years the people there are all so friendly and family so everyone knows everyone like the back of their hand and the way that the emergency is set up is like you couldn't have snuck in like you were coming in and everyone that's in there would know that you were there yeah yeah and I felt I mean I felt so safe because it was like my work family and I knew they would take care of me and yeah it was even though like my actual family was far away it was very comforting to know that once I was there I that was I think the first time I like properly calmed down at this point in time you didn't know what was happening with Paul you didn't know where he was at you didn't know how he had gotten away or what had happened yeah can you tell everybody what happened to Paul

and where the rest of this story goes yeah so I mean at that point I was so fixated on my own survival and worried that I was going to die that I kind of like immediately put him out of my mind like he was literally the last thing I thought about but when I was in the recess bay once the doctors and nurses were happy that I was stable they let the detectives come and speak to me and I did a went through a statement with them and then at some point during that time they got news and I could tell they were a bit hesitant to tell me something I was like oh just tell me like what's up and they told me that he had been pursued and shot by police and that they had just confirmed that he was dead. How did that make you feel finding that out was there a sense of I mean

it sounds horrible to say this but was there a sense of relief? Yeah I mean I just literally burst into tears and was like oh my gosh thank goodness like it was I mean at this point I hadn't even really thought about the fact that he was still out there but it wasn't until afterwards that I kind of actually like I was just so lucky that that was kind of immediate immediate closure not complete closure but that I didn't have to worry that he was still out there and knowing how my recovery was thereafter if he was still around like how much worse it would have been for me. So I was immediately relieved and continue to feel so. But I think on the flip side of that conversation is that there's so many women out there who have experienced horrendous

violence and they do have to get on with life and try and move past the fact that this has happened to them, knowing that the person who did this is still alive. And I can only imagine that there is this sense of relief that you have, but also it would aid in your ability to be able to heal that trauma knowing that the that very real presence of danger is no longer around yeah absolutely so i mean for me not so much now but particularly in the first few months i did sometimes think like i had thoughts like oh is he really dead like and was kind of my conspiracy theorist in my mind was kind of thinking like oh maybe he's not actually dead but after that like it was more than just um like nightmares that i would have about him or even now if i see someone that kind

of looks like him in the street I sometimes freeze and I can't look at them and then I have to kind of tell myself like Angela he's dead it's not him it's okay you can look at that person so but then I think about people that their perpetrator is still out there and I'm like if I am so still affected by my perpetrator who's been dead for like four years I'm like how do people continue on their lives I think it's one of the things that even when I do find it difficult to talk about what's happened to me or you know find that my PTSD is flared afterwards like I still keep doing it because I know that I'm so privileged to be able to share my story so freely knowing that my perpetrator isn't out there anymore and so many women don't have that that luxury how do you begin

to heal from something like this how do you put that trauma behind you if you even can with lots and lots of help and support obviously I also had a psychologist who was specifically trained in trauma so went through a lot of sessions with her and ended up doing something called rapid eye movement therapy as part of that I have a great GP that I saw during particularly the first couple of years as well and am now feeling good on medication which I've gone off of and then back on and now I'm just like you know what it helps me feel good and I'm just gonna keep on it and and just having really fantastic family and friends who are really supportive and it's an ongoing process so for me it's been a long journey of being gentle on myself and knowing that

things aren't going to just progress if things will get better and better over time but sometimes you'll be feeling good and then things will get bad again and you just have to allow yourself that time to heal and knowing that certain parts of you may never be the same but you know maybe it's made change you know I think I try to try to focus on the positives that you know while I struggle with my mental health that it's hopefully made me more empathetic as a as a doctor and more understanding in terms of you saying you got so much amazing help was that something that was presented to you and through the through the hospital system like when you have an incident like this did they come to you and say this is what we can offer you these are some

roads you can go down or were you sort of left to your own devices? Yes and no so I had at initially I was really just suspicious of everyone I think because while I now I'm very thankful for all that police did at the time I did feel a bit let down by them and because the media coverage was so intense I had so many people from the media trying to contact me I was really worried about my privacy and at the time I was just still really crippled by shame and embarrassment about what had happened so I really just didn't have trust so I was told about victim services which is a run by department of justice in Australia and they can point you towards psychologists that are funded by victim services but I actually didn't want to go down that road

because I've I was worried that somehow they they as in I don't know police or media would get hold of my records so I actually instead got recommendations from colleagues about who I could go to and port but it wasn't until I returned to the central coast where I went to high school and did a lot of my medical training that I actually clicked with a GP who was actually an ex-colleague that I kind of contacted her and was like hey I know that we're kind of mates but would you feel comfortable treating me as a patient? One of the things that you just said like this feeling of shame and and embarrassment that you felt after this had happened to you and one of the reasons why I really wanted to get you on to speak to you is because I think it's so

important for people to know that this isn't something that happens to other women you know to people who have less education or who have less money or who have made bad decisions in their dating like this isn't somebody else's problem always and that you know you are a doctor you are successful you are very well educated you know how to make good decisions and that this what has happened to you is not a reflection of that and it really is something that can happen to anyone and I think that that is just such a really important take home from this conversation yeah absolutely I think it's so drilled into us that when you hear stories of violence in relationships that it's like oh that person was really silly like whether it's a man or a woman

it's like that person was really silly to you know get into a relationship with them and oh why didn't they leave and there's just all this onus put on the victim and the survivor that it's like well it's their own fault so I think initially for me it was like that's just how I felt that I'm like I brought this upon myself I made a silly decision I treated him in some way that led to this behavior and I think also there's a sense that when you're in a violent relationship whether we're talking about coercive control or emotional psychological abuse or physical violence that the person on the receiving end is aware of it and then they can just walk out but for one as I found out firsthand is a lot of these subtle manipulations and ways that they're kind of

grinding down at your own self-esteem you don't recognize it at the time as you're a victim of abuse or coercive control so for one you have it's you you may not even identify it at the time let alone if you do want to leave it's not that simple and it's that metaphor as well where it's like the the frog in the boiling pot of water you know if you throw a frog into a boiling pot of water it's going to jump out but if you just turn the heat up really slowly and boil them over a period of time people don't even know that that's what's happening to them you know you become people become accustomed to that level of manipulation they become accustomed to the abuse and they start to think it's normal yeah and that's what we see all the time and we have

received I can't even tell you how many messages we've received from women who have listened to the episode that we did on being in a narcissistic relationship and they've listened to the episode they've gone holy shit that's what happened to me that's what I was dealing with they knew at some point that they were going crazy that there was something wrong but couldn't really identify what those red flags were basically because they were just too in it and too surrounded by it well i think because i mean now we're getting to a place where we speak about it more openly and that's half the reason laura and i started this whole podcast was to speak about things that women don't speak about and to make it more okay to talk about and make people realize that they're not the

only ones going through this and there is a way out and that people do survive and um another thing i did want to ask you well i mean there's still a few things but yeah i was like we are not wrapping out no I've got some questions that like I just genuinely really want to know it did come out correct me if I'm wrong it did come out that he had in fact quite a few avios out against him in I think America as well as here and this had been flagged was this made aware to you when you went in to make your initial complaint against Paul like did they say look just so you know four other people put an avio in or was it just completely left out the only inkling I had that he had a past was when he started telling me things himself and I think some of the laws have now

changed because a lot of his prior convictions from what I understand were in Queensland and they're still you know in certain aspects there is a you know difficulty in sharing information between state borders but I think but I think since that happened to me I think in the last few years the laws have changed slightly to hopefully allow more freedom of information but unfortunately there is there is still I mean I don't really understand the privacy laws in in Australia and I mean I obviously don't have a law degree but you know at the time because so much stuff was released to the media about me I kind of was like oh like I guess I don't talk to me about these privacy yeah it's like so apparently privacy doesn't really exist but then they like

kind of you know his past was kind of hidden from view because of privacy like I don't really understand it did you feel like that system failed you in a way then if you were like well if it's so fine for my privacy to put out on display when I'm the one who's the complete victim in this but the perpetrator who's not even here anymore he's his privacy is more important than mine yeah I did feel a bit let down that he was still able to hurt me and that you know that he like I don't know in my mind I kind of think you know if people are violent or have some sort of I know that an AVO isn't necessarily a criminal conviction if they follow the rules but that there'll be some sort of limitations on your freedom if you break the law or don't treat others with respect so I

think I was a bit surprised that he's just kind of out you know doing his thing and living his life and here's me unaware of of his past um the the statement I made for the AVO was essentially released to um the media so I felt really violated that that was kind of a moment of my biggest fear that I opened up about what was going on and then you know it was just this whirlwind of like things escalated really quickly he tried to kill me I'm still in hospital and suddenly like my face is on the news and there's all these details about how we met on tinder and stuff that I was like how does how does the whole world know that I remember I remember reading this I remember where I was I was driving on McLaughlin Avenue through Rushcutters Bay when it came on

the news on the radio and I was like holy fucking shit because I mean I was online dating at the time like this is was you know this is pre me meeting my partner and and I guess I had never really thought about the status of like being safe on online dating like I kind of just thought well it's the same as meeting someone in the bar which I guess like in essence maybe it is but I had never once had I really ever thought my own safety I'd never even told people I'm going on a tinder date tonight I just would go you know and it really made me think um so as much as I think your personal story was put out there for everybody to hear and I'm not saying like by any means that that was like a good thing for you but for me personally hearing that it really changed the

way that I was online dating at that point in time like it made a difference to my life at that point in time and I think for me it was more in those initial stages because I was still I mean still just coming to terms with what had happened but also um you know dealing with so much shame myself it was just I think just added to the intensity of the situation that I was trying to recover physically mentally come to terms with what had happened but also like the whole world kind of knew what had happened and I mean obviously from that point then it has led me to I guess at some stage because I've been hassled by media for so long and I found myself kind of in the months after feeling a bit lost and that's when I started wanting I signed up to do the trek for respect

with white ribbon and do some fundraising for um to and raise awareness um for family violence and that's when I was like well you know what like if they're going to make all these assumptions and talk about me and our relationship and what happened then I may as well actually get out there and tell my side of the story and that what it was kind of a blessing in disguise because while I felt really violated at first and upset it then did give me a platform to reach so many others and did give me a voice which not not many are privileged enough to have but I'm like I don't think that you'd be laying in bed being like oh I hope this helps another girl out there I'm sure at that point in time you're like I don't really fucking care this has happened to me and I don't

want my story out there but but I just remember it so vividly and that's why when Britt and I were having this conversation about having you on the podcast I was like you know this conversation around online safety is so important which is I mean the next question I wanted to ask you was is there anything about online dating that you think should change or could change to make it a safer space for people to date? I mean I think it's a difficult one because for any real changes to come into place there usually needs to be some form of legislation and we do know that the law often lags behind technology and science but I think if the online dating platforms did you know just at least brainstorm about what they could do as a business and enterprise to make

the platforms safer for their consumers would be a step in the right direction um i've kind of suggested before which i i don't think anyone's keen to do but even just the thing like when they're taking your basic details like you know have you ever had an avio against you or you know which yes people can lie but it just is even kind of i think for me like if i was signing up to a service and that was asked to be like oh gosh like of course like i think it just sends a message that it's like well if you do that you're not welcome here but also kind of I guess for me it was always you know that would never happen to me and I think having more awareness as to how you don't necessarily like you know there's a fine line between romance and control but there is still

a sense that you'll if you meet an abuse apartment partner you'll know because it'll be an asshole which isn't the case so I think if you kind of had some sort of alert that it's like oh people with prior convictions could be online look we have big advocates here and we talk about it all the time just the fact that you should never go on a date online without telling someone where you're going or who you're with or what time you're expecting to go back be home I share my location with my sister now at all times she knows where I am all the time but I haven't actually spoken about this on the podcast yet and I won't go into depth now but I'll touch on it but just so the listeners know not that long ago i went on an online date and was drugged on the date

here in bondi um and laura and i have been meaning to get to this and really delve into it i think this is probably a good time while we're talking about the safety of online dating and the fact that it can happen to anyone i am a veteran dater like i've been dating for so long all around the world all walks of life and i like to think i'm still relatively safe like i'm still very safe this was in my home suburb of Bondi only in the last six months with someone that I thought was completely normal completely okay completely safe and it was at dinner um and drinks after it so I'll I'll talk about it in depth on another episode but just so you guys know that's like it really can happen anywhere at any time and under whatever precautions you want to take so

it's just something to be hyper aware of but my point of this story is you can never ever be too careful always always tell someone what your plan is who you're going on a date with share their profile um i mean what else can you think to do like the onus shouldn't be on someone to protect themselves from harm but having said that you know um cultural change will take time and so i think it's that fine line of you know not being scared to go out and live your life but then also just taking small steps to you know keep things as safe as possible so I think you know educating yourself and your loved ones on red flags for abusive or controlling relationships which are only apparent to me now after my experience but things like you know threatening to hurt

yourself if you're wanting to leave or you know being really critical of who you can see who you can talk to like a lot of these things I think we pass off as oh they're being romantic and it's normal for guys to feel a bit jealous or they're just you know really passionate but actually those can be signs of a controlling and abusive relationship so for one being aware of those red flags but then also just taking whatever little steps you can to keep yourself safe whether it's sharing your location telling others that you're going out on a date I think for me I was a bit embarrassed when I started dating again because it had been a while but now if I was in that situation I think I would be more forthright with my friends and be like oh what do you think

about this guy like and kind of get others opinions on who I was dating as well just because I've realized that maybe I when you do have those new relationship butterflies you do have your blinders on so I do that all the time and Laura's always been knowing me she's like Brittany red flag red flag red flag red flag I am the voice of reason in this relationship I often listen to them too like you listen to your friends yeah yeah but I was gonna say you absolutely nailed it this idea that sometimes a toxic relationship and manipulating controlling relationship can masquerade itself as care and love and I think that that is something that you know we've spoken about loads we have both learned this from our experiences in our past relationships that you

can feel this feeling of like oh they love me so much and that's why they're behaving like this yeah and not realize that actually that's not what love is like that's a very different thing and that's someone trying to take control of you and control of your agency and your ability to make choice and that's such an important take-home message from this for people who are in relationships where they are very dysfunctional and you know that it's dysfunctional but you can you you put off that intensity because that chemistry that intensity that like toxicity it's it's what you've become addicted to and what you consider to be love yeah you I think that that's when you need to step back from the relationship a little bit and realize actually this is really fucking

something you might need to walk away from yeah absolutely and just to like flip this for a minute and talk about something a little bit happier you have gone on to find love again and you're in like a loving relationship so that's amazing congrats oh thank you tell me what it's like no but I guess like I mean it's really nice to see that you can go through something like this and you can't overcome it obviously that's come with its challenges did you find it hard when you met your now partner to let someone in and trust them and move on um and just be vulnerable again it's something that I really struggled with and for a while I was feeling lonely and I guess because when I met Paul I was starting to try to put myself out there and find a happy relationship

so it was a big setback I was lucky that I was kind of getting to the stage that I was like maybe gonna try to take a leap of faith again and start dating but was a bit busy with work and then I just I met Ben when we were working together in Coffs Harbour so it's just convenient that I met someone at work but also working in a country town like you do tend to hang out with the your colleagues from work a bit socially so he became a friend before we started dating and also you know got to know some of my mutual friends that I had known prior so I kind of got you know the tick of approval from other small world isn't it the medical world yeah absolutely and there may or may not have been some um illegal checks um via police friends um there definitely was

and if anything I felt really bad for him because I'm like oh my god like poor thing like imagine being the first guy to date me after like the shit show that my life has been so um no he was he's very lovely and um you know I'm I feel very blessed that he's you know been very gentle and kind and understanding of me and certainly that was I mean he at least kind of knew some of what had happened in my past through friends but also it was kind of like we touched on earlier that you don't want to you know reveal all of your baggage too soon but that was kind of so not only am I divorced but also I know it's like so oh I'm so happy that you're happy um but you have gone on to become a vocal advocate for domestic violence awareness and women's safety which you're doing

so many amazing things for that so good on you for sharing your story and being brave enough to share your story and you without doubt are helping so many women and I know how many women you will help on this podcast where can people that might be going through something now listening to this saying I need help where would they go first of all it's really hard to open up to anyone I guess if you're in a relationship that you don't feel quite right about so even if it's as simple as opening up to a friend you trust or you know your hairdresser GP like anyone that you feel comfortable just open up to if you're looking for more professional help in an emergency anytime please call triple zero and one of my particularly with my you know some good some bad experiences

with police since then i have learned that if you call triple zero it's going to be recorded so don't call your local police station directly call triple zero because it'll be recorded and you will be more likely to get a response that you feel um happy with um also there's lots of really good organizations out there providing support. So in Australia, we have 1-800-RESPECT, which is a 24-7 hotline that you can call. They also have a website that offers support and counseling for anyone going through family violence. For men who might be in crisis out there, Men's Line is a great resource. And for anyone who has a history of childhood abuse or trauma, the Blue Knot Foundation is a really great resource for both women and men who are

recovering from trauma. And as always, being a doctor myself, like, you know, please feel free to also open up to your GP or a healthcare provider that you trust. And again, if you don't get a response that you're happy with, sometimes you need to find the right person. But more and more we are being trained on how to appropriately deal with disclosures of violence and certainly help can be provided on to as to how to safely leave a relationship and also how to access appropriate mental health support for those recovering. I did want to ask you one more question which was you just kind of touched on a tiny bit but like what advice do you have for someone who is at the end of that relationship where they're trying to leave but they just don't

quite know how to do it it's a tough one and it's one thing that we're is drilled into us that you know why didn't she just leave or why didn't he just leave and that it's on you to get out of that situation but we also know that it is the most dangerous time for a person leaving a violent relationship so I would recommend that you seek professional help particularly if there are serious violence concerns or children involved on some of those websites I've touched on there is advice on how to safety plan so that's what we call the process of putting everything into place of who am I going to call for advice having a bag packed ready to go with important documents like your passport driver's license some cash there's also information online about how to

make technology safe it's it's a process like I'm sorry I'm on night shift at the moment so my brain's a bit hazy but there's there's basically checklists online going through the whole safety planning process which does involve basically preparing yourself and knowing where am I going to go who am I going to call having things ready to go and making sure that you get the appropriate support if needed from friends family police social work etc and on my Facebook page I've got various links on there as to other websites that can provide support with safety planning and checking your technology safety as well if anyone wants to jump on there and actually see that you can jump onto the episode notes and you'll be able to find that

information there too we will also put all the other places that you mentioned like the 1-800 respect we'll put other numbers that you guys if you need help you can just jump on our bio that will be there as well and Angela we just want to say thank you so much for coming and taking time out today and doing this episode with us and sharing your story it is by far the most harrowing story we've ever had shared on the podcast but like we said it's such an important one and yeah we just you're you're absolute it's a miracle truly that you're still here to tell the story thank you so much for having me and everyone listening thanks for listening and please take a moment for some self-care for yourself now and just have a look outside at the sunshine and have

a cup of tea and know that there's still love in the world because I know it can be a bit tough listening to this kind of stuff you're a bloody legend no you're a legend i've got goosebumps i'm going to get my cup of tea and i'm getting outside thank you so much thanks angela okay guys you know we never end an episode without our suck and our sweet our highlight and our low light the best and the worst of the week and laura you're gonna kick this one off okay so i've had lots of highlights this week like i really enjoyed having matt's family in town I really start with the low light oh shit okay low light I mean we've only been doing this podcast for a year and a half like I don't know how these things work maybe we want to mix it up

a bit um my low light for this week my low light is that I have been very very emotional this week and I don't think I'm a particularly emotionally fragile person I also don't think that I'm someone who who often gets down by small things that happen around me um I definitely think that my hormones are wreaking havoc at the moment but um yeah I just have had a couple of times in the last few days where I have ended up in tears over relatively nothing situations or over things that like would not normally make me feel sad um like for example the thing that I ended up getting upset about over the weekend was just that you know when we had we had lots of family over and Matt wasn't as attentive as he normally would be right like he wasn't as like holding my hand or

like going and get just like purely out of being busy and having other people over like nothing has changed but I would normally be able to rationalize that and then at the moment because I am feeling really I'm actually feeling really insecure about myself and that comes from like the changes that happen during pregnancy and like I said about the whole poor DHL guy who had to see everything that's a bit swollen but like pregnancy's a hard period like you know there's definitely times where you feel like you're like this glowy goddess and you feel like oh you know all these magical changes and I'm having a baby and then there's also times where you feel like you have no control over your body you don't feel as attractive as what you used to be you feel tired

all the time you feel sensitive like and the changes the physical changes that happen to your body are pretty hard to compartmentalize sometimes so I think I've been feeling really down about that and so then Matt not being as affectionate just is compounded by me feeling unattractive and so that has been a real suck in this last week just for me it's it's all it's all in my own head um and I'm dealing with it but yeah it's been probably one of the hardest parts of the pregnancy so far so yeah but I mean your hormones are going nuts and you are going to feel that and you're tired it's the end of the year you're stressed um like you have a lot going on so i think you're like you know give yourself a break too but i also don't want to blame it all on

hormones either i think it's an easy thing to say oh like you know it's just my hormones i'm being crazy i don't think it's necessarily hormones i think it is hard to kind of deal with the fact that your body changes so significantly and to think that like well 10 months ago i could go for a run i felt really good about myself i felt really fit i felt like i was back in shape and then to feel now like I don't have that agency over my own body is something that is really hard to get your head around and there are definitely days where it makes me feel down and I don't want to just fob that off as being hormones because I don't think it is I think it's real your body's changing yeah me dealing with the physical changes that pregnancy has and as much as I'm so excited

to have another baby and I'm so excited for how our life is going to change I definitely think that there are times when this pregnancy and dealing with the whole just being pregnant part of it has been a lot more difficult the last time so that's my suck my sweet for the week like I said I've had a lot of sweets we had it was so beautiful having Matt's family over and being able to do something we had like the barbecue that we had was like a combined barbecue with my family and his so cute super cute so cute but my highlight for the week is that you guys know that we have talked about Bennett Street Dairy the cookie dough so many times on this podcast this isn't even a sponsored plug I just am fucking obsessed they sent me a box of cookie yeah look

I'm unimpressed by this story they sent me a box of cookie dough because they know how much I love it and um I you know what sometimes there's perks of being someone who has a social media following you get cookie dough and I'm not even ashamed of that yeah but can we talk about what happened with their cookie dough okay so what actually happened was that they messaged me on instagram and they were like hey laura did you get the cookie dough that we gave britney for you and i was like ha ha ha no i didn't get any cookie dough from britney because she's a bitch and she would have eaten it all and then they're like oh that's so funny yeah we gave her cookie dough to give you so we'll just send you some more they're like it's irresistible who could blame her she probably ate

it raw so then i get a message from laura being like babe did you eat all the cookie dough and i was like I was like what I was like so perplexed like out of the blue and I was like it was a little bit accusatory but also like cute I was like yeah I wouldn't expect nothing less of you it's definitely accusatory but like you tried to put a cute emoji on the end and I was like this bitch thinks I ate her cookie dough and I was like this is like a breakupable offense the podcast was almost over guys literally right back and I was like babe I have no idea what you're talking about she's like yes you do the cookie dough Bennett Street Dairy told me they gave it to you to give to me and you never gave it to me so I'm assuming you ate it and I was like

what the fuck i was like i on my life if bennett street dairy there has been a big mix-up because they did not give me any cookie dough so now we're still trying to figure out who's lying is it bennett street dairy is it britney how are we ever gonna know this i can tell you how it's 100 not me obviously bennett street dairy got their wires crossed because you know they gave me some remember i told you about it yeah some that was for me as well it was not it was it was one for me to say hey this is our new flavor give it a go and I was like thank you so much and I reckon they've just got their wires crossed they're thinking they've given me some logs they're thinking they're thinking they've thought they've given me some logs for you or

one of them I don't know I cannot explain it it's an x-file but they did not give me anything for you I would be imagine if I just ate all your logs and then pretended I didn't I'm mortified I am just gonna say that you are the girl that re-gifts a mirror compact with your own name on to your cousin so like I don't put anything past you right now I am the girl that would go out on a limb to save my sister by giving her something of my own so she can give it as a present that she fucked up that is the girl that I am oh you're a superhero you really are okay Brittany what is your suck and what is your sweet my suck was being accused of eating yourself I actually have heaps now do you want some of mine oh how not no um my suck yeah actually I don't have a suck that was

probably it and my suite was just spending the weekend with my family um cousins aunties and uncles that I literally haven't seen in a year so it was really nice and it's so easy just to be so busy and always have something on that you don't make time for the little things and the people they're important and before I know it I feel like this year I know a lot of people it was a crazy year for everyone and I know a lot of people you did end up having a lot of time on your hands because we had all these insane lockdowns but I think I guess for me is like I worked double time in the hospital and I I didn't make enough effort with my family this year and I realized that at the end of the year now I didn't even think about it until now and I saw my dad turn up and

I was like I've missed you so much I haven't seen you in so long I haven't even facetimed because he gets up early and there are cousins and aunties and brothers that I haven't seen in a year and I was like I just can't let this happen again so it was a really nice reminder to for me to put in a bit more effort no I think that's going to be super relatable to people who are listening to this I think as much as like there has been some downtime for a lot of people the fact that the separation and you know that you haven't been able to physically see your families often does just mean that like the level of contact and the level of conversation isn't there and so I think there'll be a lot of people who will be having that sort of reunion in the next couple of months and over

Christmas yeah it'll be so nice now the borders are open that all of you can actually go and see the family that matters to you that you haven't been able to see yeah like we had the same thing with ellie like even though matt is so close to his mom you know and i'm really close to her as well i'm not very good on the phone i'm not very good on text and i know that that's such a cop-out and easy thing to say but like i don't do my best work via social media or via my phone and so i need to see someone face to face to give them my full attention and i know that there's a lot of people that are like that so i think that's a very very relative sweet and suck i mean you know what everyone loves cookie dough. Ben and Street Dairy, if you're listening. Brittany needs some more.

Anyway, guys, that is it for us. We really hope that you got something out of this episode today. We're really proud of bringing you this episode. It was, I know it's probably a hard one to listen to at different points in time. It was definitely a challenging one for us to record, but I'm really, really glad that we finally got to do it because it's been something that's been in the works for a long time. And guys, if you haven't followed the Instagram page yet, it's Life Uncut Podcast. please go and do that also the facebook group is life uncut podcast as well it's a great little community we highly recommend and if you have listened to this episode and you loved it and you're one of those cheeky people who haven't gone and left us a review yet then jump onto apple and

please leave us a review and tell us how much you love the podcast because it helps us grow it helps other people find us it helps us spread the good life uncut word hallelujah also keep that's not that's not the life uncut word hallelujah and no hang on i'll do keep the accidentally unfiltered coming and keep the questions coming in for ask uncut remembering that this week is going to be matt and laura so if you've got a question that's a little bit more specific for matt maybe maybe you have like a very like specific relationship question maybe it's like sex after children maybe it's like how do you keep the spice alive once you've had babies He's asking the wrong person.

Nah, jokes. No, but like, you know, or maybe it's some pregnancy questions. Maybe you want to know what it's like from a man's perspective when their partner's pregnant. If you guys want to ask us some very specific relationship questions or personal questions about our relationship, I should say, then, yeah, hit us up. We will pick out some great ones and we will answer them

for Thursday's episode. Please tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your brothers, tell your friends, tell your cat, tell your dog, and share the love because we love love. We'll be right back.