The Uneducated PT Podcast - EP.146 Dealing With Domestic Violence

Episode Date: April 4, 2026

In this ep we speak to hayley murphy about what it's like working in a refuge centre. 

My name is Haley Murphy and I'm the outreach coordinator for Bray Women's Refuge Team and a new weekly domestic violence supports. Okay. And just give us a little bit of a description of what your day can entail. What does that look like for you? Oh, my day can entail anything from a crisis call to a woman who would ring because there's been an incident and Gardesia Conner have been called to the house and they've told her to contact us for support. It could entail going to court and supporting a woman and going to court to get a protection order or an interim baron order or a safety order. It could entail anything from just listening to a woman, just sitting down, having a cup of tea, having a chat and just listening to her story. So she feels believed and she feels heard because that's our main goal is that anyone that accesses our service is believed, heard and their voice is not silenced anymore.

What is a crisis call? What would that look like? Crisis call can range from anything, Carl, it all depends on what the person is going through. So a crisis, to me, mightn't be a crisis of someone else. Like, we've all heard of, like, big tea traumas and a small tea trauma. So it's a trauma that happens inside a woman. So someone could be ringing because they've been, like, physically assaulted. That's a huge trauma.

But then you have the small tea of traumas, which is the, like, emotional abuse and psychological abuse, where they feel that they're going mad, that they feel that there's something wrong with them. They feel that they're to blame for what's happening. They fear seeking out for support because of their abuse are telling them that they will ruin their life, that they will tell everyone,

everyone thinks that they're mad or they might have orchestrated, so they might have gone to a tussler, they might have gone to the guards, so a victim feels trapped within their own abuse. so they fear talking and they fear reaching out. So a crisis call could be just listening to someone and go know what you're feeling and what you're experiencing

is abuse and it's wrong and we're here to support you. A crisis call could be someone's after being physically assaulted and then we're there to put a safety plan in place, to put a safety measures in place to make sure that they're safe and that's by going to court. The crisis call could be that someone hasn't got money to buy like shopping because they're financially abused and we would give out

a voucher or advocate for them to get support as well so our job ranges you can never prepare for work you can only prepare emotionally so that's making sure that my emotional cup or that the staff's emotional cup is full

going into work so we have the ability to give the support to whatever's needed so there's always a risk of precarious trauma So there's always the risk of like we're in this job because we're the wounded healers per se. So if you look at we've all been through our own traumas and we all want to help people. But we need to be mindful of the impact that trauma can have on us and the impact of hearing those stories on us.

It is very emotionally draining, but it's so emotionally rewarding at the same time. So it's like a double edge sort. It really is. What's your name is that work in the first place? I started my career in social care, oh my God, 25 years ago, I'm going to say. So I worked with domestic abuse when I initially started. Then I transferred into working with kids in care. And then I went through my own separation and everything else.

So then I decided, no, I want to go back to a domestic abuse. And when I went back to it, 10 years ago, I'm in the role. I'm in now. So I'm in 10 years, I had been through the court system. I'd been through a lot of stuff myself, and I wanted, I suppose, to ensure that people weren't on their own. People didn't feel isolated. Like, going through it and looking for services

and looking for supports is terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying. And especially going to court and dealing with that legal side. And myself and my colleague actually went back to a college to a due law so we could support women through court because law is black and white. we felt for us to support women, we needed to understand what the law was so we could give the best support possible. And we fought for services that weren't there. We have a support

room up in Bray Court that's ours. So anyone that comes to court to get an order would be met by a member of staff that is trained, is trauma informed, who was qualified and would give someone the information and support that's needed. We'll go into court with them if needs be. We're there on family law days, but also that's a huge, but the little thing is to just meet with someone and have a cup of coffee and listen to them. What do you enjoy most about your work and what are the most difficult parts of your work? I could talk all day about what I enjoy most about my work.

I really can. I think although it's, I always say I'm very privileged. I see myself as privileged to work with some of the most amazing women who have had the courage to have done. their voices heard to have the courage to stand up against their abuser. And their abuser was someone that they loved, someone that they fell in love for it. It's not an abuser that, like, walking down the street would have been a total stranger. No one gets into any relationship and goes, oh, I'm going to end up in court and get a safety

order or this is going to happen. So it's the privilege of meeting. I always describe and I say to women and they thank us for their support and I thank them. and I'd give them a hug. I say we're like the surfboard, holding them above the wave. That's happening for them at the moment. And when the wave goes, we go.

That's what I love about my job. What's the most challenging part of your job? The system. Women and men, because we support both. The outreach service, the new outreach service supports both men and women. So the most challenging part is the system is getting,

everything looks great. paper. So you will hear the government saying we're going to implement that there's going to be a register say was introduced last year. That there's going to be this like register and all these perpetrators are going to be put on a register or that the guardee will be able to inform the schools. And you hear of all this media coming out that the government are saying ad lib that this is going to happen and it doesn't happen and you'd ring the guards and they don't know what about it or you will go to court and the courts don't understand, the system doesn't understand,

I'm not going to say the courts, because the system doesn't understand the impact that domestic abuse has on victims. They don't understand the impact it has on their mental health. They don't understand how difficult it is for a survivor to come forward or for a victim to come forward. They see it as an incident in an entity rather than the bigger picture.

So you would have women who are seeking support and they might go to court or they might go down to the Gardee and they don't see it as a bigger thing than it is. They don't ask the right questions. They don't see it as emotional abuse. They don't see it as coercive control. They don't see it as psychological abuse. It's still that old kind of belief that if you don't have a bruise,

it's not abuse. So if you have no bruises, the hardest abuses are inside. Like the hardest bruises to heal are the ones to happen inside. So that's frustrating when you've women go on and they take up the courage to make a step, to do something for themselves, to go into the Garda, to make a statement. And I know they're busy. I know they are. I know every single service is busy.

But when we look for services to support a victim, it's a challenge for us, let alone a challenge for someone who's doing it on their own. You touched on psychological abuse. What would that kind of look like in a victim that you would be working with? Psychological abuse is one of the worst abuses I think you'll ever experience in your life. It's slowly someone having a hammer and chisel

and chipping and chipping away at your self-confidence, at your autonomy, at your identity, at your power, at your voice. and you try and mould yourself into this person that you're the man you love or the person you love wants you to be so you're moulding yourself and think yes I have it and then the goalpost changed and you've to unmold yourself and you're constantly changing yourself to please this person

and no matter what you do is never good enough then you start internalising it oh it's me there must be something wrong with me you start isolate yourself away from friends and family because you're looking at yourself thinking of something wrong with me or there in your head going, everyone thinks you're mad, they're all laughing at you. You know, you will give up your job, you lose your confidence in your job, you lose your confidence as a parent. You're disempowered in every autonomy of your life. Like you're just, it's just taken

from you. And I think I'll never, that's one thing I'll never, ever, ever become immune to. I'll never get used to is looking in the eyes of a woman or a victim and just seeing that emptiness. seeing that pain and you just want to hug them and tell them everything's going to be okay, you know? What, so obviously when these victims come to you, they're probably at their most, they're no confidence, no self-esteem. What are some things that you have noticed has really helped people when they're in the depths of despair to, you know, bring them back to life, to become that person who starts to build confidence with themselves and, you know, takes back their life essentially? We would do an awful lot of psychoeducational work. I think the one thing I can guarantee you is that every abuser is the same.

So I could nearly sit with a woman and they tell me the story and I'd say, okay, this is what's going to happen next. If you do A, A, B, C, D and E is going to happen. If you do C, EFG is going to happen. So one of the things we do is educate women about the tactics of abusers so they can protect themselves. they can start to see, oh, that's what's happening. So we would work with women to emotionally detach themselves from the situation. So just sit and do nothing and watch. And when they're able to see the tactics that the abuser is using, that we've discussed,

which is evidence-based, it's not something we've just made up. This is all evidence-based. And when they're able to see a tactic, they're able to take the light away from themselves and go, oh no, that's, hey, you told me that was going to happen, or so-and-so told me that that was going to happen. And it's like a life-bub moment. They're able to see the tactics. They're able to see the cycle.

So they're able to protect themselves. Once they're able to see the cycle, then we're able to work with them to some sort of freedom or some sort of safety and work with them to recover from what they've experienced. Yeah, I suppose awareness breeds change, unless they're aware of what's going on, that they're,

they're, you know, power to essentially change that. And, yeah, and sometimes they can be aware of it and they're not in a position to leave you and they're just not ready. Like, everything we do, like we'd never sit, like women are told, victims are told what to do the whole lives.

So sometimes the first time they're actually able to make a decision is when they're sitting with us. That, well, what do you want? Like, if I gave you a magic wand, what would you do with it? And we go by their lead 100% go over their lead.

Now, we could be working women for three years before they decide to leave because they need to be ready to leave. You know? If someone's in that situation now, what advice would have for them? To pick up the phone and reach out. There's nothing,

if something inside you, somatically inside you, if you feel this isn't right, you've been not in your stomach, you're walking on eggshells, you know, you just don't feel that this is right and you're not happy.

but you don't know it's abuse. Still reach out, have that, have that call, meet with us, we'll have a cup of tea, we'll have a chat. And that might be all it takes is for your voice to be heard. So you're not on your own. There's an amazing service, and if you're not in Wicklow, there's services all over Ireland. But we've an amazing outreach service

with an amazing staff that are trained to listen and support at your own pace. What if that victim feels too scared to reach out? That, yeah, if so, someone's too scared to reach out. What do you think needs to reach out to these types of services? I imagine there's people in homes right now who, like you said, they're feeling like they know help, they're not safe, there's no voice, no confidence, no self-esteem, what do you think it needs to happen in regards to the public knowing that there's somewhere for them to reach out with it? There needs to be conversations.

We need to start talking about it. We need to start breaking down barriers and we need to start breaking the silence about it. If that encourages women to reach out, well then a million percent. We need to change our perspectives on not looking at the woman to fix everything and start looking at the perpetrators.

Like, why didn't she leave? Well, why did he abuse her? We need to start changing the conversation. we need men to man up and challenge friends when they see stuff that's happening, challenge conversations that they might hear, even if it might just be ad lib, or they're all going to text her,

I'm going to do this, I'm going to, no, mate, that's not good. Like, you know, we need to educate our young people, which we do. We've got a young person's worker who goes into school and does loads of workshops with, like, young people. The list is endless. But for the, for the, conversations to happen and for the conversations to get out there and for women to know that it is safe

and that it's confidential it's 100% confidential so they can ring the helpline they can ring there's a helpline there's 24-7 there's like mobile numbers and they can ring and give a fake name even if they want to just to talk and have their voice heard do you think that when we speak about mental health we don't really speak about it in terms of domestic abuse a lot of them? 100%. 100%. I think when someone goes into the doctor or goes into a private practitioner or a psychotherapist or a counselor and they're talking about their mental health, I don't think the right questions

are being asked. I don't think the right exploration of like that medical, like the biosocial medical model. you know, they're looking, everyone's looking to fit something into a box instead of just asking, tell me about what's going on. Like, asking those simple questions, it doesn't need to be complex. The women, like, it occurs it impacts your mental health. It's going to impact every area of your life. Like I've had women come telling me, oh no, Dr. Tinkis is because of menopause and because of this. And I'm like, God, oh, my God, stop, just stop.

It's that, when you are constantly living, your life in fight, flight or freeze, your mental health is going to be impacted. When you're living in an abusive relationship, you are constantly fight or freeze. So your body is constantly in trauma. It's constantly tense. You can't relax because if you relax, you could be murdered. And that's the end of the, that is the worst case scenario. So women and victims are looking over their shoulders. They're constantly watching themselves. They're constantly looking at their safety, they're minding their kids, what they to juggle a job, finances, mortgage, they feel there's no way out, they feel trapped, all these things even talking about

it, I can feel the somatic responses inside my stomach because it's not easy. So they're navigating a system and navigating a system internally to try and survive. And that survival is keeping them alive. So it's a very thin line and until you're actually in it and experiencing it and navigating your way out of it, the mental health professions need to look at the impact that it has on somebody and look at ways to support them and look at ways to help them navigate their way out of it while staying safe. What do you think you've got amongst about people from the work that you know? How resilient people are. That can be a good thing and a bad thing. Well, resilience can normalise behaviours

So we can become resilient and normalised behaviours Which keeps us trapped in an abusive relationship So that's just Bob Bob does that he rings me he likes to ring me when I'm out He likes to do this, he likes to do that That's just him instead of that's just abuse I would imagine that side of things happens more often than the other Yeah

That's how things go on for so long That's how things go on because we normalise it. So we build resilience, which I would say is a tactic as well, because, you know, when you're kind of a cycle of abuse and they blame themselves, oh, I'm sorry, it's my mental health at a bad childhood, it's the drugs, I've anger management issues and I'm like, no, he doesn't. He's an abuser.

If he's anger management, he couldn't get from the pub to a taxi to a chipper and then come home and abuse you. He would abuse everyone on his home. So he's in control of his behaviour, the whole. time. It's not because he's anger issues or because he's addiction issues. He's in control of his behaviour and he's choosing to do

that behaviour to you. It's all choice. Resilience in a good way is seeing how women come out the other side. And like we have our numbers that are accessing our service are huge. Like they're

between 400 and 450 a year. We have people who access our service. and to see them come out the other side and they're not living in fear anymore. Yes, our viewers is always there. But to see them smile again, to see them recover, to see them live their life their way and not someone else's way. So the resilience has got them to freedom.

You said that you work with men and women. Do you notice any difference in terms of tactics? when it comes to men who have been abused versus women who have been abused? Most of the men that we would deal with would be into family violence. So it would be fathers who are coming, looking for orders

against our children. There is a difference. Men, women can't control or abuse men the same way men can. It's about that power and control. But still it's the same. It's more, yeah. I would imagine there's less physical abuse

for probably more psychological or blackmail. It's the same. It's the very same. Like if someone's going to hit someone, they're going to hit someone. If someone's going to murder someone, they're going to murder someone. If someone's going to,

they're actually going to do it, male or female. I have friends who have lost loved ones due to a domestic abuse and they were males that were murdered. So we have to be very careful in our narrative as well because we don't want to, isolate men like women. What you said is a statement to less abuse?

Yeah, I would definitely say that there's like a stigma. And I would see it when I used to go into school and do like workshops with the young people. And I would see that behaviors have been normalized. It's okay to have the password to your phone, password to internet, to Facebook, Snapchat. You know, it's okay to ghost somebody and all these tactics that are being used.

that young people are learning from a very young age that that's normal, but it's not. Kids can be weaponised, whether it's male or female. Unfortunately, kids at the silent victims. Kids can be weaponized through the courts. They can be weaponized outside of courts. Finances as well. We've had a shift in, I suppose, roles.

There's an awful lot of males that are staying at home now looking after the kids and women have gone out to work. So that's 50-50. We have seen both of that, that they're being financially abused. They don't have access to finances. Their self-control and self-confidence is being knocked. So it's very similar tactics. But the impact is different on men than it is on women.

And whether that's stigma, I haven't researched. I haven't done enough research on the impact on males, because my heart is with females. I do do the inter-family violence of parents who are looking for orders against their kids, which is heartbreaking. And we're seeing a huge increase in that. If there's families in danger, do you take them in? Is that something that you do with your service? We have a refuge, yeah.

We have a seven-bedroom refuge in Bray. It's been, and I know how long it's been, because it's, yeah, 47 years it's in Bray, which is huge. and we're very, very much so entrenched within the community of where the refuge is and the community around us is amazing. You know, we extended it in 2018, I think, was the last extension. So we've seven bedrooms, can't extend it anymore, and we're full. You're full?

All the time. Yeah. All the time. So you probably need more funding in regards to that as well? What do you say? Well, look at it, I think funding is always an issue. I think no a domestic violence service would turn down funding. I know the new national strategy that there is different funding strands.

And we now have CUNN, which is under the Department of Justice. So we're funded by CUNN, which is a specialised a domestic violence unit within the Department of Justice. So that's his own entity, and that was after Ashling. Murphy got murdered. So there was a lot of changes then. Do we need to build more like refugees? Yes, we do need to build more like refuges. But is that the answer?

No. What's the answer? The answer is more perpetrator work. What does that look like for the... It's still, but I think one of the most frustrating things for me as a domestic violence advocate is that a man can go into court for briefs. in an order, could go to prison.

You know, I've had one victim that had her perpetrator only come out of prison last week. And he doesn't have to engage in any perpetrator program. He's done his time. So unless we change their thinking, which is mend or move, which are the two programs, which are choice-based programs, because it is a choice, you know, they're not psychopaths, they're not bipolar, there's nothing psychologically wrong with them

that's making a man abuse. and not all men are the same. Like, not all men abuse, so it's not men. It's a behaviour inside of a man that he thinks he has a choice to abuse his partner, and it is down to choice. I don't believe it's not, that they're not in control of what they're doing. They're 100% and I've seen it. I've seen the changes.

I've seen the cycle, and I'm like, no, they know what they're doing. And I've studied it long enough because I'm trying to get, you know, to get the answers. so that definitely needs to change Can I ask? So that's obviously like social reform Is there an argument to say that there needs to be heavier penalty sentences for domestic abuse?

Oh 100%. In Ireland, the victim is still the witness. So if there's a criminal offence, be it rape, be it domestic abuse, I'm the victim, but I'm also the witness. So the state can't go on, with their prosecution unless I go and give evidence.

So, I'm being asked to stand in court in front of my abuser, for one, maybe the farther of my kids, maybe the man I walked down the aisle to and had all the wedding photographs and there's a family entrenched in it. That family are saying, oh, you're putting him in prison, you're making statements, you're doing this, you're doing that.

So you've got the coercive control from outside. You've got that impact. So that victim is the witness and the whole case is on her shoulders, which is wrong. And I know the UK have changed their laws around that, and I'm hoping that Ireland will soon follow. So, yeah, that's a huge shift that needs to happen. But more looking at perpetrators and really studying them, doing the study.

We all know what women need. We all know what victims need. but unless victims are there, the cycle is going to continue over and over and over again until we change the men. We change the abusers. I know I'm saying men.

We change the abusers. And change the behaviours and challenge the behaviours and that there is a system in place that if you breach an order, if you've got children, if you've got A, B, C and D. Like I've had women that go into court

and they might get a barren order. Now to get orders, people think ah, she just goes into court and get it. It is so hard to get an order. It is so hard to get an order. You hear of someone that has a barring order, they've gone through an estimated time in court could be an hour for that. So they've been on the stand for an hour grilled by a solicitor, like maybe barristers,

evidence is being given. Like it's huge to get a court order. They're not handed out like smarties. So you might have someone that's gone to court to get a barren order. next month they're in and they're looking for access or custody to the kids. And they get access without engaging in any programmes. So unless an abuser identifies the choices I made were wrong and my behaviours are wrong and they're going to impact my children, our children, unless I make the changes,

well then the kids are going to be weaponised. Which I would imagine is not. Oh, honestly. In the 10 years I'm in this job, I can't even count one. Last question, last question I want to ask you was, just in regards to mental health in general, how would you say that you stay on top of your mental health with such an emotionally draining job at times? Is there any advice that you have for people listening in regards to your own experience of how you stay on top of your mental health? No, my limitations.

Yeah, what is that in? I think when we first. I think when we, first come into this job, we are wounded healers, as I said to you, right? We've all been through our traumas and we've all been through our own personal experiences and we're like, I'm going to save everyone, I'm going to help everybody. You go into your job like that, whether it's our job, working the firefighters, the ambulances, the Gardee, anything, and your frontline staff and you're dealing with this crisis and you will reach burnout, you will get emotionally invested. then you kind of see, am I empowering or disempowering?

I think experience gives you that. It's constantly looking, doing work on yourself, doing a lot of self-reflecting work, and that's done through a supervision. So you sit in supervision and have a safe place that you can talk. I'm blessed. I've got amazing colleagues. I have amazing colleagues that we all support each other. We all hold each other up.

We're able to identify when someone is not, doing well. We have that environment within the office. We all look after each other. There's a lot of humour. You know, you have to have humour. And you have to make sure that your emotional cup is full. And how you do that is finding

your resources. For me, it's putting my headphones in, going for a run, going to the gym. You know, leaving work at work and knowing that, you know, I can't fix everything on my own.

It's not my responsibility to fix everything. It's my responsibility to do my job. I can't change the laws. I can't change the system if I can make one change to one person's life and that's meeting them in a coffee shop and having a cup of coffee where then I've done my job. And constantly educating yourself and looking at yourself and not being afraid to say, I'm actually not doing well.

Because you can have precarious trauma. you can be triggered yourself by your own traumas so some of them might come in. There's many times I've been in court and sitting in a court support office and a woman might come in and I need to say you know back in a minute I'm just going downstairs checking something because I can feel the tears coming

and sometimes I let women or victims see my tears because you know what what you're going through is shit you know it's it's shit I'm not going to sit here and be all how can I not be not be impacted by that? How can I not be impacted by seeing, you know, a 90-year-old man coming in with bruises on his face because the son come in on Saturday night out of his face on drugs and decided to beat up his 90-year-old farther? Like, how can I not be impacted by that? How can I not

be impacted by the stories that we hear day in, day out, and see no changes by it? Of course, you're going to be impacted by it, you know, and you just need to make sure that you've got a great support network around you. You've got an amazing family that you can identify. identify, like I can come home from work and I'll say to my partner, you know, or do you know what, I've just had a shit day and he just, he understands. I don't need to explain to him. He understands. But also what I have a responsibility not to bring a home. I have a responsibility to get my supervision. I have a responsibility to the people that access their service. I have responsibility to the staff because I supervise the staff. So I need to make sure that they're okay, that they're getting the breaks, that they're have boundaries in place. So it's constantly looking at how can we put supports in place for ourselves because we can put the energy into how can we support the victims, how can we support survivors, how can we do that trauma stuff? And then if we look at trauma, it's the same with Vicarious trauma, it's the little things, it's the mindfulness, it's the yoga, it's not the big

psychotherapy end of, you know, years and years of it. It's the little things. Just, good downstairs, breathe, have a cup of tea, you know, go home, you know, mind ourselves and look after ourselves because I think we can put ourselves down the ladder of priorities. And I know by doing that because I hit burnout. I hit burnout. And when you hit burnout, oh my God, it's like standing out there in front of the 45A and you can't get out of bed. You don't want to go to work. you, it impacts everything. So when your emotional cup is empty and your window of tolerance is closed,

you're no good to anyone. You're no good to your job. You're no good to your family. You're no good to your kids. You're no good to yourself. And I think it's only when you hit that stage and you look in the mirror and you don't recognise the person

looking back at you. And then you've got to do that work on yourself and go, well, what can I do to help me? And we can forget that because we have a culture in Ireland where you're seen as, you know, or fully yourself or like being selfish

and all these words are tronage you as a child that if, you know, if you're taking time out for yourself, she says, look at her, she loves herself. You know, no, yeah, I do love myself and I'm taking time out for myself and to allow yourself to say that. Allow yourself to say, yeah, I do love myself. There's nothing wrong with that.

I'm not full of myself. Because if I don't love myself, if I don't look after myself, I'm not good to anybody else. And we need to have that mind and give ourselves permission to do that. Take our annual leave, take our holidays. And just because it's a serious job,

like we do laugh. Like we do be in the court and myself and my colleagues and we'd have the crack and banter. The women that are going to court, they'll be upstairs at me and Elaine and oh my God we'd be in not laughing. They'd look at us and go used to her over

an unmarried couple because we try and bring humour. what's happening in your life isn't your identity. It's only a section of it that you have no control over and eventually you will get control of it. But you've got so much other stuff going on that you can laugh about and you can smile and it's okay.

It's okay to do that.