Debbs Murray shares her story of family violence in memoir One Soul, One Survivor

The beginning of the end

For a couple of days, I heard nothing from Max, but it was far from peaceful. There was a sense of uncertainty and a fear in my stomach.

But after a few days, Max began to call again, drive past the house and come around when he wanted.

I knew without a doubt that things were going to get hard and I had that feeling in the pit of my tummy again, a sense of impending dread. His phone calls became an opportunity to recommence the cycle of abuse, and things became serious again very quickly.

He seemed to enjoy ringing me and telling me about the different ways in which he was going to hurt and kill me. He left no stone unturned in the detail of his plans for my death. He would threaten that if I hung up the phone, I would pay for it. His threats ranged from, if I hung up the phone that he would make me “pay”, come over and deal to me, to straight up threatening to kill me. I would remain on the phone, listening to his words, his venom, listening to the new ways that he had thought up to kill me.

I would just lie there on the bed, sobbing with the soul-deep pain I was feeling, wondering how I got to this place, thinking about his control, my sense of powerlessness and hopelessness.

He would give me a timeframe to pick the kiddies up from school and kindy and would then often call to make sure I was home in time. If I was late, he would go on a rampage of abuse, often straight to that place of telling me that yet again I was screwing around on him, and that he was coming to kill me, and then he would track down the guy I was with and kill him as well. Of course, there was no guy; there never had been.

I was once again in tears constantly, and realistically, I was becoming very, very broken, more and more so. The cumulative impact of this abuse and entrapment was destroying me. It was a struggle to simply put one foot in front of the other, to just keep myself moving forward every day.

The children were suffering for it; I was giving them all I had to give but had so little left in the tank that they were missing out. I was soul-deep exhausted. I was constantly listening for him, waiting for him, imagining how I was going to die; my world was again very small.

I had tried to do everything right – okay, I hadn’t reached out for support from agencies or family, I am not even sure I knew that there was agency support – but I had tried to get it right. I had stepped away, but nothing had changed.

Then there was a day that I knew was coming, the day things took a turn. I want to say it took a turn for the better, and in the long term it did, but in the short term, my world was about to blow apart.

On this particular day, Max phoned and very calmly informed me that he had found a sawmill out the back of where we lived and that he was going to take me out there and cut me into hundreds of pieces. He stated that he would send pieces to my family. He also said that there would be so many pieces that no one would be able to ever find them all, and I would never be complete again, never again be a whole person.

I couldn’t hang up as it would further anger him and had to listen to every revolting detail of how I was going to die and what he was going to do to me. When he finally did let me off the phone to go and pick the kiddies up from school and kindy, the phone immediately rang again, and I knew it must have been him. Who else would be calling me? I had no choice but to answer it. If I didn’t it would infuriate him and potentially set him off. And so, I answered it.

I tried to pull myself together as I said “Hello” but I still was crying; I hadn’t prepared myself for it being anyone other than Max.

It wasn’t Max. It was my wonderful cousin Mel; I hadn’t heard from her for a very, very long time. Mel and I were more like sisters than cousins, but sadly we had become quite distant during my time with Max.

I hadn’t disclosed anything to her about the realities of my world with Max. Upon hearing her voice on the other end of the phone, I completely fell apart; I was already a total mess, but in that moment, I confided in her a bit about my situation.

I finally let someone in; I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was completely empty, and I told her what Max had just said to me about the sawmill, about chopping me into chunks and sending me to my family. She was understandably angry and deeply concerned that this was going on. With love, she told me that when I got off the phone, I was to call my dad and tell him what was going on and that if I didn’t, she was going to.

I was trapped between a rock and a hard place; I was terrified but made the call to Dad. I wasn’t ready to disclose, but now I didn’t have a choice. Dad wasn’t home, but Celia was. I didn’t tell her everything, but enough to let her know I needed a break and wanted to be out of the house for that night. She immediately said she would come and collect us. I ran around and threw our clothes and things in bags. I then gathered up Jake and ran through the alleyway next to the “shoebox” to Nicole and Richard’s school, and Jaime’s kindergarten.

I rounded the kiddies up and prayed that Celia would get here before Max rang again, or worse turned up. She did.

We got to Dad’s. I knew in my heart things were going to be very bad. I knew Max would be furious that he could not get hold of me. I could imagine the phone ringing in an empty house and him beginning to seethe. I don’t remember a lot about the discussion I had with Dad and Celia that night, but I don’t recall disclosing anything deep about the reality of my world. I settled the children but couldn’t sleep. I was just too scared, so I sat at Dad’s lounge window and watched the road, waiting for Max to arrive. I truly believed in my heart that he would get drunk and come to Dad’s to kill us all.

I waited for him to arrive so that we were not taken by surprise. I know that sounds completely irrational, but when you have been totally controlled by someone for so long and have been physically hurt, you believe in his capacity to follow through with those threats. You truly believe that your abuser has the capability of killing you and those you love.

But he didn’t come.

The next morning, I needed to head home to feed Sausage, our one surviving cat. I had a fear that Max would have been to the house and hurt the cat; it was a very realistic possibility. I will tell you now that the cat was fine. But as soon as we pulled up, I knew something was seriously wrong. It felt wrong.

Every instinct in me knew something had happened, I just didn’t yet know what. And then I noticed the broken windows in the front door.

I just cringed and began to cry. I felt this deep internal panic; I didn’t know what I would walk into, but I knew that this was Max’s work, and I was terrified of two things. One, and mostly, that he was still there, and two, the extent of what he had done.

As I looked through the smashed glass of the front door, I could see water everywhere, all over the wooden floorboards. Dad put his hand through the smashed window and opened the door.

We walked into the hallway and found ourselves wading through water. Once we got to my bedroom door, we saw that my waterbed was completely deflated. In among the soaking mess of blankets and duvets were knife blades and handles. Max was so furious that I had not answered his calls. He had taken carving knives and slashed up where he thought I was in the bed, where I should have been sleeping.

He had stabbed the bed so hard that he broke the handles off the knives and left them deeply embedded in the base. He’d stabbed right through the blankets and sheets where he thought I was. I remember so clearly what it felt like to look at that bed, and thinking, “I should be dead”. He could have killed me; he wanted to kill me, and he had made a very serious attempt.

We later discovered Max was drunk when he broke in, and there was always blind rage when he was drunk. It was like he was another person when he was drunk, so I thanked God I wasn’t in that bed.

The thing that terrified me even more was that Jake, who was just over a year old, always slept with me in that bed, and had he been in that bed, he could have also been killed.

The water had caused a flood in the house; it was a terrible mess.

Again ... again, my heart was breaking, and I had that deep aching burn in my throat and chest of unshed grief. There was a packet of Zig-Zag papers by the bed that he had left there as he had rolled a cigarette, after his handiwork. Max had also had the audacity to urinate in the toilet during his visit, leaving the seat up, and he had not flushed. He had left his mark on my home, and he made sure that I knew it had been him.

Dad was in a bit of a state of shock. He wasn’t sure what had happened; he was calm but confused. Naturally, because he didn’t know the reality of my world, he thought I had been “broken into”. I had to tell him that Max had done this. He told me to call the police, and everything in me silently screamed nooooo, I simply can’t do that, don’t you understand the risk, he will kill me, don’t ask me to do that, I can’t do it. But of course, I did. I had to.

The police arrived quickly; I remember one of the female attending officers stating they should call the police photographer. The scene was so violent she believed the evidence would need to be collated.

Of course, this was in the days before all police carried cellphones and could easily take photos of scenes. The officers determined that there appeared to be an intent to cause me serious injury or worse. They remained at the house for a while and talked to me about making a statement, as they had serious concerns for my safety.

I had a decision to make.

Everything in me said to clean it up, fix it up, mop it up, and let it go like I had every other time. But I didn’t, because I couldn’t; Dad had seen everything. I could no longer hide the reality of my life.

Five steps to take if you are experiencing coercive control

By Debb Murray

Coercive control victimisation can happen to anyone, of any gender identity, any culture, any demographic, and it can be physical and/or non-physical acts of harm. Like all abuse, it consists of a spectrum of harm.

Someone may be using acts of coercion in order to control some of your decisions and actions, such as what you wear, where you go, access to money, or to a phone, and if you do not do as this person expects, they may “punish” you. Or someone may control all aspects of your life: physical, sexual, emotional, parenting, social, professional, financial etc, and you live in fear. You have no freedom to be yourself. That is called entrapment, and it is very serious.

Regardless of where you are on the spectrum of harm, please do not take the actions below if it is unsafe to do so, as this will likely increase your risk. Take time to develop a strategy with people who can guide and support your safety.