FOR Emma*, leaving an abusive relationship was hard.
Starting all over again was harder.
There was the fear she wouldn't have anywhere to live, and the chance she may end up sleeping rough with two young children.
But after 11 years of emotional, financial and sexual abuse from a former partner, she just couldn't take it any longer.
With two young children, and a box of their clothes, she left.
"Everything of mine was destroyed," she said.
"I had tried to leave a whole lot of times.
"I don't even know how it happened to be honest. I consider myself a fairly educated woman. I am ex-military. I ran my own business. The whole lot. But I lost all of that. I lost who I was."
Emma said she had been isolated.
She was forced to sell her Harley Davidson.
"Because I was going to be the mother of his children, the motorbike had to go," she said.
Once the kids came along, she was not allowed to work.
"There were all these little ways he stripped me of every dignity you could imagine over that time," she said.
"I was so fearful of doing anything wrong. I was just so consumed with keeping him happy. I lost myself. I had no idea who I was anymore."
It has been almost two years since Emma found herself living at a domestic violence refuge in Newcastle.
That first night was the safest she had felt in a long time.
But it had been a hard road, and a hard slog, ever since.
"I had a lot of hoops to jump through," she said.
"I knew I couldn't stay at the refuge forever. I was trying to find a private rental, and I didn't want my kids moving schools again... He had moved us so many times. The kids were desperate to stay in the same school.
"I turned myself inside out.
"But I just kept getting knock back after knock back.
"My whole concern was to get some housing stability. Then get a job, somehow.
"But I had been told I would be nothing without him. That I was trailer park trash. That I would never get a cent out of him, and I haven't.
"I have been jumping through hoops and ticking boxes, appeasing government and Centrelink and JobSearch while trying to tell myself I am more than nothing, and trying to make sure the kids don't take on too much of the stress and anxiety."
After years of abuse, that insidious voice calling her "trash" persists, as does the shame of "putting up with it" for so long.
"I didn't see it as anything other than me thinking I was an awful wife," she said. "The shame is the one that could continue to eat you away forever."
Emma recently found a private rental for her and her children - albeit out of their school zone, so they will have to change schools at the start of next year.
On Thursday, Emma was among a group of women to graduate from a retail training course via a partnership between Got Your Back Sista and Castle Personnel.
She has since managed to land a job after finishing the Certificate II qualification in Retail Services.
"I had been applying online for a few positions, and only had knock back after knock back again, but then I got an email saying I had progressed to a face-to-face interview," she said.
"I didn't have my hopes up, probably after the constant rejection, and I hadn't done a job interview in well over 12 years, so I thought it would at least help me to get my bearings.
"But two hours later I got a phone call saying I got the job. It made my heart sing actually. A positive outcome. Finally."
She was grateful for the support of organisations like Got Your Back Sista.
"It's different for everyone, some think the hardest part is leaving. For me, it wasn't. It was starting again," she said.
"I didn't even have money available to buy my own sanitary pads. I was wearing rolled up toilet paper to get me through those times.
"All I had was money to feed the children. But they have a pantry with food staples there, so I was able to get pasta and tinned food too, and being able to get those little things was very humbling."
Emma was also given an old car to get her from A to B through the organisation following a generous donation.
"They have floored me with their support," she said.
"I have learned to trust again. Not only men, but also women. Every time I went into the Got Your Back Sista headquarters, I felt very welcomed."
* Not her real name.
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