IT never gets easier for Rebecca Poulson to share her experience of domestic violence, but she feels it is imperative.
"I wish I didn't have to do it and I was not doing it," Ms Poulson said.
"But there are so few voices out there that I feel I have to be a voice for other people who can't come forward.
"I could have a slideshow with the statistics and numbers, which are terrible, but it's almost like people are becoming used to it, we're learning to live with it, which is sad.
"By telling my experience it engages people and helps them realise that with each number there's a story that goes with it.
"There's a world of grief and hurt and loss, underneath someone is traumatised. I'm a number - and I'm just one of so many numbers."
The mother of three is the guest speaker at the Hunter White Ribbon Breakfast, at Wests New Lambton on Friday.
Her former brother-in-law murdered her father, niece and nephew in 2003, on her 33rd birthday.
Related: Domestic violence survivor Angela Jay to share story of night she was almost murdered
Ms Poulson, who has experienced an abusive relationship herself, said there had been several red flags, including him putting her sister down, running up debts in her sister's name and throwing things, but he hadn't been physically violent.
Her sister had to speak to six police officers before an apprehended violence order was taken out. It was breached within 12 hours and about 20 times.
Ms Poulson started writing down her thoughts as a way to process the experience.
They became 2015 award-winning book, Killing Love.
"It came out in a gush," she said.
"If I thought 'I'm writing this for an audience' I would not have been able to do it," she said.
"It's quite personal and intimate and I would have edited it a lot more."
The book also includes a "how-to" section for surviving deep grief. "I don't think it's ever going to go away," she said.
"Part of my journey was accepting that - it's going to form a part of who I am. I'm not going to wait for the day when it disappears."
Ms Poulson is now an advocate, calling for education in schools on respectful relationships, magistrate and judge training, coercive control to be made a crime and ensuring systems including the family law court can't be used to "further perpetrators' abuse and control".
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