Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mom with Me a podcast Muma
Speaker 1: Me your acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
Speaker 1: waters this podcast is recorded on. This episode deals with
Speaker 1: discussions of sexual abuse, mental ill health, and pregnancy termination
Speaker 1: and won't be for everyone. If you or anyone you
Speaker 1: know needs help, there is a list of support services
Speaker 1: in our show notes. Sleep a time to rest, recover,
Speaker 1: and reset, allowing you to wake refreshed and ready to
Speaker 1: face a brand new day. That elusive eight hours we
Speaker 1: all strive for, filled with dreams that quietly keep us
Speaker 1: company through the night. But for Cindy, sleep wasn't a luxury.
Speaker 1: It was something a little more complicated.
Speaker 2: I'm the type of person you get on a plane.
Speaker 2: I am there to sleep until that thing lands like
Speaker 2: I can sleep through a lot, I am to ram
Speaker 2: in a couple minutes.
Speaker 3: I sleep heavy.
Speaker 2: I've had things in the past that, like gatherings or parties,
Speaker 2: you and have fallen asleep.
Speaker 1: While those complications can steal those dreams away, what you
Speaker 1: don't expect is for them to be replaced by nightmares.
Speaker 1: Not the kind you have in your sleep, the kind
Speaker 1: happening in real life.
Speaker 2: I started waking up knowing that something had happened, but
Speaker 2: having no recollection of it, and I brushed it off
Speaker 2: each time, and then I woke up one morning and
Speaker 2: he was actively doing things to me.
Speaker 1: I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an EGGX.
Speaker 1: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
Speaker 1: unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the
Speaker 1: hearts of.
Speaker 3: The very people who lived them.
Speaker 1: We begin this story like so many others. Cindy's twenty five.
Speaker 1: She's been single for three years following a difficult relationship.
Speaker 1: She wasn't actively looking for anything new, but she was
Speaker 1: open to it. So when ted slid into a DA
Speaker 1: felt like the universe was giving her exactly what she needed.
Speaker 2: So we were both a part of a music scene,
Speaker 2: and so we had mutual friends. He was just someone
Speaker 2: that I knew of. I hadn't really ever thought that
Speaker 2: deeply into seeing him as like a romantic connection because
Speaker 2: he was always in relationships. I'm a bit of a
Speaker 2: hopeless romantic. The timing seemed perfect. He was gorgeous, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I was pretty stoked to get a message from him.
Speaker 2: He just came out of nowhere and it was good.
Speaker 2: It was exciting. He was really talented and very charismatic.
Speaker 2: It just seemed like he sort of had the world
Speaker 2: at his feet. He was a really incredible musician, and
Speaker 2: I loved his bands and projects that he did. He
Speaker 2: kind of came across a bit of an asshole, if
Speaker 2: I'm honest, but when I actually met him, he was
Speaker 2: really sweet and very caring and just a real soft year.
Speaker 2: So from that message, we then planned to meet up
Speaker 2: at a gig together for an international band. He was
Speaker 2: filling in for another band that night, so we had
Speaker 2: planned to catch up after that, and once he played,
Speaker 2: I think we shared a jug of beer or something,
Speaker 2: and then we went to a local dive bar and
Speaker 2: the chemistry was just through the roof. I remember sitting
Speaker 2: at a table at this dive bar and they have
Speaker 2: bowls of peanuts and pints of beer, and he just
Speaker 2: leaned in at some point and it just started kissing me.
Speaker 2: And then I think it was sort of like all right,
Speaker 2: time to go, and we went back to his house
Speaker 2: and had a pretty wild night. And yeah, it was
Speaker 2: a very immediate connection, and from that moment on we
Speaker 2: were just really like side by side. We very much
Speaker 2: like started dating after that night. It was a lot
Speaker 2: of fun. We would spend a lot of money on
Speaker 2: like hotel rooms just so we could go somewhere bougie
Speaker 2: and have a little staycation. That was always our favorite
Speaker 2: thing to do, and because we were both living at
Speaker 2: our parents' homes at the time, it was just way
Speaker 2: more fun doing that. But we would go to a
Speaker 2: lot of gigs. We would go to his shows, and yeah,
Speaker 2: we just hang out a lot. I just had an
Speaker 2: experienced an instantaneous connection that deeply before.
Speaker 1: Now, dear listener, you may have picked up that Ted
Speaker 1: was in a band, and bands often go on tour,
Speaker 1: so you can kind of guess what happens next.
Speaker 2: I think he was living his best rock star life,
Speaker 2: thinking everything's changing from here. He was getting a bit
Speaker 2: of a big head over it. Yeah, just too big
Speaker 2: in his boots. And I think he also didn't see
Speaker 2: me much as a like a serious thing at that time,
Speaker 2: where I definitely, you know, I don't date to not
Speaker 2: fall in love kind of thing. So it was a
Speaker 2: lot more serious for me than it was for him.
Speaker 2: So we dated for a couple months and then we
Speaker 2: broke up. It all kicked off over some silly argument
Speaker 2: regarding my birthday. He was supposed to come catch up,
Speaker 2: but he was a heavy weed smoker at the time,
Speaker 2: and I don't know. I guess he got a better
Speaker 2: offer from one of his friends to sit in a
Speaker 2: shed and do that when he was supposed to come
Speaker 2: see me for the birthday, and then that started argument,
Speaker 2: and then yeah, I guess he saw him jetting off
Speaker 2: to tour across the seas as an opportunity to just
Speaker 2: end it. It was devastating when he first left, but
Speaker 2: you know, I wasn't that deep into it where it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's going to ruin my life.
Speaker 1: But Ted's tour was cut short as COVID swept the globe,
Speaker 1: and he and Cindy still kept in contact with a
Speaker 1: few texts and emails here and there. There were no
Speaker 1: hard feelings, so it should come as no surprise they found.
Speaker 2: Their way back together. Halfway through the year. We rekindled
Speaker 2: again and had a bit of a rockstar moment in
Speaker 2: a green room at a venue. There was a gig
Speaker 2: on his band happened to be playing it. I just
Speaker 2: went to the gig, and I think he came up
Speaker 2: to apologize to me at some point, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: suggested something and we went and did that and actually
Speaker 2: got pregnant from that, which is wild, But from that
Speaker 2: is where I really felt for him, because we weren't
Speaker 2: ready to be parents whatsoever. And the way he handled
Speaker 2: being there for me during that was incredible, and I
Speaker 2: thought it was the most selfless thing and just he
Speaker 2: really showed up for me. He had had a lot
Speaker 2: of time to think about the way he had treated me,
Speaker 2: maybe six months earlier, and he saw me moving on
Speaker 2: and living my life, and I guess that put things
Speaker 2: into persons inspective for him, And yeah, he was quite
Speaker 2: keen to get something real going after that. There was
Speaker 2: no hesitation from me, and I was just excited to
Speaker 2: give it a proper go. There was just a lot
Speaker 2: of There was a lot of fire there in a
Speaker 2: good way. It was good and it was passionate. We
Speaker 2: were both still living at home and I used to
Speaker 2: drive down to his house. We always had a lot
Speaker 2: of fun. He had a very normal family life, whereas
Speaker 2: my home was a little bit different. So we'd always
Speaker 2: hang at his house. Was a little bit more fun there,
Speaker 2: and he had all the instruments and there was cooler
Speaker 2: places to go around that, so that's what we would do.
Speaker 3: Most of the time.
Speaker 1: At this point, they were five months into their official relationship,
Speaker 1: and it's fair to say Cindy was experiencing the highest
Speaker 1: of highs.
Speaker 2: We were sitting outside our regular favorite dive bar at
Speaker 2: the top of some stairs, and it was coming up
Speaker 2: to Christmas time, and he had said something along the
Speaker 2: lines of oh, my family like we all love you,
Speaker 2: and I said, oh, do you like we? And he's
Speaker 2: just turned to me and he told me he loved me,
Speaker 2: and yeah, it was kind of a really beautiful moment.
Speaker 1: But as so often can happen, life then dealt them
Speaker 1: the lowest of lows.
Speaker 2: We had to have two separate terminations because we weren't
Speaker 2: ready to be parents, and the second one was significantly
Speaker 2: more heavy. I remember missing my period and saying to him,
Speaker 2: I was like, there's more than one. There's definitely more
Speaker 2: than one in me. And we thought we were at
Speaker 2: the end of the first trimester by that point, and
Speaker 2: we were freaking out. We both couldn't really afford it
Speaker 2: because it's ridiculously expensive. I went to go get the
Speaker 2: referral to get the procedure done, and I had a
Speaker 2: doctor tell me sorry, because of my religious beliefs, I
Speaker 2: can't help you. So I've sort of run out there
Speaker 2: crying because again I'm like panicking, thinking it's the end
Speaker 2: of the first trimester, like what do I do?
Speaker 3: And I actually had.
Speaker 2: A woman doctor called me a little bit later and
Speaker 2: she said, come in, I'll help you. And she actually
Speaker 2: helped get funding as well, which was incredible. But when
Speaker 2: I went in for the procedure, I was getting the
Speaker 2: ultrasound done and I was sort of looking out of
Speaker 2: the corner of my eye. The nurse was staring quite
Speaker 2: intensely at the screen and I just sort of knew
Speaker 2: it was coming. She said, just to let you know,
Speaker 2: there's multiples and I was like, yeah, I know, and
Speaker 2: she said, how do you know? Have you had an ultrasound?
Speaker 2: I said no, I just know and she said, okay,
Speaker 2: you're about seven weeks. I dealt with a lot of
Speaker 2: guilt afterwards. I was really struggling. He didn't really understand.
Speaker 1: And then ted fell back into old habits, a pattern
Speaker 1: that I urged every time things got hard.
Speaker 2: He would just block me on all platforms after like
Speaker 2: a very minimal fight or whatever, and then he would
Speaker 2: be back on the dating apps within two days. So
Speaker 2: from then I guess that sort of set the tone
Speaker 2: for each argument that we'd have after that, because it
Speaker 2: was sort of like I was always needing him to
Speaker 2: show up and he was always needing to run away
Speaker 2: sort of thing. When we'd argue, I would just really
Speaker 2: need to sort it out there and then and not
Speaker 2: let it linger, whereas he would like to go away
Speaker 2: for However, long after the second termination, there was a
Speaker 2: night where I sort of had a bit of a
Speaker 2: mental breakdown because I was absolutely dealing with every symptom
Speaker 2: of post abortion syndrome, which I know isn't technically considered
Speaker 2: a real thing, but it exists one hundred percent, and
Speaker 2: it was just hard not understanding it at the time.
Speaker 2: And there also just been all these incredible highs with
Speaker 2: our relationship, but then just random disappearings and yeah, just
Speaker 2: a whole lot of confusion. It was slowly just driving
Speaker 2: me into this complete place of unknown, and it was
Speaker 2: very it was very new to me. After the blocking,
Speaker 2: he would always it'd probably take a week or two,
Speaker 2: I don't know, if he was on the apps just
Speaker 2: to get an ego boost or something, but he'd always
Speaker 2: come back. We'd make up, or he'd send me the
Speaker 2: wyd message or like you know, and I'd just take
Speaker 2: the bait every time. But yeah, we'd always just end
Speaker 2: up back together. I would just be at home trying
Speaker 2: to make sense of it all while he was just
Speaker 2: out there living his life, and then when he wanted
Speaker 2: me back, he'd come back. It was incredibly hard to
Speaker 2: deal with because it's something I dealt with a lot
Speaker 2: in my previous relationship, so I had a lot of
Speaker 2: I just had a lot of issues with abandonment or
Speaker 2: feeling abandoned, feeling disposable, And yeah, it wasn't helpful whatsoever.
Speaker 2: I felt very much like I wanted to make sure
Speaker 2: that never happened again. I definitely tried to work on
Speaker 2: myself in the way I handle things, maybe how I
Speaker 2: can come to a compromise if we were to argue again,
Speaker 2: so it wouldn't end up so bad to the point
Speaker 2: where that felt necessary. It wasn't a good feeling whatsoever.
Speaker 2: It was horrible, But I guess every time he told
Speaker 2: me that, you know, he wanted to try again and
Speaker 2: do better, I believed him because why would he lie,
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't he be telling the truth. Things got quite
Speaker 2: a bit worse after that. He was going on tour
Speaker 2: with his band that was one night in one city,
Speaker 2: and second night and another and he wanted me to
Speaker 2: come because we had gotten back together, and I guess
Speaker 2: he knew that that would be really exciting and special
Speaker 2: like to have me there. And my only condition was
Speaker 2: that his band members knew that I was coming, because
Speaker 2: that would just be humiliating to rock up, and also
Speaker 2: it's just unfair on them because it's their tour as well.
Speaker 2: When I rocked up at the airport, I saw their faces.
Speaker 2: They had no idea where I was coming. And that
Speaker 2: tour was the start of some really bad things because
Speaker 2: from there we had a pretty explosive fight. On the
Speaker 2: second night, I'd fallen asleep at a venue.
Speaker 1: Cindy didn't just fall asleep because she was tired. She
Speaker 1: suffers from type one narcolepsy, a sleep disorder where your
Speaker 1: brain struggles to control sleep, causing overwhelming daytime tiredness and
Speaker 1: sudden muscle weakness, often triggered by strong emotions.
Speaker 2: I'm the type of person you get on a plane.
Speaker 2: I am near to sleep until that thing lands like
Speaker 2: I can sleep through a lot. I enter ram in
Speaker 2: a couple minutes. I sleep heavy I've had things in
Speaker 2: the past that, like gatherings or parties, you have fallen asleep.
Speaker 2: Something with my sleep disorder is called automatic behaviors. So
Speaker 2: it's like I could be folding laundry looking you get
Speaker 2: in the eye, having a conversation, but my eyes will
Speaker 2: be a little bit like glazed over. You'll be able
Speaker 2: to tell that I'm not actually awake. It's like sleep walking, basically.
Speaker 1: So it's not particularly surprising that Cindy couldn't help falling
Speaker 1: asleep in a loud, busy music venue. But Ted wasn't
Speaker 1: quite as understanding.
Speaker 2: He got quite angry about it, even though he was
Speaker 2: well aware that that would happen. But I tried to
Speaker 2: very quickly and quietly lat Ninja out of there and
Speaker 2: run back. I was running back to the hotel. I
Speaker 2: was so excited to get into that bed, and I
Speaker 2: just didn't want any problems as well, So I thought
Speaker 2: he would stay there and drink with his band mates.
Speaker 2: And I've dived into the bed and he just came
Speaker 2: bursting through the door, and he was so angry, like
Speaker 2: furious at me, and he made some offhand comment about
Speaker 2: a woman which I can't even remember what the comment was,
Speaker 2: but it was just so out of the blue that
Speaker 2: it really upset me because once he said that, he
Speaker 2: then turned around and left and I heard him get
Speaker 2: into the lift out in the hallway, and that sort
Speaker 2: of just kicked me off too, because it's like, don't
Speaker 2: say something to me. And then Bail like talked to
Speaker 2: me about it. So we had a quiet exploit a
Speaker 2: fight which resulted in us breaking up. When we got
Speaker 2: back from that tour, and we had a holiday booked
Speaker 2: that was meant to be for my birthday earlier in
Speaker 2: the year, but he told me you're not coming on
Speaker 2: the holiday. You know, he had control of the tickets,
Speaker 2: so I think I don't know if he sold my ticket,
Speaker 2: but you know, it was a holiday that I was
Speaker 2: paying my own way for and through. But I was
Speaker 2: told you're not going, and I had a gut feeling
Speaker 2: there was more going on there, because it just it
Speaker 2: was very sudden, like why he wouldn't want to sort
Speaker 2: anything out or even talk about what had happened. And
Speaker 2: had a bit of a gut feeling, so I made
Speaker 2: a Tinder I set the location to near him, and
Speaker 2: he was advertising my ticket on his Tinder bio, saying
Speaker 2: he needs a travel buddy good on the chin, I
Speaker 2: offered to drop him at the airport, to sort of
Speaker 2: be the bigger person, because at that point I was devastated,
Speaker 2: but I was more than happy to sacrifice my happiness
Speaker 2: for him because I thought, maybe it'll just mean will
Speaker 2: be in a good place by the time he's back.
Speaker 1: Or so she thought. But then she saw a status
Speaker 1: on his social media that he was traveling solo and
Speaker 1: asking any females who were doing the same to come
Speaker 1: and join him. This gut punch was the straw that
Speaker 1: broke the camel's back.
Speaker 2: I sent him an Instagram message and then I blocked him.
Speaker 2: I blocked him on everything, which was the first time
Speaker 2: I'd done that, And I came back after a couple
Speaker 2: hours to a very long email from him apologizing, telling
Speaker 2: me that he was so lonely there and he'd really
Speaker 2: loved my company, and he had never responded to me
Speaker 2: the way that he did when I sent him the
Speaker 2: Instagram message and blocked it. He the email that he
Speaker 2: sent me, I'd never heard him say things that he
Speaker 2: said in that before. He really seemed like he was
Speaker 2: scrambling because he was scared he was going to actually
Speaker 2: lose me because that was the first time that I
Speaker 2: had ever put my foot down and just been like, nope,
Speaker 2: we had done. I don't want to see you again.
Speaker 2: I think that scared him because he was losing someone
Speaker 2: that would stand by him through anything, and me being
Speaker 2: an absolute idiot. I booked a flight for two days
Speaker 2: later for fifteen hundred dollars, which is one thousand dollars
Speaker 2: more than what my original ticket cost. But I went
Speaker 2: over and met him there. It was like we were
Speaker 2: a couple again. We were having so much fun. We
Speaker 2: were going to little bars and he would get up
Speaker 2: and play with live bands and stuff. It was it
Speaker 2: was a great time. We were riding around on a scooter,
Speaker 2: got in some trouble and like we were just having
Speaker 2: a really good time. And when we got back, we'd
Speaker 2: have a couple of days to just chill out. We'd
Speaker 2: get back to it, we'd have a conversation after the weekend,
Speaker 2: and in that time on that weekend, he made it
Speaker 2: Tinder again and reconnected with a girl that he then
Speaker 2: started a relationship with for three months while we were
Speaker 2: still together. He was back on Tinder two days after
Speaker 2: we got back, which felt like a big kick in
Speaker 2: the teeth because I you know, I'd spent quite a
Speaker 2: bit of money to get over there, and you know,
Speaker 2: he just made it out that like, you know, we're
Speaker 2: walking around Pelton hands like I don't understand. Anytime we
Speaker 2: had an argument, he'd follow like a new influx of girls.
Speaker 2: But this was the one girl this time. And it
Speaker 2: turns out she was somebody that he had a history with,
Speaker 2: so unfortunately, you know, it was a lot more serious
Speaker 2: for her, and I think he completely screwed her over
Speaker 2: in the process.
Speaker 3: I flat out.
Speaker 2: Asked him if he was planning to catch up with
Speaker 2: this girl, and he promised, no, it's just an old friend.
Speaker 2: You know, we haven't spoken in years. We've just reconnected.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, where did you reconnect? And he
Speaker 2: claimed it was Instagram. He was staying at my house
Speaker 2: when he wasn't on tour. We were very much doing
Speaker 2: all the couple things. We just sort of naturally fell
Speaker 2: back together. But while that is happening, he was also
Speaker 2: seeing this other girl. We had plans to spend New
Speaker 2: Year's Eve together and just do something low key, and
Speaker 2: he was communicating with me and then he turned his
Speaker 2: phone off and I just something in my guard. I
Speaker 2: just knew that that meant he was going to be
Speaker 2: with her. One thing that I'm so grateful for it's
Speaker 2: my friends, because that night was so bad that the
Speaker 2: new year's going into twenty twenty three, I couldn't have
Speaker 2: got through it without my friends. They really had my
Speaker 2: back and very much last minute got me out of
Speaker 2: probably the darkest head space I'd ever been in. So
Speaker 2: start of January, him and I caught up and he
Speaker 2: had told me that he wasn't seeing her anymore. And
Speaker 2: I said to him, all right, well, how about we
Speaker 2: give this one last shot with none of this bullshit,
Speaker 2: no third parties. We just try one more time. He said,
Speaker 2: can we do it at the end of this month.
Speaker 1: It was an odd request, one Cindy could see right through.
Speaker 1: She wanted to believe his heart belonged to her, but
Speaker 1: all the signs suggested otherwise, and everything came to a
Speaker 1: head on a night that was meant to be all
Speaker 1: about her.
Speaker 2: I was having a twenty ninth birthday at my house,
Speaker 2: so as the first party I'd had in that house.
Speaker 2: So I was preparing that. I had some friends come
Speaker 2: over before the party to help set up, and he
Speaker 2: also came over because he didn't know all of my friends.
Speaker 2: During that Christmas New Year's Eve where he was spending
Speaker 2: more time with her, I developed some really really great
Speaker 2: friendships with people that are steal my right and eyes today.
Speaker 2: And so I had this big new group of friends,
Speaker 2: and I guess like it was sort of intriguing to
Speaker 2: him because you know, he'd see me so happy, which
Speaker 2: he hadn't seen for a long time. And so when
Speaker 2: this party was quite out of hand, actually there was
Speaker 2: a lot of people there and it was good though,
Speaker 2: so much love there. I remember him sitting around the
Speaker 2: table with all of my friends and they're all being
Speaker 2: so lovely to him because they don't know the worst
Speaker 2: parts of our relationship. They don't know, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't sit there and run his name to the ground,
Speaker 2: just not the way that things worked for me. So
Speaker 2: they're all happy to meet him, like they know some things,
Speaker 2: but they don't know how bad it really was or whatever.
Speaker 2: But I remember at one point he had left his
Speaker 2: phone inside. I was sitting with a friend on the
Speaker 2: couch inside and I felt something under me. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's his phone. So yeah, I took that thing into
Speaker 2: my bedroom and I just had a look, and he
Speaker 2: was still communicating with her, planning to catch up. He
Speaker 2: had promised me that he used to condom when they
Speaker 2: slept together, and they absolutely did not. I told him
Speaker 2: I wouldn't sleep with him if they hadn't used one,
Speaker 2: and he promised black and blue that they did. So
Speaker 2: I saw those messages too, So I ended up running
Speaker 2: into my backyard and grabbed him by the shirt and
Speaker 2: I said, I think it's time for you to leave,
Speaker 2: and I took him outside and I broke up with him.
Speaker 2: I was so done. I was I'd finally sort of
Speaker 2: broken free from it. I felt the best I had
Speaker 2: ever felt, actually, and the next three months were probably
Speaker 2: the best three months of my life. I was just
Speaker 2: so carefree, and you know, I had all these amazing
Speaker 2: people in my life and I didn't need anybody else.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I was having a really good time. And
Speaker 2: then he was messaging me like every other day. He
Speaker 2: apparently had quit smoking weed, and you know, he'd had
Speaker 2: a lot of time to think and he wants to
Speaker 2: be a better man, and you know, he was absolutely
Speaker 2: begging for me back.
Speaker 1: The tables that officially turned, and it made Cindy feel good.
Speaker 3: It felt like he finally.
Speaker 1: Got the message, and he'd been giving this so much
Speaker 1: time and effort to win her back, and she believed
Speaker 1: it when he said things would be different and better.
Speaker 2: My friends were not stoked about us getting back together,
Speaker 2: but they also just they would support me through anything.
Speaker 2: They've seen me being an idiot a bunch of times.
Speaker 2: The next two years were great. He was a different person.
Speaker 2: There were arguments we had where he actually calmed himself
Speaker 2: down and you know, tried a different approach, and it
Speaker 2: was incredible, And I put it down to I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: maybe it's just the weed. Maybe the weed makes him
Speaker 2: an asshole. And I feel like, in a way, it
Speaker 2: definitely did. But yeah, something had definitely changed where he
Speaker 2: was putting in a lot more effort, and he even
Speaker 2: went as far as to go to his friends and
Speaker 2: family and tell them that he had exaggerated a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of the things he said about me. His friends
Speaker 2: were being a lot nicer to me, So I believed
Speaker 2: that he had really changed and gone like the full
Speaker 2: mile to just make right for things that he had
Speaker 2: done and said. When we got back together. A condition
Speaker 2: of us getting back together was that he would get
Speaker 2: an STI test because he was sleeping with me and
Speaker 2: that girl unprotected. So I knew that I was clear,
Speaker 2: but I wanted him to go that extra mile and
Speaker 2: just do what he said he would do. It was
Speaker 2: like a respect thing that I just needed him to do,
Speaker 2: and he said he would do it, and he kept
Speaker 2: putting it off and putting it off, and by January
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, I had quite a bad car accident.
Speaker 2: Cindy sustained some pretty serious injuries as a result, so
Speaker 2: Ted moved in, promising to help her around the house
Speaker 2: and support her through her recovery. When he moved in
Speaker 2: with me, I quickly found out that when we sleep
Speaker 2: in the same bed, I would sort of roll down
Speaker 2: into him, so I would sleep really tense, and I'd
Speaker 2: wake up in agony. I wouldn't be able to walk.
Speaker 2: So I was sleeping on the couch for nine months.
Speaker 2: I had a wonderful couch. This couch was great, like
Speaker 2: it really saved me after that accident. It was incredibly confident.
Speaker 2: It's just perfect for what I needed. So I was
Speaker 2: okay with that. But there was maybe about two handfuls
Speaker 2: worth the times that I actually slept in bed, and
Speaker 2: like I started waking up knowing that something had happened,
Speaker 2: but having no recollection of it. It just very much
Speaker 2: seemed like I had had sex. And I know that
Speaker 2: at that time, I sat very clear boundaries that that
Speaker 2: wouldn't be happening until he did the test. And there
Speaker 2: was probably about four or five mornings where I woke
Speaker 2: up and I just tell something was off, and I
Speaker 2: brushed it off each time, and then I woke up
Speaker 2: one morning and he was actively doing things to me.
Speaker 2: So when I woke up and he was penetrateding me
Speaker 2: while I was asleep, I sent him home to his
Speaker 2: parents for a couple of days because I needed some
Speaker 2: time to just process. So I sent him a message
Speaker 2: while he was at work one day and I basically
Speaker 2: was saying to him.
Speaker 3: This is bad.
Speaker 2: This is really bad, Like I don't think you're registering
Speaker 2: how bad this is. I don't feel safe in my
Speaker 2: own home, and I was saying, I'm struggling, I'm struggling.
Speaker 2: He basically said to me, well, the week before, when
Speaker 2: we woke up in the morning, I was doing the
Speaker 2: same thing and we had sex, and it didn't even
Speaker 2: click to me at that point. It took like two
Speaker 2: weeks for it to click that I didn't remember that,
Speaker 2: and I don't just have morning sex. I will always
Speaker 2: go shower, I'll always go brush my teeth. That's just
Speaker 2: what I do. I hate morning breath. I will always
Speaker 2: go brush my teeth. So that being his response, a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks later, I needed to talk to him
Speaker 2: about it again. I just needed to know how many
Speaker 2: times it had been happening, what like, had he been
Speaker 2: undressing me and then trusting me all these times that
Speaker 2: I woke up and I wasn't sure it was certain
Speaker 2: that something had happened, but I was. I could tell,
Speaker 2: like it's just made everything. So I was just in
Speaker 2: a complete state of confusion for so long. So we
Speaker 2: caught up again, and I asked him that morning that
Speaker 2: you said that we had sex the week before I
Speaker 2: woke up when you were doing that. Did I wake
Speaker 2: up and go brush my teeth? Did I get out
Speaker 2: of bed? Did I go brush my teeth? Did I shower?
Speaker 2: He said no, He said that I wasn't awake, and
Speaker 2: he knows that he knows my sleep disorder. He knows
Speaker 2: that you can't just, you know, shake my shoulder and
Speaker 2: expect that I'm awake. My eyes don't look awake, if
Speaker 2: they're open, if they even were open, I don't know.
Speaker 3: But he knows.
Speaker 2: We've been together at five years at that point, so
Speaker 2: he knows.
Speaker 3: It took a.
Speaker 2: While for me to realize the severity of it and
Speaker 2: how bad it actually is, because the whole time I'm
Speaker 2: battling in my head being like, well, we were in
Speaker 2: a relationship, we'd live together, Like maybe it's not that bad.
Speaker 1: While Cindy was grappling with the severity and complexity of
Speaker 1: what she discovered, she was also hit with the news
Speaker 1: that the house she lived in and loved was being sold.
Speaker 1: She had just two months to find somewhere new.
Speaker 2: I sort of didn't have a lot of time to
Speaker 2: think about it. I was house hunting because I had
Speaker 2: nowhere else to go. So my sister and I we
Speaker 2: decided that we would buy a house together. So I
Speaker 2: was looking for a house for us. So Ted and
Speaker 2: I were also planning to live together, but my sister
Speaker 2: and I would be purchasing the home and he would
Speaker 2: move in with us with me. So I was going
Speaker 2: to these home opens. It was getting very taxing. Ted
Speaker 2: was still just doing what he was always been doing,
Speaker 2: I knew music was his number one. So he had
Speaker 2: just started or joined a new band and was spending
Speaker 2: a lot of time at rehearsal and work, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just all happening at once. I didn't have
Speaker 2: a whole lot of time to process, and I was
Speaker 2: sort of dealing with it all alone, so we just
Speaker 2: sort of fell back together. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: when I had the home open for the house I
Speaker 2: was living in, Ted said he wanted to move his
Speaker 2: music equipment out because one of the bedrooms we turned
Speaker 2: into a studio for him. He wanted to move all
Speaker 2: the equipment out because he didn't want people to be
Speaker 2: walking through the house with his very expensive collection there.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was fair enough. Sure, I taken
Speaker 2: a lot of my expensive stuff out too, because I
Speaker 2: didn't want random people walking.
Speaker 3: Through the house.
Speaker 2: But he then sort of like moved all of this
Speaker 2: stuff out, which I hadn't really noticed, but I had
Speaker 2: asked him for whenever it is that, you know, it
Speaker 2: is the final week of having this home, I would
Speaker 2: really love a couple of days to myself because it
Speaker 2: was such a special place to me. So I had
Speaker 2: sort of asked if he would vacate before me. But
Speaker 2: this was about a month and a half before we
Speaker 2: had to move out, so I thought it was a
Speaker 2: little bit weird that he was getting a head start
Speaker 2: on that, and the fact he hadn't really spoke to
Speaker 2: me about it at all either. But at that point
Speaker 2: I was very much ready for the space because of
Speaker 2: everything that happened, with what happened while I was sleeping,
Speaker 2: I was quite keen on the idea of him not
Speaker 2: being there all the time, and I just figured we
Speaker 2: were sorted out a little bit later down the line
Speaker 2: when I've found somewhere else to live, because that had
Speaker 2: to be my priority. At that time, he was very
Speaker 2: much spending all of his time at his parents' house.
Speaker 2: Like he moved back to his parents' house. His family
Speaker 2: is very close knit. They were always doing a lot
Speaker 2: of fun things, and once he went back to that life,
Speaker 2: he just really didn't have any interest in spending time
Speaker 2: with me anymore. I think the heaviness of what had happened,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, it seemed like an easy way out.
Speaker 2: It seemed like an easy way for him to just
Speaker 2: drift away and that would be that. And I think
Speaker 2: I was okay with it at that time. Because, like
Speaker 2: I said, I just wanted some space. I wanted him
Speaker 2: just I wanted to sleep. I wanted to sleep and
Speaker 2: feel safe, and I wanted to spend those last moments
Speaker 2: with that house that brought me so much safety as
Speaker 2: a child, And so I wasn't even that bothered by it,
Speaker 2: but it, Yeah, it got to a point where he
Speaker 2: would start just very bluntly saying I'm going to bed,
Speaker 2: good night, and then just like I know he's sleeping habits.
Speaker 2: I know, you know, he sits and scroll like doom
Speaker 2: scrolls for a while on his phone.
Speaker 3: All that.
Speaker 2: But I'd instantly try to call him just because I'd
Speaker 2: want to say I love you, I want to say
Speaker 2: good night, and he wouldn't answer, And that, to me
Speaker 2: was very reminiscent of a time period where he was
Speaker 2: not being faithful to our relationship. So that's when I
Speaker 2: decided to break up with him. He didn't make it easy.
Speaker 2: He wanted to be explosive about it. I tried to
Speaker 2: stop it. I blocked him, I tried to push it away.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to.
Speaker 3: Deal with it.
Speaker 2: It got to a point where I asked for the
Speaker 2: keys back to my house and he refused. He said no,
Speaker 2: which was a bit surprising, but it just spiraled from
Speaker 2: there and it got to a point where I had
Speaker 2: to tell my parents what was going on because I
Speaker 2: I have a past with self harm and I was
Speaker 2: getting really triggered at that point, so I had to
Speaker 2: tell someone. So my parents says, stop messaging him, we
Speaker 2: will handle it. And my dad, who worked down near
Speaker 2: where his parents lived, gave him a text and said, hey, mate,
Speaker 2: I'm coming to get the keys. I'll see you at six,
Speaker 2: And basically Ted left two of the keys in the
Speaker 2: letterbox and kept the other two. I needed to know
Speaker 2: that I was safe in that house for the remainder
Speaker 2: of I think it was two weeks that I had left,
Speaker 2: and the next lines of communication just kept open because
Speaker 2: of those keys. It seemed a little calculated to me
Speaker 2: because he was aware of how I would respond or
Speaker 2: react to behavior like that. I don't handle it well.
Speaker 2: I can be quite reactive to stress, because to me,
Speaker 2: it felt like torture at that time, because it was
Speaker 2: just like, why can't you just give me the keys?
Speaker 2: Why can't I have the keys to my house? And
Speaker 2: all the while it's you know, there's still these jabs
Speaker 2: coming through in text form and name calling, and it
Speaker 2: was just sort of a recipe for absolute disaster. It
Speaker 2: got to a point where I had to tell him, please,
Speaker 2: please stop. You are triggering me and I am scared
Speaker 2: that I'm going to relapse. I need you to stop
Speaker 2: calling me names.
Speaker 3: Just stop. And he.
Speaker 2: Gave me a call. He called me, which I actually
Speaker 2: really appreciated, and he just said, hey, look, everything's going
Speaker 2: to be all right. Go to bed, go to sleep,
Speaker 2: we'll talk in the morning. And I know that he
Speaker 2: didn't mean like, oh, we will be okay, but I
Speaker 2: had taken from that that he meant we would be
Speaker 2: adults about this, we would make peace. I went to bed.
Speaker 2: I wake up the next morning, he once again has
Speaker 2: blocked me on everything, and that that really fucked me
Speaker 2: up because it was just so unnecessary, like you never
Speaker 2: had to say you would call if you didn't mean it,
Speaker 2: And to me, it was just all the more confusing
Speaker 2: because at that point I was thinking, Oh, we're just
Speaker 2: going to make peace. Maybe one day WI can smile
Speaker 2: across the room from each other at a show and
Speaker 2: remember some good times. I found a way to message,
Speaker 2: and that was through email, and he hadn't blocked me
Speaker 2: and I just said, why would you do that? That
Speaker 2: is completely evil and he said, don't contact me again.
Speaker 2: I'm calling a welfare check. Se Ya. And the police
Speaker 2: were at my door twenty minutes later on, and I
Speaker 2: cannot tell you how relieved I was to see them,
Speaker 2: because it was just like, it all felt like torture
Speaker 2: up to that point, so I just I was just
Speaker 2: relieved to see them. And they obviously sat me down
Speaker 2: and they asked, like, how do we get here?
Speaker 3: What's going on?
Speaker 2: And I just sort of gave them a brief rundown
Speaker 2: of everything that had happened the last few months, the
Speaker 2: house hunting, the sleeping incidents, a lot of all the
Speaker 2: stresses that we were going through. And they asked me,
Speaker 2: they said, you know, you don't have to, but we
Speaker 2: would like to take you to the hospital. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, please, So I jumped in the car. So
Speaker 2: the police still took me to the hospital, which was
Speaker 2: fine on the way there. So about twenty minutes or
Speaker 2: so after I had given them that quick rundown, one
Speaker 2: of the police officers turned around in the car and
Speaker 2: they just said, hey, look, just to let you know,
Speaker 2: there's no statute of limitations when it comes to sexual abuse,
Speaker 2: So if you want to report it today, you can,
Speaker 2: or if you want to report it in ten years,
Speaker 2: you can. So I was just like, Okay, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: and I went to a mental health evaluation unit. I
Speaker 2: sat there in a glassroom for maybe five or six hours,
Speaker 2: and I had a lot of time to think and
Speaker 2: having it validated by the police that it was sexual
Speaker 2: abuse because I hadn't that term hadn't entered my mind.
Speaker 2: That was a moment where I just decided to report
Speaker 2: what had happened, because just having that validation was very
Speaker 2: eye opening and it took me. But I sat there
Speaker 2: in that room for hours, and you know, I didn't
Speaker 2: even pick up my phone. I was just thinking and
Speaker 2: going over everything going over the last few months, for
Speaker 2: the last few years, and it seemed like that was
Speaker 2: the right thing to do because at that time I
Speaker 2: was feeling like the narrative was being completely flipped to
Speaker 2: make me look unstable, which I think is what the
Speaker 2: welfare check was for. I had all the specialists come in,
Speaker 2: They did what they had to do and answered all
Speaker 2: their questions, and basically they diagnosed it as an adjustment
Speaker 2: reaction or adjustment disorder, which is. It's a strong but
Speaker 2: temporary response to a stressful life event. There were times
Speaker 2: where I did question, am I okay? Am I bipolar
Speaker 2: am IVPD? Because this man keeps telling me I am
Speaker 2: and no, he was just a very normal reaction to
Speaker 2: the situations that I was in. But I'm really grateful
Speaker 2: that I went and did that because I got a
Speaker 2: lot out of it. He did me a favor in
Speaker 2: that sense. I made the report later that day once
Speaker 2: I was home and I'd had some time to just yeah,
Speaker 2: decompress a bit more in my own space, and I
Speaker 2: had a detective message me back I think two days later,
Speaker 2: and they were, you know, suggesting safety measures that should
Speaker 2: be taken, considering that he has house keys of mine
Speaker 2: and all these things to do, and it was getting
Speaker 2: quite real. I was getting quite overwhelmed with it all,
Speaker 2: all while thinking so deeply about what had happened while
Speaker 2: I was sleeping.
Speaker 1: It was a brave move, one that brought her both
Speaker 1: relief and a sense of release, But there was still
Speaker 1: one more thing Cindy needed to know to truly find closure.
Speaker 2: I sent him one more message and I just said,
Speaker 2: I just need to know how many times it happened
Speaker 2: and the way he responded is something that I personally
Speaker 2: feel like was the worst thing that happened in the
Speaker 2: five years. Words that he wrote to me in response
Speaker 2: to me just asking how many times it happened they
Speaker 2: almost completely destroyed me. And yeah, I don't know how
Speaker 2: I even got past that. He attacked every part of
Speaker 2: my beam. He made some real fucked up comments about
Speaker 2: my body, which just I remember laying in the shower,
Speaker 2: just on the floor, not knowing how the fuck I
Speaker 2: was gonna ever look at myself again, How would ever
Speaker 2: getting through it?
Speaker 3: How would ever loved myself?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I cried every day about it for like the
Speaker 2: next four months, and clearly I still cry when I
Speaker 2: think about it.
Speaker 3: It's horrible. It's just the worst person alive, all while.
Speaker 2: Telling me that I'm a low, worthless and undeserving of love.
Speaker 2: So I's been a couple hours, like on the floor
Speaker 2: in a bad place, and then I don't know what
Speaker 2: came over me, but I just went fuck it. If
Speaker 2: you're going to talk to me like that, I will
Speaker 2: show everyone how you talk to me. So I just
Speaker 2: posted screenshots of the emails on my Instagram, because if
Speaker 2: you're going to say it to me through email.
Speaker 3: Let everyone see I've got no shame.
Speaker 2: Under the encouragement of the police, because he had keys
Speaker 2: to my home, I was instructed to put a restrained
Speaker 2: in order against him, which I did, which he did
Speaker 2: not object to. So that's in place now for two years,
Speaker 2: so there will not be no more communication. And the
Speaker 2: Instagram thing, you know, not my finest moment, but it's
Speaker 2: like I was being berated through messages. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know what else to tell you it they
Speaker 2: disappeared after.
Speaker 3: Twenty four hours. That's bur real.
Speaker 1: Despite everything she was going through, since he found the
Speaker 1: strength and determination to stay focused on what mattered most
Speaker 1: to her, the things that brought her genuine happiness even
Speaker 1: in the midst of turmoil, she held on to that clarity,
Speaker 1: using it as an anchor to keep moving forward.
Speaker 2: I bought a home, and it's a beautiful house. And
Speaker 2: it took quite a while for me to be able
Speaker 2: to even enjoy it and to be excited about it,
Speaker 2: because yeah, when I moved in, I couldn't even walk,
Speaker 2: so and my seven year old almost parents are like
Speaker 2: helping move my entire life into this house.
Speaker 3: And it was rough, it was really rough.
Speaker 2: But I again, have such incredible friends and they've been
Speaker 2: with me through every step of the way, and I'm
Speaker 2: just so so blessed to have them.
Speaker 3: They're the best.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it took a while, I think because of the
Speaker 2: comments he made and stuff. I did jump back out
Speaker 2: there and tried to find self worth from men and
Speaker 2: like whatever. It was fun for a little bit. It's not.
Speaker 3: Off that now.
Speaker 2: I'm just focusing on myself and working on myself. I
Speaker 2: was accepted into a specialist therapy program that you have
Speaker 2: to apply for because they have such a long wait
Speaker 2: list for the sexual assault. So that was also a
Speaker 2: lot more validation them hearing what had happened and seeing
Speaker 2: that I needed immediate care, and that's been really really helpful.
Speaker 2: I actually really love therapy. It's been a godsend.
Speaker 1: And as for the charges against Ted.
Speaker 2: What they do situations where something like that has occurred.
Speaker 2: They would usually wire you up so you can speak
Speaker 2: to that person so you can get a confession. I
Speaker 2: do have messages of him admitting it, but it probably wouldn't.
Speaker 3: Be enough in court.
Speaker 2: So I was basically told it can be really overwhelming
Speaker 2: and it might not go the way that would be
Speaker 2: best for me. And because at that time I was
Speaker 2: moving house. At that point, I wasn't capable of physically
Speaker 2: moving because my back and my legs had completely seized
Speaker 2: from all the stress. So I was dealing with a
Speaker 2: lot at the time. It's not canceled, it's just on
Speaker 2: the back burner. So if I want to reopen it
Speaker 2: at any time, I can. If I want to go
Speaker 2: through the processes that come along with it, I can.
Speaker 2: I just at that time, I wasn't feeling strong enough
Speaker 2: or I didn't have the capacity for it at that time.
Speaker 2: But I did hand everything over of what I did
Speaker 2: have to the sex crime Squad. I'm really excited for
Speaker 2: the future, and just I've got this beautiful home that
Speaker 2: I get to work on all the time, and I'm
Speaker 2: working a lot and still see my friends so much.
Speaker 2: And I feel like it never would have ended had
Speaker 2: it not come to the way that it did end.
Speaker 3: Because it's just it was so bad. It's so back.
Speaker 2: And forth for years, Like if it didn't blow up
Speaker 2: the way that it did, I don't know if it
Speaker 2: ever would have ended. So in a way, you know,
Speaker 2: I see that I'm definitely where I need to be now,
Speaker 2: and I don't need to ever again find my self
Speaker 2: worth through a man that's not it's not who I
Speaker 2: want to be anymore, and through means like therapy and
Speaker 2: just having the support of my loved ones. I'm going
Speaker 2: to be completely fine. I'm excited to just have this
Speaker 2: all behind me. I feel like this is my way
Speaker 2: of sort of closing that chapter, because that's.
Speaker 3: All it is at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: It's not my whole it's not my whole life.
Speaker 3: It's not my whole story. It's just a.
Speaker 2: Shitty part of it. It's very early days, but I
Speaker 2: have met someone pretty cool who doesn't It's like a
Speaker 2: long distance thing, so it's kind of cool having that space,
Speaker 2: which is nice. But Ted didn't kill my desire to
Speaker 2: find love and to love and to be loved and
Speaker 2: all that. He didn't take away my sexuality or anything.
Speaker 3: He you know.
Speaker 2: If anything, he's strengthened that. My self worth is a
Speaker 2: lot better. I trust myself a lot more now. I
Speaker 2: haven't yet gone down any bad paths or anything. So
Speaker 2: I'm really proud of myself for getting myself out of it.
Speaker 2: I've got a lot to look forward to and a
Speaker 2: lot of new people to meet, new memories, to be made.
Speaker 1: Everyone Has an Ex's a Minti Media production and proudly
Speaker 1: part of the MoMA Me Network. This interview was conducted
Speaker 1: and the episode narrated by me Georgia Love and written
Speaker 1: and produced by Linda Scott. If you have a story
Speaker 1: you'd like to share, email podcast at momamea dot com
Speaker 1: dot au. You can support us by following the show
Speaker 1: and your favorite podcast app and leaving a five star review.
Speaker 1: We'll see you for the next episode.