By Clare Bruce Monday 14 Mar 2016 Hope Mornings
It’s heartbreaking to learn how much pain some women endure, before leaving an abusive marriage or relationship.
For mum-of-four Josie Parata, it wasn’t until her eight-year-old son tried to kill himself, that she realised she had to leave her violent husband—and fast. Pregnant with her fourth child, she fled with her children to a women’s refuge where she began rebuilding her life from scratch.
She describes it as a gruelling process. Her emotions were in such turmoil that simply filling out a Centrelink form was a near-impossible task.
“I found myself in what I now know as crisis mentality,” she said in an interview with Hope 103.2’s Emma Mullings.
“With all the paperwork that I was given in order to try and move forward, my brain was not working to fill it all out. And I wished at that moment that I had just one person that would come alongside and help me work through all this paperwork.”