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Velvet: I've been in Australia 24 years, and I've never called the police before.

In 2019, when I smashed my ankle, I called for an ambulance.

While in hospital, I asked for psych help and was ignored. After discharge, I asked to be put on a waiting list, but when I was finally called, it seemed like they just wanted me to go away.

In 24 years, I've never been hospitalized for mental illness, and I've never accessed any mental health services.

Dr Velvet Thong: The reason you need to make this clear?

Velvet: Because I'm not sure I was able to make clear that calling the police was a big deal for me. It is not a pattern of behaviour. It's the last thing I'd usually ever consider.

Dr Velvet Thong: Why did you do it?

Velvet: I think I needed to send a message to those watching that although I have internalized 'control' to such an extent that most of the time I will stop myself from branching out into the world, I am still capable of unpredictability, and perhaps even facing my worst fears.

Dr Velvet Thong: Did you have some sort of plan?

Velvet: Not really. I usually don't trust instinct, because I think it can be coloured by prejudice. In most cases, a big flaw of mine is that I can't recognize when others mean me harm. I quickly override with rationality, kindness, compassion. I am afraid of causing people harm by not giving them a chance.

Dr Velvet Thong: But in this case?

Velvet: Instinct was so strong, I couldn't override it. After I posted my last article, it grew and grew. Even then, I tried to be rational, thinking that in my isolation and years of heavy drinking I might be losing the plot.

Dr Velvet Thong: You decided to act anyway, even knowing you might be dismissed as an irrational, irrelevant, old, unattractive, pathetic alcoholic shut-in?

Velvet: Yes. What I had in mind was to make some kind of statement to the police that might seem laughable in the moment, but later not so much.

From there, I didn't really know what I'd do, and resigned myself to going to a hotel. I'd probably buy some wine, order room service, and try to figure out my next move. If it turns out to be suicide, I want it to be on my terms.

I had two small bags packed and ready to go.

Dr Velvet Thong: It seems it didn't play out according to plan.

Velvet: When I called, I didn't have to fake feeling distressed. It was like my true feelings came to the surface.

I was basically screaming. I gave the address and said my life was in danger, come right away.

They wanted me to explain the issue and I said it was too complicated.

They mentioned something about an ambulance and I screamed this is not a psychiatric issue, I am not suicidal, the last two times I tried to leave, the internet and phones were cut and someone came home much earlier than expected.

Dr Velvet Thong: I think it's a problem in Australia. Women are dismissed as nutjobs - there isn't a lot of recognition of the real dangers women face.

Velvet: It seems also to be a resource issue.

Dr Velvet Thong: I guess you can see why people thought it was a psych issue?

Velvet: It's because people don't realize that one of the ways to treat women's mental illness is to take them seriously when they say they are in danger, that they've been assaulted - in the old or the new ways.

Dr Velvet Thong: I'm sensing there are a few parts to this. What do you want to tackle first?

Velvet: Loyalty and guilt.

I'm extremely isolated. I have no friends, family or contacts other than Possum Dreaming, in Australia or anywhere in the world, even online.

I am completely financially dependent, and dependent in every other way. I don't leave the house. I don't have a phone. I only go online once a month.

PD is patient, and listens to me over and over. There's a constant, deep sense of guilt of how much I owe that I can never pay back.

He tries to reassure me, but the fact is, however isolated I was before I moved here, it's worse now, and I think I partly have his 'help' to thank.

Dr Velvet Thong: Let me interject for a moment. I think you said you told one of the trauma facillitators that you don't pay rent.

Velvet: When I recently had problems with my bank and ended up transferring most of the money in my account to a special account of PD's, I didn't know what to do about the old system we had established.

If the bank records are checked, for years, each month, he'd transfer some money to me, and I'd transfer most of it back, for room and board. In the early years, I'd do a significant amount of cleaning and cooking, and other things to try to 'earn' this. But in recent years, I haven't done much. I still thought it might be beneficial psychologically to keep up with the system.

But when asked a direct question, I was only quick enough to admit I was not paying rent now.

Also, when PD was asked by police if this sort of meltdown happened often, he said from time to time, but that's misleading, for the reasons stated at the beginning of our session.

Dr Velvet Thong: It seems like we're about to get into something tricky.

Velvet: Ugh, here goes.

What I'm about to say might sound insignificant. I've never received validation or acknowledgment, there are no police or hospital records, and so there's nothing on the record to support my fear.

In late December 2005, PD broke my ribs. I didn't see it coming. It happened really fast. We both heard the crack, and it seems that hearing the crack made him stop.

I had too much body shame and personal shame to go to a hospital (and back then I was a lot thinner and fitter than I am now), so I looked things up online. It didn't seem like my lungs were punctured, and I just tried to heal on my own. I was healed in about 3 weeks, I then started to exercise to get strong, and then I left.

I went to Sydney, but was not able to find a place for myself. I was so controlled by shame internally, and without ways of connecting to the real world, that I came back. But if people want to know the point where I was absolutely sure I wanted to leave and that I didn't want to have a sexual relationship with him, it was then.

I will mention two other incidents, although they might not sound like much.

I can't remember exact dates or even years.

On one occasion, he was angry and he lunged at me and put both his hands around my throat. He did not exert enough force to leave a mark. He was disgusted by what he saw as my exaggerated fear response, and he ridiculed me.

On the other occasion, I had just watched a program on SBS hosted by Jess Hill regarding coercive control. I tried to express to him that I felt the experiences of my life had led me to internalizing control and abuse in ways that made me dependent in unhealthy ways. I also tried to express that I thought he had an unconscious wish to control me, so he didn't really register how badly I wanted to move out.

I knew I chose the wrong words, but I wasn't goading or shaming him. I was trying to express something that felt real to me.

I saw his body tense up, I saw also that he was shaking with rage. He was shaking so much the glasses flew from his face and a lens popped out and rolled across the floor.

I ran to my room and locked the door.

Dr Velvet Thong: Where did it go from there?

Velvet: Any time things escalate, we eventually talk it through, and I end up feeling guilty for how much I owe and how much he's endured living with me, and I try to restore equilibrium. Sometimes, I have to comfort him for causing him distress.

Dr Velvet Thong: And you recently posted an article which brought up similar issues as the program you mentioned?

Velvet: Yes. I was afraid he might be a grey volcano, the most unpredictable and dangerous kind, and I erred on the side of caution.

I had summed up the article for him, because I know he finds it excruciatingly boring to wade through what he's heard a million times. I wasn't trying to betray him in the article. And don't forget, I think any time I type anything, someone's watching. And because I don't know who, I think it's at least logical to consider him as one of the suspects.

I feel like I'm always over-explaining, which is another source of low self-esteem.

Dr Velvet Thong: What was it like talking to police and trauma liaisons?

Velvet: In the end, I felt pretty stupid and like I'd wasted everyone's time, even though a lot of people went out of their way to advocate for me, show me they were listening, and try to make me feel comfortable while I endured the ordeal. I witnessed a lot of kindness and beauty.

It's also pretty clear that there aren't a lot of options for people in a situation like mine.

Dr Velvet Thong: I'm thinking you probably did manage to send a message, despite incurring further trauma and shame in order to do so.

Velvet: I think this might be about all I can handle for today.

I will say, though, that the police were the first to come into my bedroom, and already had their cameras on. They didn't ask, and I did have the presence of mind to say something about how it's felt like I've been under surveillance so long it's felt like a rape I couldn't stop, so no no no I don't consent to this being filmed. I think they said something like this is how it's done, and it's only now I'm realizing that if I wanted to make a statement, I would have had to agree to cameras. So, I guess instead they have a voice recording of me screaming my life was in danger.

Dr Velvet Thong: I think you've done well for now, and maybe we should leave it at this. We don't want things to escalate back to how it was when you were writing the previous entry.

Velvet: Maybe one last thing for now.

If there are places to go to report stalking or harassment, or suspected hacking, I don't know how to find them, and I'm worried about all my internet searches, for obvious reasons. When I made the call, I first made up a pretext to get PD out of the house. I'd hoped they come before he came back, before I collapsed into an incoherent puddle of guilt and shame.

If anyone has friends or relatives they think are stalking or harassing women, I think they should make it clear they don't support the behaviour, and that they will report them.

Dr Velvet Thong: If places to report eventually become available. But you're talking about trying to find ways of raising the collective consciousness.

Velvet: I don't know how to explain this exactly, and I don't know if it was something I saw, or heard in his voice, but I felt for a moment I'd seen something primal and he'd seen that I'd seen it and I didn't think I was going to be able to pretend I hadn't seen it and he'd see that.

And even if it turns out that he's been responsible for some of the phenomena I've experienced, and I've blown it all way out of proportion, I still feel there are others out there, with sinister motives. I don't feel safe.

Dr Velvet Thong: And if he can't appreciate how extreme it is, it's hard to trust him.

Velvet: I want to thank those who said they believed I had been stalked and harassed, even though I couldn't offer proof. It means a lot.

I also want to mention a man who was in the bed next to me in the hospital. His name was Damian, and he was pleading with everyone, saying he needed to stay, and they told him he had to leave. I really wanted to offer him my place - I didn't want to stay, and was told I had to.

I think that story should be for another day, but briefly, because of my distressed phone call, someone from psych was going to have to look at me and decide if I needed further observation. The trauma liaisons knew the waiting would traumatize me further and that in the end the help just wasn't going to be there. I know they really tried.

I had been given two Valium, and while I noticed I was getting a little sleepy and even yawned (it was past my usual bedtime at this point), I was still in fight or flight and enduring the time was really hard. I had to keep fighting the urge to run.

When it seemed I'd be there considerably longer, and might even be committed, I told PD it was best for him to go home and unwind. I had no phone, but he could call the hospital to check on me in a few hours.

Luckily, not long after he left a doctor with a very quick delivery came by and I was able to help her help me escape my ordeal. I will fess up that I thought it best not to admit how much I drink, because I couldn't predict where the train of conversation would go. Anyway, she said I didn't seem drunk, depressed or suicidal - I seemed anxious. She let me use her phone to call PD to pick me up, but sort of left me with the phone in the curtained room for a long time after the call ended, and I didn't want to go out of the space to look for her. For me, rock and a hard place situation, but it was soon over, there was an end in sight.