Gary's personal story
I married a Cambodian woman with a mental illness and for nearly a decade was a victim of physical, emotional and financial violence when all I wanted to do was help her overcome her difficulties. As a result, I then became a victim of abuse by the very system that is meant to protect us ALL from any sort of abuse.
This woman was very violent! She had a boy child that commited suicide recently due to the years of physical and emotional violence she waged against him from a baby. She used the system against me by falsifying statements to the authorities about MY violence to her which was never proven.
But as the one sided and very biased narrative goes in Australia, "all men are violent!" "Only Men are the perpatraitors of violence" "To be Male in Australia is an accident waiting to happen" and so on. I have a very sound Mental Health background and am a Counsellor of several years standing. I knew that she had issues and wanted to help her. She resisted at every stage and I was taken away by Police at least 4 times after reporting her violence to them based on the popular narratives about Men and violence.
She chased me with a carving knife in rages demanding me to do things against my will. She forced me to pay her money I never had and cost me my job and blocks of land I owned plus vehicles all lost. She forced me to sleep under a car in the freezing cold Atherton QLD winter just so I could see my kids the next day. She fabricated the most abhorent stories about me including that I used drugs and was an alcoholic. (I do not drink and have never used drugs of any sort for my entire adult life) And everything she said was believed without question by these authorities.
I lost count of the nighttime reports made to Family and Childrens Services about my kids. They did NOTHING. They aided and enabled her to go on with the abuse to them by placing her in 3 women’s shelters over the years. On one last occasion where she tried to kill them all, they finally listened to my by now insane cries and screams over the phone for help. The Police found her with knife in hand and axe ready to dismember the lot of them. Plus with a room filled with aerosol gas, she would blow herself and them all to pieces to ensure the job was done right!
They finally had her sectioned under the Mental Health act and came to me saying, "do you know that your wife has a severe Mental Health issue?" and that I needed to do something about it. My reply was totally filled with hatred and sarcasm when I replied "what… now you mean? "She only has one now!" For Gods sake!
They told me I had to go to family court and have my kids removed from her and that she was dangerous. For 9.5 years they protected her and her illness despite my going to politicians like Bob Katter and others. They made me out to be a criminal and went out of their way to ensure that I never had access to her or the kids again. After her lawyer and my Barrister went to court together to have all this dismantled and enable me to become the primary caregiver to them all, I believe that to this day I was the only Male in the NT to have a 5 year mandatory police initiated DV order completely revoked.
But the years of this abuse have taken their toll and even though she was diagnosed with Post Partum Psychosis, Schitsoaffective Disorder, PTSD, Depression and more, I still have the nightmares. The worry that one day, she will start this all up again. That one day she wont take the medication that keeps her sane, and that we could all end up the way she wanted it all to be back on that day of terror.