Laura Reville

My story

Seven years ago I was unknowing at a crossroads in my life, I made a choice to take the route that was to shift my whole world into chaos. It was the start of a reckless, and destructive relationship that’s started three months in, 

Four years of living with the scars of mental trauma, with him always denying, trivialising and distortion of the reality of what was going on. 

What I didn’t know is that when Gavin messed with my life, he was not messing with just one part of my life, he was messing with my entire life, with every thread of my existence, causing my world to implode into disarray. As a result, the three years with him have been volatile, and directionless creating barriers to my ability to cope with life, but the stranglehold of the ongoing fallout from the relationship hindered my ability to function. Not because it happened to me, but because it’s an insidious form of abuse which many women experience, but don’t understand what’s happening to them. Inevitably we are made feel we are the crazy one, that in fact, that they are the abusive partner and isolated from reality, family & friends,  in my case, Gavin went out of his way to paint me as ‘the crazy’ one in the relationship. My fear was that people would start to believe his narrative, and his mother did. I fought back by writing my story, not to hurt Gavin like he hurt me, but to protect myself. The first lockdown of 2019 was the time I knew I had to get out! I knew if I didn’t it would get worse to the point he would have killed me. I drank so much because I couldn’t cope or deal with everything I went through so I bottled it all up and wrecked my relationships with family & friends and drank myself into oblivion and would go missing for days on end. Eventually, I decided to get help and talk about the physical, emotional and sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of him. I received extraordinary support and compassion and just for someone to listen and not judge.  As a result, strength, and energy flowed back into my mind and body, I no longer felt isolated or sad all the time, I saw my experiences reflected in other women who emerged from the depths of such darkness. I wanted people to see the abuse, to believe it, to have faith in me. I needed them to understand the devastation, to cushion the fall without preconception.

I am a survivor and to anyone that is still going through it, I know how hard it is to get out, the feeling of being alone but there is so much help and support out there and this is the reason why I’m doing this because I have been there, I understand and there is always light at the end of the tunnel.