Old Wounds
Not looking for violin, but a trauma journey is a complex story to tell. There is a lot of self work you need to do to overcome it, that’s the blatant truth. Trauma affects everyone differently and we must take the time to understand it before we judge it in anyone including ourselves.

I wanted to get real about my experience with trauma, what it looks like for me when I have been triggered, and how I have used it to fuel me.
I turn my mind to when I lodged a claim in the court for compensation from the Qld Police Service, it was on the news and a few trolls popped their head up online to have a say about a dollar figure they believed to be a quick cash grab and a lot of “money for nothing”.
So, I wanted to talk about what this money for nothing actually looks like. We are all so quick to comment online these days. If trauma is explained more personally and in a little more detail it might affect the way people comment on traumatic things.
The original trauma for me started when I was being stalked by a police officer. I have written a book Flirt with Justice, (www.reneeeaves.com) that outlines the helplessness I felt in that particular scenario. It describes what I went through when I realised that there was no oversight of this behaviour, and what I did about it. That was the beginning of what the what could be described as a wound even though it was invisible to the eye.
That same officer arrested me while I was pregnant and incredibly sick, for an alleged traffic matter. He groped me, put me in a cell depriving me of water, somewhere to vomit, and bleeding from a procedure I’d had that day in hospital on my cervix. As a pregnant woman I can’t begin to tell you how violated I felt. A wound appeared.
To defend the false driving allegation, I spent thousands of dollars that I had saved so that I could enjoy my time as a new Mum, instead that was all eaten up in legal fees. Officer was still in the job. Cue the anger. Wound festered.
The ongoing feeling of there being a physical threat, and the stress and illness meant my baby was born 2 months prematurely. I was in intensive care, so was my baby. I had enormous trouble breastfeeding this tiny 3-pound 10 bub. I’m sure you can see how the wound wept.
Instead of the matter ending quickly, the QPS had the resources to drag my compensation through the court for years, to the point where lawyers told me it was not worth it. Imagine all of that happening and someone explaining from a commercial position there isn’t enough money it for them? The wound was raging.
My mental health started to suffer at that point, and I experienced anxiety and depression of the worst kind. Literally a walking wound.
I felt I had no control of the legal situation. My hands were tied as tight as they were when they were in handcuffs. Now, anyone that has experienced anxiety and depression knows that one of the worst parts to suffering poor mental health is not being able to control the way you feel. You wake up, and spend all day looking forward to when you next get to sleep. Its debilitating.
While going through that as a new Mum, I went through a relationship breakdown, and the collapse of a business that I absolutely loved. Wound got deeper.
I then ran the court case myself at a time when I couldn’t even afford the car parking at the court fighting against a legal team in the District Court for a week completely exhausted. I was put in a witness box and attacked viciously by the defence of this officer, and relived all the trauma again. Wound was now to the bone.
Instead of simply making payment after I was successful, QPS fought me again. Delaying the payment. Wound was causing a limp.
I walked away compensated but spent.
I walked away disgusted that this can happen to a person, but acknowledged how much I had learned, and naturally started using what I’d learned to support others. I couldn’t believe what I had been through, and thought I could use my experience to implement positive change for other people.
I studied counselling at that point which assisted me to not only help others, but help myself too. Wound started to begin healing.
As a result of helping many others, I found out that the police data base was being misused, and I had been repeatedly searched on the computer. Not only was I being searched for no reason, a flag was placed on my name to make interactions with police in the future unpleasant, at best. I was back to square one at this point, except it wasn’t just one officer anymore. Wound has re appeared.
I found out that an officer who been searching me for 6 years on the police computer was the work partner of the original officer that stalked me at the beginning. Original wound is opened again.
I lodged a complaint, nothing was done about the massive breach to my privacy, half of the officers were not even interviewed. Wound was raging.
Years pass by, but the wound sits below the surface, and every now and then it just popped up like a cold sore. Like the time I had something stolen and had to report it to the police, a routine thing. I pulled up to go in and report it and started vomiting in the car park, white as a ghost for seemingly no reason at all, shaking like a leaf, contemplating not bothering to report the stolen items.
Or the time I was at the traffic lights when I saw a police car behind me in the rear-view mirror. I’m doing nothing wrong, they were doing nothing, and suddenly I’ve got chest pains so sharp I genuinely think I’m having a hard attack but don’t want to touch my phone to call 000.
I’ve been pulled over for an RBT and finding the air to blow into the bag was almost impossible, I needed 3 goes because the anxiety literally took my breathe away.
I could give dozens of examples where I have been triggered over and over again. But I have used that to fuel me to make change. Real change.
I know for sure that when you are triggered it is a reminder that there is more work to do to heal. That’s what it is, its work. Its hard work, its deep work and it comes at a huge cost. A cost that no dollar sum that you could ever sue for could cover, I promise you that.
My matter is still before the court 3 years later – But the wound is old, so old it’s a scar.
God forbid anyone that wants to go at someone with a scar, so don’t be afraid of your scars, they tell a very big story about a healing cycle. You might have gone around and around the cycle many times with the same wound, but when it gets to a scar, even if its invisible it will shield you in ways you couldn’t even imagine, so accept the healing cycle may run its course a few times, but it’s gifting you something that is priceless.

How a decision about a blow job in a Police Car changes everything for Queensland’s future

Rick Flori, a former veteran Police officer with over 25 years’ experience, had seen just about all he could take in the way of certain police behaving poorly when he became aware of some officers using police cars to have sex while on duty. Rick says it was becoming more and more apparent that there were two sets of rules. One for police and one for the public.
“I thought how can we put on a uniform, charge and arrest people for the very same things that some police are doing? It’s just dead wrong. If people want to assault others, or have sex in public, that’s a matter for them, but don’t become a cop don’t do unlawful things in Police Cars that the tax payer is paying for. You simply can’t be breaking the same rules you are paid by the public purse to enforce.”
As I sit and speak with Rick about this, everything he is saying is plain common sense but then there is the cold hard reality for officers that want to hold their colleagues to account.
Queensland originally had legislation called the “Whistle-blowers Act 1994, later renamed the Public Interest Disclosure Act in 2010. One of the purposes of these acts was to allow officers to make disclosures and report any misconduct without suffering any form of retaliation. The act clearly outlines that it is a criminal offence to commit a reprisal on anyone that has made a public interest disclosure.
Officers actually have an obligation to report misconduct once they become aware of it, it is an of offence not to. That is what makes this tale so twisted.
Rick then made a decision that would ultimately end his career. He made a public interest disclosure by sending an anonymous letter to the Crime and Misconduct Commission outlining an allegation that an officer was receiving a blowjob in a police car in a Red Rooster carpark by another officer both outside the officer’s district and while on duty. The officers involved were disciplined but remained in the service. The transcript of a related hearing (which was open and reported by media) is not being released, even though it was an open hearing in QCAT.
Rick says the bullying towards him began as rumours swirled that it may have been he who raised the incident.
Following this disclosure about the carpark incident,a group of officers at Rick’s station were profiled because there were increased allegations of particular officers assaulting members of the public. Rick had witnessed a video of a man being viciously bashed by police while in handcuffs and the most Senior officer ( a relative of the Police Commissioner) caught washing away the blood from the scene.
Knowing that reporting this internally would not work, Rick then decided to leak the video to the media. That video became the infamous Surfers Paradise bashing video and was at the centre of a 5-year legal stoush where Rick was charged with Misconduct in Public Office.
When Rick’s house was raided by police looking for that video, the anonymous letter previously sent to the Crime and Misconduct Commission was found. The Public Interest Disclosure Act meant that the letter could not be used against him in any way. Nonetheless, despite there being a legal requirement for confidentiality, the letter was referred to, dozens of times, in correspondence by the arresting officer for the leak of the bashing video. It didn’t take long for word to get around the QPS that Rick was the author of that letter and it wasn’t too long before he felt the wrath of being a man willing to speak up about something that was wrong. The threats began.
In February 2018, a jury decided Rick Flori was not guilty of misconduct in public officer over the release of the bashing video. However, by that point, the damage was done. The service knew that he sent the letter and that he also leaked the video.
It wasn’t the Public Interest Disclosure Act that protected Rick, it was the public.
Not a single person has been charged for committing a reprisal since the commencement of that Public Interest Disclosure Act. Rick Flori is a living breathing example of how the legislation is not practical, and not being utilised for that in which it was intended.
In 2015, the Police Commissioner, in an interview with the ABC, said, “Our people are held to the same standards as the public. In fact, we have higher standards. We have systems in place to make sure we don’t go back to the dark old days (Fitzgerald)”.
So my question is this, why is it that Rick Flori finds himself in a position without his job in the police service? and why is it that he has no other option but to sue the QPS and some of its officers both for reprisals and for all the money he has lost including the hardship he has faced since making that disclosure?
Last month, Justice Bowskill in the Supreme Court heard the QPS argue that the sex act in the car park is not “official misconduct”. The reason the classification of this act is so important is that, for Rick to be afforded the protections of that PID Act, he must have believed and now a Judge must decide that what he was reporting constituted official misconduct.
The CMC in 2013 said what took place in the carpark was classed “official misconduct” and, when making the disclosure, Rick also whole-heartedly believed it was official misconduct.
Now there are thousands of people waiting for one Judge to decide if the letter Rick wrote was a public interest disclosure.
If she agrees it was and, if Rick is successful in his action, there will be case law where an officer has successfully sued for retaliation after disclosing misconduct.
Every member of the police service, now and in the future, stands to benefit from this case because the line will no longer be blurred. The bar will be set where it should have been set, long ago.
Every member of the public stands to benefit from the fortitude of Rick Flori because there will be a much higher chance of officers being held to the same account to which members of the public are held.
It has now been 30 years since a bottle of whiskey sparked the Fitzgerald Inquiry, an enquiry into long term, systemic political corruption and abuse of power. Originally planned to run for 6 weeks, The Inquiry lasted for almost 2 years.
Rick Flori has now put his money where his mouth is and has taken on the QPS and, essentially, the establishment. He has the full support of his family and friends and receives dozens of messages daily from people in the community who are fed up with the double standards and who are grateful for his enormous sacrifice.
Now the waiting game is on to find out if the legislation will finally be utilised for its intended purpose. If one has to commence action through a court before any protection is possible or afforded it seems the legislation needs to be adjusted and quickly. If a person that wants to make a disclosure needs to get a law degree to be able to interpret the law around making a disclosure it would seem it has been written in a way that is designed to fail, perhaps that is what we need to start talking about too. Why was this act written if not one person has ever been able to rely on it?

It’s not like he hits me or anything

I remember these words coming from my mouth when I was trying to express to those around me how I was feeling about a relationship that I was in.
What I was really saying was that I don’t have a bruise to show you as proof of what I’m going through, but there is a problem that I’m having difficulty putting a label on, I knew something wasn’t right, but I thought it was just a string of different challenges within the relationship that seemed to go from one story to the next. I was far too intrenched in the dysfunction to clearly see the gradual spiral downward let alone recognise the red flags.

Anytime I would catch up with my friends, it was spent unpacking the various stories of what was going on with my then partner to get their perspective, it was as if I was desperate for someone to diagnose who was right and who was wrong so I could get it straightened up in my own head.

Soon, our catch ups became less and less frequent, no doubt they were tired of hearing the same stories over and over. For every solution they had such as leave him, or give him an ultimatum, I presented a reason why I couldn’t yet.

It had started out like a love story, lots of compliments, lots of him prioritising me, driving ages to see me, messages first thing in the morning, and last thing at night. It felt flattering, and safe, and that I was the centre of his universe. But we were like rubber bands, the more I’d pull, the more he would push away, so I’d instinctively push away, to which he would then pull. Upon reflection, the signs of power and control were actually there from the early days.
He would turn his phone off in the middle of an argument knowing full well I would get in my car and drive over there all fired up wanting answers, that’s when he would cry, see an error in his ways, apologise for being such an ar*sehole, and we would end up in the bedroom making up. I couldn’t see my role in what I had just allowed. I couldn’t see the stages in the typical “cycle of abuse” because I was right in it.

He went from what appeared to be an open book, to taking his phone to the toilet and sleeping with it under his pillow. I went from being the fun new girlfriend to a suspicious nagging cow. I would argue if he had nothing to hide why was his phone never left alone in my presence? He would argue a relationship should be built on trust and that I was paranoid and perhaps the one with the problem.

I remember being in a line at video ezy where we were getting a DVD to watch. I didn’t have my purse with me but had $10 in my car that I’d put in my pocket. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, and the line was long. When I got to the end the staff said I had late fees from my last hire, the DVD hire was $7, so I asked if I could just pay $3 off my late fees, and fix the rest up next time?
The teenager at the counter shook his head, no sorry, it’s our policy now that all late fee’s have to be paid in full before you can rent a movie again. I tried to negotiate some further with the kid at the counter, and he wouldn’t budge. People in the long line behind me were getting annoyed. Can you just fix the $14 up I asked my boyfriend, I’ll give it to you when we get home? No, he replied, you are the one that bought it back late, you have to pay it. I will, I said to him through gritted teeth, when we get home! A guy in the line yelled out I’ll give you the fu**king $14 seriously, can you hurry up? I wanted the ground to open up. That’s fine said my boyfriend, we won’t get the DVD then, and he stormed out of the store. I had never felt so humiliated, I could feel the heads shaking at me from behind, as I put my hand to my forehead and walked out in total shame. That incident resulted in us breaking up again, and then making up. I justified the whole thing by saying all relationships have their spats, no one is perfect, it was not a big enough deal to end an entire relationship over. I tried to justify it in my head by saying it was the first time he had acted like that about money with me.

As time went on, more and more of the same unfolded, but each time it was slightly different, and it was gradually escalating.
His phone had rung while he was in the shower, the name “Trav” flashed up, he had never mentioned anyone called Trav, my intuition kicked into overdrive, so I answered it, it was a girl. I asked her how she knew him, I’ve been seeing him on and off over the past 3 months she told me, is this his roommate “Renee” she asked? What? Roommate? No, what are you talking about, he doesn’t have a roommate, I’m Renee his girlfriend. There was complete silence on the other end of the line, for what seemed like a lifetime, when she said… that is not what he told me, at which point he got out the shower, saw me on his phone, and all hell broke loose as he snatched it off me bumping my lip really hard with the phone.
He demanded an apology for me picking up his phone and “betraying him” the way I had while he was in the shower. The focus was on me and what I had done. He swore on his mother’s life, this girl was just someone he had taken out for dinner when we were on one of our ‘breaks’ and told me if I left him he saw no point to keep living.
We sat on the edge of the bed where I held an ice pack on my lip from the ‘accident’. I knew I had to leave. But he had never threatened to end his own life before, I didn’t think he would go through with it, but if he did, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The problems continued to get more serious more layered and more complex. So I booked us in for counselling because I wanted a third person to point out to him what he was doing. I didn’t know which way was up or which way was down anymore. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. My mind felt scrambled.
We each had individual sessions, and then sessions as a couple. I thought a professional could show him the light. Explain to him what he was doing to me.
In my sessions I would list dozens upon dozens of things that had happened, until one day the Counsellor said to me in my private session, you know the problem is you Renee? I will never forget those words. I sat there in shock.

Me I gasped, as my heart starting pounding through my chest.. Me? Are you serious?!!!!
She said I do not doubt a single word that you have told me about this man, not a single word, but you are the one that is enabling his behaviour by staying, the biggest problem you have is actually yourself right now. I broke down and uncontrollably sobbed.
I finally made the decision to leave him, something had shifted in me.
We sat down and had what seemed like a mature conversation about going our separate ways and I then left.

He messaged me later that afternoon that he had left something in my car he needed for work, and could I drop it over as he had been drinking and he really needed it. I identified this immediately as being an attempt to lure me back into the ‘negotiation phase’ a step I had identified in therapy as part of the cycle of abuse. Yet still I told myself this was one last thing so that all contact could end for good.
I drove over to where he was staying.
And an argument broke out, it was if he could sense that I was really was done with him for real this time.
He was blind drunk and said he was going to get into his car and do something I would regret. I sat in the driveway refusing him to back out in that state, he squeezed me so tight to lift me up that two of my ribs broke.
I got in my car and drove straight to the doctor for a scan. They confirmed my ribs were broken.
I was in agony, yet I felt a sense of relief, because I knew I’d never go back.
Broken ribs were a wound I could show with x rays, it was the ‘something tangible’ that was the turning point for me to start the road to loving myself again. It wasn’t the lies, cheating, financial abuse, or one humiliating thing after the other, that ended things. It was the physical abuse that was the final deal breaker for me.

It was the one thing that happened that started a list of services reaching out to help me, but if the truth be told, the internal wounds of the emotional abuse were far more agonising than the broken ribs that seemed to harness so much empathy.

If there is anything I could share with my fellow women out there, is that just because you aren’t being physically abused, doesn’t mean you aren’t being wounded. Emotional abuse more often than not will escalate to physical violence, usually within the first 3 weeks of you leaving a toxic relationship.

The women that are dying every single week didn’t all think it would take their death for the abuse to end.

Don’t try to work out why they are abusing, that’s not your concern.
Your concern is you,  and working out the safest and fastest exit strategy you can.

My end point was broken ribs, ask yourself what is your end point ? What’s the dealbreaker for you ?

Please share this with your girlfriends, your sisters, your colleagues, who may be suffering in silence with their invisible wounds.

You are so much more than a statistic.

The little girl who wouldn’t stand for the Australian Anthem

The uproar that a 9 year old little girl has caused for refusing to stand for the Australian National Anthem is enormous.
I see both sides when it comes to the opinion on her decision, however to think at 9 years of age a little girl is standing up for what she believes in, is what interested me the most.
You might agree with her reasoning you might not, but before you are quick to judge her, I’d ask you the question would you have the guts to sit down while hundreds of your peers are standing, in order to make your point on something you really whole heartedly believe in? Yeah, Na.
Didn’t we just see Colin Kaepernick’s new Nike campaign, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything” go viral after the he infamously knelt on one knee for the National Anthem in protest of what he deemed wrongdoings against African Americans and minorities in the United States?

At 9 years of age I was struggling to remember the lyrics of the anthem let alone decipher the meaning of them in order make a social stand. However, I do recall being busy gathering signatures because I noticed the kids who had lunch time detention weren’t allowed to eat, and that really upset me, so I am seeing a little glimmer of myself my inner warrior in this girl. She is showing empathy for other people, and clearly making her point, something many adults struggle to do.
Did you notice she actually does attend school, she does wear her uniform too, so they don’t appear to be people that have no respect for the rules. There has been plenty of judgement toward the parents online, but I really can’t see what their sinister motive could be? They are allowing her to be a free thinker. Isn’t that part of the anthem “when we are young and free” ? They are standing by their child no matter what, and in a World that can be at times so brutal, I think they have their priorities in order.

What concerns me the most in all this, is that grown adults think it’s fine to get online and debate in the most hateful of ways. We even have politicians posting online about it like it’s the worst thing in the World, seriously have you seen how ‘that lot’ express their views? Far more offensively than this 9 year old little girl has done, aren’t they busy enough ripping each other to shreds than to start on a kid? What a joke.
If you come across this story online could I encourage you to pause, and perhaps sit and think about others,  that is after all what this little girl was trying to do.