My breakthrough story/Brain dump. So much still coming to the surface

I think my first memory of seeing/receiving violence was around three or four. My father used to beat my mother and us kids. At five years old, I became a thief. I would steal small things from shops. I would steal from my teachers. I would steal from my friends. I would steal from people’s houses I went and played at.

I never applied myself at school. I never studied. I always got really low grades because I never even tried. I would never even try to take a test. I would just pretty much sit there because I just thought I was dumb. I heard that from a young age.My father used to hit us in front of people. He used to hit me in front of my friends and once I fell to the ground and when I got up, I peed my pants while my friend was over my house. I used to go to school with belt marks on the back of my legs.

I had trouble with friends through school. I remember wanting to be with this group of friends but it was really inconsistent. One day they would be my friend and the next day they wouldn’t be and they’d kick me when we were sitting on the floor in class. It was really confusing. I didn’t want to play sport. I lied a lot. I would lie about who my family was. I would lie about having a brother when I didn’t. I would lie about this amazing life that I had at home, where it was not great at all.

When I went to high school, the first year in high school, I only attended half of the year because I wagged the other half. I would not go to school. I would go to shops and steal. I would ring the school and tell them that there was a bomb in the school. I would be mean to teachers. I would be really nasty. I always wanted to be in the cool gang. I insulted other students. I was mean to them and on occasion would beat them up for no reason. I was the bully then.

I stole a whole lot of money from my father out of a holiday bank account with a key card that I would steal out of his wallet every morning and put back at the end of the day. And over time, I stole a lot of money until he found out and actually charged me. I was 14 and I was sent into under-18s prison for that.

Then after that, when I got out, my father took me to a private school where I did about four months of Grade 9. I started wagging school again. From the age of 13, 14, I was kicked out of home all the time. I would live on the streets. I would live with friends until I would steal from them and then they would kick me out. I would sleep on public toilet floors, eating whatever food that I could find that was laying around. I got with the wrong crowd and I started drinking. I started taking drugs.

When I got into that world of drugs and alcohol, I was beaten a lot. I was always drawn to men who would hurt me because, crazily, I thought that’s what love was. I thought men hit you to show you that they loved you because that’s what I saw growing up. That belief stayed with me for a long time.

Because of all of that, I formed this really hard exterior. I was on watch all the time. My body was tense all the time because I never knew who was coming for me, what was going to happen to me or if my best friend sitting next to me was going to stab me in the arm. My body learned to live in that constant state of fear. And even now, my body still hasn’t completely let go of that — a lifetime of living in fear, of being tense, of having to constantly watch.

I was around people that would supply me alcohol and drugs, but after a while, they wouldn’t supply me with that anymore, so I had to get it myself. Having no money, that’s when the crime came in stealing, breaking into houses and cars, robbing people. That was my life, drugs, alcohol and crime.

That belief that I was stupid because I was told I was stupid all my life was one of the biggest things I had to overcome. It followed me everywhere.

I became a stripper at 17 and started making big money, big, big money but big money meant a lot of drugs, a lot of alcohol, a lot of bad people. Crime because of the thrill of it, not actually because I needed money.

The men in my life became a power play for me. I’d tell them, “Don’t love me, because I’m not going to love you back.” I’d just sleep with them and throw them away before they could do it to me. But deep down, all I wanted was to be loved. I’d felt abandoned for most of my life, so I guess I kept abandoning myself because that feeling of abandonment was what I was used to. It was comfortable in a way.

I got pregnant at the age of 20. I stopped stripping. Stayed with the father of my child for about four months. Gave up drugs and alcohol while I was pregnant, but it didn’t take long for that to sneak back in after my baby was born and that was the life I just went back to. I didn’t work. I drank all day. I would pick him up from school drunk. I would drive in the car with him drunk. Drugs and alcohol became my top priority. I would put them before my family.

I overdosed plenty of times. I tried to kill myself several times. I tried to kill my son on two occasions on drug benders, but I have no idea. I didn’t know what was going on, I don’t remember. He had to call the police and put me into psychiatric hospitals. I tried doing rehab, didn’t work. Tried stopping, didn’t work. I would stay awake for days and not eat food just eat drugs and drink alcohol.

My last trip to psychiatric hospital after another suicide attempt was in 2012 and while I was in there, something flicked. Something was like, I need to do something else. This is not what I’m all about. But to do that, I needed to get the foreign object out of my body. I had my implants in and out of my body four times. I had a lot of work done on my face because I was trying to be something that I was not. I was chasing perfection, which I was so far away from. Well, no such thing, actually. I was actually running from my life.

As soon as I got out of that last stint in the psychiatric hospital, I got my breast implants out and I felt differently straight away. My body felt better. My body felt lighter. My brain fog disappeared. I didn’t feel as depressed, so I started fitness. I started exercising, going to the gym. But that didn’t last very long. I would be really good during the week and then on the weekends, I would go drink, take drugs. And then after time, it just came back into everyday life again.

I actually managed to hold down jobs though. I was with my husband for a about 11 years but we only married in 2014. We had one of those relationships that when it was good, it was beautiful but when it was bad it was very, very dangerous.

I competed several times in fitness competitions in 2014 and 2015, where our marriage started falling apart. He was about to stray, I caught him and we had a massive argument. I said I wanted divorce, I left the house for 2 hrs and came back and I found him dead in his car. He had committed suicide and gassed himself.

So, from there, I spiraled out of control again. I had no money, everything was with the public trustee as I had to fight his family and nothing would be released. I lost my job because of my mental state. I wasn’t in any way to go to work every day, so I had to move to a not so great area and try and start my life again.

But that didn’t happen until probably six months after I moved there. One day I woke up and I said to myself, there has got to be more to me than this life. I’d been playing a victim for so long that I’d had enough. I must be capable of more. I’m not stupid. I’ve been told I’m stupid, I’m dumb, I’ll never amount to anything, but surely I’m not.

Right around that time, someone gifted me a personal development course that they didn’t want to do, so I went into that. I didn’t think I belonged in that room because everyone was so different. They all seemed so smart and confident and I thought I was dumb. But after that first level, I signed up for the second and third level.

Halfway through that second level I got the courage to ask my friends for a job as a coach in their business. They said yes. They told me to go buy a computer but I didn’t know how to use one. So I spent several weeks in the Apple Store taking all their free classes to learn how to use it. I worked for my friends for three months for free to prove myself.

That was really where everything started to change for me. My journey began. My journey of growth, my journey of becoming the best version of me, and my journey of discovering who is Melissa? Because I’ve numbed myself my whole life. I didn’t know who this person was. I didn’t know who this person was under all the external lies that I’d been telling myself and showing other people.

I came up with a code that I live by and still live by every single day and that is “somebody gave up their life to give you a better one. Honor that” So for the last ten years, that’s what I’ve been doing.

Two years ago, I decided to move, sell everything I owned, stepped away from society’s idea of what woman should be and look like. Woman should have long hair, wear makeup, have the boobs bla bla bla. I don’t want to be a part of that anymore. So I shaved my head. I stripped myself back to the rawest version of me that I could possibly strip back and find who I really was under all that stuff, under all the material things, under what I thought I had to be to look good, to fit in with people. I learnt to love what was inside of me, the heart.

And I moved myself to Bali, not knowing anybody, not knowing the language. That was terrifying. But I told myself at the same time, you’ve done harder shit than this before. Everything you’ve been through, you’ve survived. And this too, you can survive.

I was here for four months and decided to step away from my friends company I was working for that just didn’t align with me anymore, and they didn't align with me and what I wanted to give to the world. I started my own business. And I was absolutely terrified. I knew nothing about starting a business. I had to Google and ChatGPT everything, even how to register my business name.

I have been so grateful that my existing clients came across to my business and have stayed for 18 months. Now they are starting to move on from my program I actually got a bit scared but released I am a fantastic coach and you have given them so much knowledge over the years they are able to go it on their own now. I also realized you have to empty the space to refill it with new, fresh people.

Now I want to grow my business, grow my retreats and share my gifts with the world.

5 comments