We put out the call, and you answered – hidden abuse is happening right now in our town.

“The nice neighbour you have next door - and have known your whole life, isn’t always who you think they are behind closed doors,” one person told us.

“It happens in ‘good’ families too,” said another.

A third said they were ‘lucky’ because their abuse has stopped.

“Almost everyone has a story. Some are lucky that the abuse stops, like me, but it took me calling the police to have a shock effect to achieve that. I am a lucky one.”

After the recent articles dealing with family violence published in The Riverine Grazier by Kimberly Grabham and myself, we offered our community an anonymous portal to share personal stories.

We received a dozen responses, including two from outside Hay, in neighbouring towns.

They told us of physical violence, including punching, hitting, spitting, kicking and sexual assault. They told us their finances are controlled, and that having their home broken into is a regular occurrence.

One told us of historic child sexual abuse at the hands of an uncle.

Trigger warning: Family violence

One woman’s story of surviving an attack that happened while her home town slept, and battling the system to stay safe.

“I started screaming at him ‘You are going to kill me.’ He was in that rage that he didn’t even see the two trucks coming.”