My arresting officer is now my spirit mum!
After years of abuse as a child, Olivia didn't know life could be anything different. She entered into relationships that continued the violence and abuse. When the police came to check on her one day, she was arrested for drug possession. This time something was different though. Could her arresting officer actually help Olivia out of a life that was so full of hurt?
Transcript
I thought there was always something wrong with me or I'd done something as a tiny little girl for it to happen. Even though it started when I was three, I blamed myself for being abused. I was brought up in foster care from the age of three right through to 13, with a lot of abuse, domestic violence, sexual and emotional abuse.
So I left foster care and moved to my grandparents. Then I was getting abused by my grandparents' elderly neighbour. And it never stopped. I ended up pregnant. So he got done at 57 years old and I was just 15. I left the area thinking, "Ah, yeah. No one will know where I am." My son was four.
I'd been in three, four different domestic violent relationships to the point where my son was holding weapons to try and protect me. First I got on marijuana and that was probably the biggest addiction that I struggled with really. But during that time I got really anorexic. I ended up being 42 kilos at the age of 22. I couldn't hold my own body weight and was on a walking frame.
When I was with my ex, he was under police surveillance, and I hated police. Police would turn up at the house and I'd call them all sorts of things. I'd already had a journey with the police, with my son's dad being in court, and it wasn't handled very well. When police kept knocking on my doorstep because of my ex, I didn't take it very well. This particular day, I'd been held by the throat and then I took my son to school. And I came back and I just smoked the whole house out with bongs, with weed. The police officers come over to do a welfare check on me. And under the Misused Drug Act, they could smell the marijuana. The house got searched and they found my six plants growing out the back.
The police officer that arrested me was actually a Christian. The arrest did not go very well. I was quite nasty to her. But there was always a connection between me and her. She had the presence of God within her and I'd been seeking something different in my life. I said to her, "Oh, well, can I go to church with you one day?" So when I first started going to church with her, I used to hide behind her. And things would be said at church, one was to do with sexual abuse, and I just hid into her and clung onto her.
Over time I think her unconditional love really changed me. Her unconditional love made me start accepting who I was. The end picture I got was Jesus cradling me as a little girl. I am so grateful for the police officer, she's actually my spirit mum. So if I have something going on spiritually or just something in general going on in life, she's always there. She's taught me what my mum should have taught me.
I always say this to her, that I can never thank her enough. If there were men around me, I used to hide. I used to be gone. Doing all this and forgiving myself meant I was able to forgive men. I'm not suicidal. I run programs or help run programs to prevent people from committing suicide, to help people go into what their calling is for the Lord, and just being there for other people. My life now is amazing.