Oh My God: This May Challenge Your Reality

Foreword

In 2004, one of the world’s most renowned exorcists, Bob Larson, held a conference that my wife Alma and I attended. We listened to Bob tell a story about a young man from Australia who had travelled the world looking for every strange, weird religious ceremony that he could find. He then arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, with his film crew asking Bob for an exorcism.

As Bob explained the ceremonies he had observed and been involved in, and the exorcism that followed, I leant over to Alma and said, Bob is going to go to Australia and we’re going with him. I knew these words were prophetic but didn’t realize what God had planned until a few months later.

The young man’s name is John Safran, who made a television series documenting his experiences, which was shown nationally in Australia. The last episode was the exorcism, which attracted a lot of attention and led to Bob receiving many media invitations to come to Australia.

When we all arrived in Australia, through a series of miracles, Bob was interviewed by several media personalities. One of these interviews was with a journalist named Carne. This interview resulted in a private meeting between Bob and Carne regarding his spiritual condition. This is when my wife and I first met Lisa. We were so focussed and interested in helping Carne we hardly noticed the lovely young lady that came with him. Around two weeks later we met with her again. Lisa thought she was meeting us to share a cup of coffee and have some of her questions answered. We thought she was coming for our usual inner healing and deliverance session.

God is full of surprises. After a few hours of healing I recall Lisa saying, This is what I have been looking for my whole life. Lisa’s life has been changed radically by the power of God. Only a few times in a lifetime do we meet someone that we really know this is a very special God thing. Lisa has become one of these people. Now, a few years later, as this book is completed, we can just begin to see God’s plan for her.

Lisa is a very special young lady to us and we know she is very special to God.

It hasn’t been an easy journey. Alma and I, along with Bob and Laura Larson have held her arms up, encouraged her, cried with her, and have had many more sessions with her over the following years. She is truly one of our children in the Lord.

Lisa, your new life is unfolding before you. May you walk into it in the grace, mercy, and blessings of a Mighty God who loves you more than you can ever think or imagine. Our prayers and thoughts will always be with you. You are truly a daughter in the Lord.

– Paul Cooprider

Acknowledgements

David and Rosemarie Searle

By God’s grace I was able to produce the first draft of this book. However, you are the master craftsmen God used over the past years to refine and shape this book as well as my character.

Thank you for your unwavering love and for continuously teaching me God’s Word, and the importance of God’s Word and godly character.

I would not be who I am today without all that you have both, so tirelessly and generously poured into my life and heart.

Paul and Alma Cooprider

Thank you for the lives you both so selflessly live, partnering with God in healing the broken-hearted and setting the captives free. I am still alive today because of this and have been able to turn my life around. However, what exceeds my healing and spiritual freedom is being able to live a life in a relationship with God. This is truly the most precious gift I could receive.

Your love, encouragement and support throughout my entire Christian life have been never-ending. I would not have the life or heart I have today if it wasn’t for all the love, time and ministry you have both so willingly given to me.

Bob and Laura Larson

As the years have passed since I first met you both I have lived a life more peaceful and amazing than I could have ever imagined possible.

This fruit is from your ministry.

Thank you for your willingness to partner with God in loving and restoring the lost and broken-hearted. And thank you for sharing and teaching the truth God has revealed to you within these realms; a truth that ultimately saved my life.

I will never be able to thank you all enough for the lives you have lived which enabled God to use you within my life as He has. It has been an amazing journey with God and all of you over the past several years for which I am truly grateful.

Thank you all so very much.

And a huge thank you to Mum and Dad! I can’t imagine what it has been like to have me as a daughter! However, I am incredibly grateful for your ability to love and support me, regardless of where I’ve been in life.

Thank you for all your support throughout the process of writing this book. I am also very grateful for the time I have been able to spend getting to know you both with a saner head on my shoulders!

Daryl John Edwards

Thank you to my brother who applied all the top shelf Graphic Design and formatting of the text (please note Daryl did not draw the illustrations) but wrote his own acknowledgement, well done Daz!

Thank you to my sister Sandy for the photography. It means a lot to me that I was able to complete areas of work for this book with you.

I would also like to thank my dear friends Vaughan & Angela. Thank you for journeying with me as I have written this book. Your prayers, support and encouragement have been invaluable.

Many thanks also go to my Uncle Gary, Jason Higgins, K&R, Roger and Ann, Catherine, and Lisa for all of your time and feedback in reviewing this book.

Thank you God for the relationships I have been able to have with my Grandpa Charlie & Grandma Dot, and Grandpa Eric & Grandma Peg throughout my life. & I am so thankful for the time I was able to spend with my Grandpa Charlie within the final months of writing this book before he passed away.

I would also like to thank Col for the constant support you provided as I wrote this book!

Finally, I would love to thank all of my friends, family and work colleagues. Thank you to all of you for your time, encouraging words and memories.

Oh My God

Chapter 1

Psycho Psychic

I remember knocking on the door of Louisa the psychic. When she opened her door I gasped as the most pungent stench of fermented cat urine engulfed me. I looked down at my shoes expecting to see my disintegrating nasal hairs falling to the ground from this toxic stench that had besieged me.

Louisa ushered me to a table, in the middle of her living room. This table was identical to the tables I had sat at in primary school. It was a room swamped by Catholic and New Age paraphernalia along with a lot of junk. A Hawaiian lei was draped around the picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall. The sofa had different coloured serviettes covering where your head would rest and cat toys were scattered all over the floor.

Louisa sat opposite me as she pulled her tarot cards out of a cloth. She shuffled them and split them into three uneven piles. After I chose the left hand pile she began to turn over the cards with her gnarled, arthritic hands.

There’s been a break-up in your home, she said, raising her eyes and looking at me.

What do you mean? I asked, refusing to assist her so-called spiritual abilities. I’d moved out from living with Carne more than six months ago, so this wasn’t really true.

In your relationship, she said.

I leaned back in my chair. Yes, I said, slowly nodding, being very aware not to assist her in any way. If she wants to be a psychic then that’s what she would need to be, without my help. Louisa continued to turn more and more cards over. With every card her face contorted as she become more concerned. She took a deep breath and began.

He’s in a lot of pain, not just physical pain, his mind is in a mess. It’s dark. He’s in a bad place, she paused, a bad, bad place. His work doesn’t help. It’s not a good job for him. He talks to different people about different things all the time, but it’s not good for his mind. It keeps his mind too active. And he travels a lot, without notice. He never knows where he will be tomorrow. This doesn’t help him, she said.

Louisa continued to turn over cards. Her face became even more distorted as she looked at the cards. I watched the cards, as I’d spent time in my past reading tarot cards. The tower card, the death card, the devil card were all lying there as Louisa continued to turn more cards over in what appeared to be an attempt to find a card that didn’t have death and destruction attached to it.

He’s cursed, she claimed. It’s passed down from his father. He feels like he has never had anybody there for him. He needed help but his ex-wife just thought he was an arsehole. She didn’t understand. He doesn’t believe that things can be different. He thinks he is doomed because of this curse, that there is no way to be free from it. They’re after him, the gins are after him. Louisa stopped and looked at me. Do you know what the gins are? she asked. That’s what I call the demons, the dark spirits, she answered before I could respond.

They’re attached to him…. he drinks a lot to stop the screaming in his head. He can’t sleep at night because he can see them. When he has nearly fallen asleep they show themselves to him. It’s easier for them to have their way now, because he isn’t in as much control, you see. They wait and he knows it. That’s why he doesn’t sleep. She paused as she turned over more cards.

I was stunned. I had heard a thousand times as Carne reached for the bottle that he needed a drink to stop the screaming in his head. Louisa had just quoted him word for word. And he never slept, maybe three to four hours every second night, but that would be on the sofa with the TV on and turned up loud.

Louisa continued, The gins make him sick and cause him to have accidents. The curse is like voodoo black magic…. yes, it’s like voodoo black magic. This is what caused his son to suffocate… its all part of the curse. He needs an exorcism. He’s in a lot of trouble, in a bad way. It’s the voodoo black magic that’s really got him. She paused, her eyes still darting over the cards. He’s the last one. What the hell was going on here? My well practised poker face was having the workout of a lifetime as I tried not to fall off my chair at her words.

Carne’s grandmother had conceived his father when she was a servant to a royal family in England. Heads of government or royalty from Rhodesia, Africa, had stayed as guests within this castle. I don’t know if she had consented or was raped, yet she conceived Carne’s father, Jake, to one of the Rhodesian guests. She then went to a Catholic convent where she had Jake and left him. There he was raised by the nuns.

Carne had explained once Jake became of age he returned to Rhodesia to avenge his mother. However, Jake became one of the top Police Officers in Rhodesia, where he married Carne’s mother and they had their family.

Around forty years ago, on the eve of a civil riot in Rhodesia, Jake imprisoned both Robert Mugabe and the head of the Tutsis, preventing the death of thousands of men. However this resulted in Mugabe’s voodoo witch doctors kidnapping Jake and cursing him through a blood letting, child sacrificing ritual.

One part of this curse stated that every male in the family line would have to bury his first born son. Jake’s first born son, Carne’s eldest brother, had died. Carne had also buried his only son. Jake had also since died, leaving Carne as the only male left in the family line. When Carne had spoken with me about this I had sympathised with his father, and couldn’t really believe what I was hearing, but I never thought anything more of it.

It’s bad. He needs an exorcism. Louisa’s words cut my thoughts short. He can feel them you know, the gins. They follow him down his hallway. It’s a long hallway. He knows they’re there but when he turns around, they hide. He thinks he’s going mad, she paused. But he knows he isn’t. He needs help. He doesn’t think there’s any hope, no way out. No one can help. He thinks this spell can’t be broken, but it can.

He needs an exorcism, Louisa said again as she glared at me. Get a photo of him and a nail cutting from every toe and finger and put them in a jar, an airtight jar. Then fill it with sea water on a full moon and leave it sealed for fourteen days. This is one way of doing an exorcism…. I had a friend who was like this. She blessed the shower head with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, every time, before she showered and after six months she was cured.

"He’s sick too, hasn’t told anyone but he knows his flesh is rotting. He wants it to be over. He can’t eat much anymore; and his head is in his work too much. This won’t help him." Oh My God! Was this woman ever going to stop? I thought.

First he needs to admit that there is something wrong, she continued. If he starts to do what it takes, initially things will get worse because he’ll get tested but then it will work for him. He needs to get a sacred prayer and read it several times a day. He needs to love. If he can’t love people tell him to get into the bush and love the birds and trees. As the love enters so does the Holy Spirit and the curse will dissolve in His presence. There is nothing more powerful than love.

Louisa looked around the room, Voodoo black magic can’t exist where there is salt, so get sachets of salt and put them in his pockets. Now don’t go to some one who charges $5000.00 to do an exorcism. Some of these people say they need that amount because when they get the spirits out of people they go into them and then they are sick for a week and need to fight it themselves. Don’t pay those people that money, her raised voice sternly stated, as her gnarled finger pointed towards my face.

You also need to be careful because sometimes when people go for an exorcism the gins leave before the exorcism and the exorcist can’t get them. Then a few days later they come back. They are very clever and cunning. I didn’t know what to think. What planet was I on?

Louisa’s eyes gazed down at the cards spread over the table again. He won’t have long to go if he doesn’t fight. The gins are nearly too strong for him now. They want to kill him. That’s all they want. They’re strong powerful ones that are after him. And he doesn’t have any relationships left. The gins got rid of those; he’s alone. Louisa placed her hand at the side of the table and began to push the cards into a pile. As they piled up she asked.

Well that’s it. Is there anything else you want to ask?

Yeah! I said not having heard anything that I would have expected to hear. What about me?

Oh, you’ll be fine, she replied, and that was it. The cards were again wrapped up.

• • • • • •

By the end of 2004 my life had spiralled into a state so far from what it once was, I hardly knew who I was anymore. I looked back at who I had been in my early twenties, so full of life, ready to take on the world, and wondered what had gone so horribly wrong. There is no way, back then, I would have tolerated the life I now had. Within days of 2005 beginning, I clearly saw where the path I was on would end. As this stared me in the face I swore from the bottom of my soul, that in the following year I was going to turn my life around, even if it killed me. I would prefer to die compared with ending up where I was headed.

I knew within a few short years this destructive vortex that consumed me and many areas of my life would position me as the most terrorising inhabitant at the local caravan park. I could see myself uniformed in a terry towelling dress, lording it over everyone with an overbearing, non-negotiable dictatorship on how it was according to me, myself and I. In a state of extreme emotional highs and lows, with grand deluded thoughts accompanying them, no-one would have peace in my presence.

I vowed silently in the depths of my soul that I would change or die, yet someone heard me.

My abusive relationship with Carne had annihilated any sane reality, or rational thought process I’d known. The years before this relationship were laced with reckless, unwise choices that, one by one, like cancer growing in a body, had destroyed who I once was morally and ethically. Bad decision after bad decision accumulated its effect within my life until the scales finally tipped. The seeds of all those destructive, unwise, choices and decisions had taken root and now had control of me.

My thoughts and emotions were like a rusted derelict carriage on a rollercoaster, running at top speed that never stopped. I felt like a lamb staple-gunned to the side of a carriage with its legs cut off. All I could do was endure and survive an out of control life.

Years before, a good friend Kerrie, had ended up in an abusive relationship of her own. I was known for having a strong character and was never shocked or left speechless by anyone, or anything, except for her. Only Kerrie had been able to shock me to such an extent that I was incapable of a response.

I couldn’t conceive how she, of all people, ended up being with someone who would literally break her body again and again. She was always black and blue beneath her clothes. I’d only met Dan once and had instantly wished he had never seen my face. He had over 250 prior convictions, psychotic episodes, was an ex-boxer, a speed-fuelled psychotic drug dealer, to state a few of his attributes, and somehow, Kerrie couldn’t break free from him. I could never understand this, until I lived that reality myself.

Kerrie, with their daughter, once left Dan and landed on my door step. She told me how he had beaten her, broken her bones, and had tried to kill her. My heart went out to her. All I could do was be strong for her and help in any way I could. I welcomed her to stay with me for as long as she needed, so she could deal with her situation and plan for her and her daughter’s future. I told her very clearly that if she went back to Dan that she was not to contact me again. I said this in an attempt to help support her in leaving him. A few days passed, I came home and Kerrie was gone. She had left a note saying that she had taken up residence in a woman’s refuge and thanked me for what I had done for her.

Logical thought and good intentions are ill-equipped to understand or truly walk with someone in an abusive relationship. Common sense can’t be used to make future plans because the relationship would end immediately. The thought of the relationship ending is more devastating than the thought of continuing in it. So you cling to the hope that maybe one day you might be able to have a good future together. An abusive relationship is truly an enigma, an intangible cancer that mentally and emotionally destroys.

You can study how to swim for decades, devote your life to it, but until you’ve actually stepped into the water and swum for yourself you will never know what it is like to exist within that situation. The mix of thoughts and emotions in an abusive relationship that can overwhelm all intellectual knowledge can never be truly understood, unless experienced. You can stand on the side of the pool, with a massive amount of studied knowledge from which you shout instructions as you watch the person drown.

I had dictated terms to Kerrie in a way she could not receive, and now many people were like this with me. Good intentions and qualifications galore, but no one was able to help me. All the qualified counselling I had sought, the rational thought and common sense that friends shared were about as useful to me in my abusive relationship as scuba diving equipment would be to a camel. No matter what I tried, nothing worked.

Years later I heard from Kerrie again. She now had four children with Dan and more stories of abuse that far exceeded what she had first shared. She told me she had done the one thing that would cause him to kill her if she ever returned to him, which sealed her fate; she had to leave Dan permanently. Thankfully this allowed her to re-establish her life without Dan.

Over recent years Kerrie had always been there for me. It seemed she was the only person that had half an idea of what my life was like. She listened and never judged me, but at times when I was being torn apart by such an intense mental and emotional onslaught of abuse, she shared some facts she had to face when she had left Dan.

One day she told me what her hard hitting psychiatrist had relayed to her. As she shared the information on the cycle of abuse I felt that black cloud of confusion being loosened from its strangulating hold on my mind. What Kerrie read to me made perfect sense. Finally I had some answers, some clarity and understanding.

The relief was unbelievable, I saw the cycle through which Carne controlled my life. It was so clear. No longer was I confused and second guessing everything; I’d been through this cycle a hundred times. Finally I could see it for what it was.

Kerrie explained the four stages to me. The first stage was the Explosion. In my experience this is when all hell would break loose, with soul destroying words and actions that literally shredded every part of me as Carne’s fury was unleashed. An exquisite mix of verbal, mental, emotional and physical abuse would undergird his angry, blaming, arguing, threatening and intimidating behaviour towards me.

The next stage was Remorse. This is where Carne would calm down enough to go through the motions of an apology, where flowers with cards saying I can’t live without you, or dinners at expensive restaurants would appear. All the acts of being sorry were laid out, however the words I’m sorry were never heard. Carne would then deny and manipulate me by saying that what had occurred was never as bad as I claimed it to be. This kept me questioning everything that I knew, and unable to resolve any issues.

If Carne had spoken the words I’m sorry that would be an acknowledgement that his words and actions were wrong. Instead I was left questioning and doubting whether it really was my fault, as this was the picture Carne’s words would always paint to me.

Kerrie explained the Honeymoon stage was next. After having been mentally and emotionally beaten black and blue from the explosion, we would be catapulted to extreme highs through the relief of believing we would now have a good future together. The explosion was forgotten. The honeymoon stage was usually accompanied with mind-blowing sex.

Then the Tension Builds stage occurs. All appears to be as it should. Life rolls out appearing to be normal, and is a total relief compared with the prior stages. Conversations are possible and just being together in a sane manner is cherished. However this stage would only last until something triggered Carne or a certain amount of time passed before he would explode again. As even time itself is a factor, the next explosion is inevitable.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing as Kerrie explained the cycle of abuse to me, but I knew exactly what she shared was true. What disturbed me the most was to realise that as time continues to move forward the cycle of abuse will continue at a more rapid rate. When I first met Carne this cycle was ten days to two weeks. Now it was down to three to four days.

Kerrie often said mental and emotional abuse were far worse than the physical abuse. I now knew how true this was. Logic, clarity and rational thought had faded into my past. Eighty percent of my days were spent trying to understand, second guessing myself, after hearing Carne’s twisted presentation of the facts, which always concluded that I was the guilty party and he was the big man, who somehow was able to love me enough to stay with me and all my flaws.

My thoughts had become so twisted I didn’t know up from down. I was emotionally catapulted from a despairing inability to continue in life to euphoric highs where anything was possible. Of course, in our relationship, drugs and alcohol only magnified these states.

The couple of times I was left with bruises on my body, the relief of seeing these black and blue marks was liberating. It was something tangible that existed saying the wrong thing had been done to me. I had become isolated from family and friends, and I was left alone to try to understand. I believed I was often wronged, but my perceptions became twisted because they were constantly under Carne’s attack.

This caused Carne, on his good days, to be the only person left in my life who could understand me or was there for me. A powerful, all-consuming love for Carne had overwhelmed every part of my heart. The thought of a life without Carne was as if I would have to live the rest of my life without my heart. How can someone live like that? Like a robot, breathing and going through the motions of life but being completely dead on the inside.

Even though Carne’s abusive behaviour was often unleashed on me, his life was diabolical. I could go home and wallow in my misery, yet that soul-destroying fury that poured out of him lived in him. He had no escape.

Throughout 2004 I had pushed Carne to seek mental help. After an episode that caused him to be so abhorrent and crazed, I had to call the police to remove him from my home. He had tried to attack them. Days later he awoke, lying in his hallway covered in vomit and urine with no memory of what had happened.

Carne was shocked to hear he had tried to attack the police officer, let alone what may have occurred in the days that followed, of which he had no recollection. I explained that whether he was with me or not, life didn’t have to be like this for him. It just wasn’t meant to be like this. Finally he agreed to get help.

Carne was diagnosed with several conditions. From bi-polar to post traumatic stress disorder (from his kill-or-be-killed army days), clinical depression, the list went on. He was referred to a psychiatrist for treatment.

I was also referred to a psychologist because of what I had gone through in our relationship. This surprised me, but I contacted the psychologist, and Carne contacted the psychiatrist.

Carne pursued this treatment for around four to five months, attending the appointments and taking an array of drugs that were prescribed by the psychiatrist. Personally I never noticed a difference in Carne. However, he said he felt different.

As for me and my mental health, I met with the psychologist every one to two weeks. I think the fifty minute sessions were taken up with my sharing what had occurred between Carne and me and her trying not to react to the bizarre and demented reality that had played out in my life within just a week. It was like a soft cushion to sit on each week, allowing me to talk freely, which may have helped more than I will ever know. However, as for resolving anything, being healed and getting on with my life, that never occurred. Although it may well have been a valuable crutch for my survival at that time.

At the end of the year I couldn’t bring myself to make another appointment with my psychologist for 2005. The thought of sitting there for another year with no change was a prospect I refused to accept. I didn’t want a bandaid or a cushion, or a never ending process. I wanted a solution. I needed to be fixed so I could once again smile and enjoy life. I knew I was broken and such a long way from who I once was. What I had, and had become, I no longer wanted.

So I searched for a hard-hitting psych who had enough guts to stand up and help me sort things out no matter what. Finally I found one. When I first saw him I told him I was not in a good way and that I never used to be like this. I needed someone to bulldoze my brain and sort things out. I needed him just to go for it and not spend the next month pussy-footing around finding my boundaries. I needed him to start in seventh gear and stay in it and I’d tell him if he hit any brick walls he needed to know about.

So we started and, thank God, it was intense. Finally there was someone who spoke the truth regardless of how I felt, someone who would state that Carne’s behaviour was unacceptable, and also would hold me accountable for mine. I wanted to know my faults. I wanted to know what was wrong and why, as I believed that once I knew this, then the healing process could begin. How can you fix something if you don’t know where it’s broken? If the bone in my forearm was broken in ten places, putting a bandaid on my forehead would be pointless. It was time to quit the bulls*** and get real.

However within six to eight weeks, my hard-hitting psychologist told me that I was not mentally ill. He had checked for this and that and there was nothing there to indicate mental illness. He told me until I stopped making the decisions I was making in my life nothing would change and there wasn’t anything more he could do for me. If I needed to talk with him I had his number. However, making another appointment wasn’t an option.

I felt gutted and discarded. I thought, Well Mr. I’m so f***ing fantastic; speaking at this seminar and that seminar, how about trying to help me with what’s causing me to make these decisions, rather than throwing me out on the street with whatever is wrong still being wrong? Unfortunately the mental health professionals I’d seen hadn’t enabled me to move forward in my life in any way.

Carne asked me to go with him to one of his early psychiatrist’s appointments. The psychiatrist discussed with me how I could tell when an episode was starting with Carne. He told me to contact the CAT team (Crisis Assessment & Treatment services), if another episode started.

Within the following weeks Carne turned up at my home, well into his transformation from Carne to psycho killer. A long story short, I called the CAT team as his psychiatrist had asked me to, and they spoke with me and then Carne. I listened to Carne speak with them, nice as pie, Mr Professional. I’m just doing the best I can to cope with her (me). She always perceives situations like this when I can’t agree with what she wants, he told them, totally manipulating the situation. The CAT team then told me I had the problem and it was a relationship issue. I told them I had seen this behaviour before and I knew where it was going but they insisted that I was the one at fault.

Within the hour Carne had thrown me against the kitchen bench which left bruises across my back, screaming that I was never to talk to him about cancer again. Needless to say I hadn’t mentioned cancer or anything similar. He followed me from room to room, trying to intimidate me with his 6’4" stature, trying to bait me with his ceaseless barrage of taunting statements.

Finally I called the police. As I spoke with them, Carne stood in the doorway of my bedroom demanding to know what I was doing. I explained that I was on the phone to the police asking them to come as I’d asked Carne for the past hour to leave but he wouldn’t. The police were there within fifteen minutes, resulting in Carne’s attack switching its focus from me to them. He tried to attack the shorter officer in the lounge room when they were speaking with him. Finally they made Carne remove himself from my home. The officers returned to my home around fifteen minutes later to ask what was wrong with Carne as they were very alarmed and concerned at his behaviour.

I called the CAT team the next morning to let them know what had happened. I probably wanted to vindicate myself, because they had dismissed me as having the problem. However, if this was true why was I the one with the bruises on my body and the police were concerned with Carne, not me? Their response held no accountability or apology. Again I was dismissed, and I felt they didn’t want to acknowledge or have any responsibility for what had occurred.

I tried to support Carne and understand bi-polar disorder by joining a bi-polar support group for partners. A man gave me information there that has been worth its weight in gold. After I had shared about an episode and the abuse that had come my way, he told me that to allow someone to abuse me was not helpful for me or them. If I allowed Carne, or anyone else, to abuse me it would only allow their behaviour to exacerbate. I realised that by staying there when Carne exploded, trying to help was only making things worse.

One day, in my endless quest for understanding, I had a vision of Carne holding the lead of a rabid Rottweiler. I knew the Rottweiler represented his abusive behaviour that would tear people to pieces through his words and actions. As long as Carne chose to hang onto that lead it was inevitable that whoever got close to him would be attacked sooner or later.

If I limped because of a splinter in the sole of my foot, and I never removed the splinter, I would continue to limp. I had to face the fact that Carne’s decision not to continue to deal with his issues by not pursuing his therapy and medication, parallelled the reality that he would still continue to abuse me. I believe he didn’t deliberately choose to, or want to abuse me, but the fact was, as long as he chose not to deal with his problems, I would still be abused.

Once, I was the last person others would have thought to end up as I now was, but there I was, living a life far from anything I’d ever known. I caught up with my good friend Hamish. He kept vampire hours as his income was funded by the nightclub scene. There was no fine china teacups and matching saucers involved in our afternoon teas. Fine lines of cocaine accompanied by shots of tequila were what we shared. Ten years ago, this would have fired me up for four to five hours. However, all it offered now was around thirty minutes of a calmer mind.

Then it was Christmas. The following day was filled with images of the tsunami that devastated Asia. On New Year’s Day, Carne flew to Thailand to cover the disaster. A fortnight later he returned ready to seek and destroy all that was in his path. He hugged me in the airport car park so intensely as we leant against my car I felt as if he was about to have sex with me there and then. This awkwardness ended as the nearby construction workers began to cheer Carne on. Carne shouted back, with that rabid Rottweiler within him about to climb the fence and tear their heads off.

A fortnight of no sleep, constant work pressure, walking on dead bodies and a diet of cigarettes and whisky had returned Carne with Satan in the driver’s seat.

I longed to be with Good Carne. However, he was not on the scene. Bad Carne had taken up residence and was running the show. Carne had two very distinct sides to him, black or white, with nothing in between. Good Carne was the man I loved beyond what I knew was possible. He understood me as no-one else ever had, and was so kind and generous, I would have died for him. Then there was Bad Carne, extracted straight from the heart of hell. Words cannot describe the venom and violence that spewed out of him. Any person in his path was instantly shredded to pieces.

Carne and I returned to his home. I cleaned it, cooked him dinner, gave him a massage and was there to listen if he wanted to talk. I didn’t know how to help. Later that night I found myself sitting in the middle of the lounge room floor as he ranted and raved.

Why are you still here? He screamed. I know why you’re still here. It’s because I’ve got your socks, isn’t it? He then sat on the sofa removing his shoes and my socks, and threw my socks at my face.

To think I thought you were here because you had somehow developed an ability to care. When all along you had ulterior motives…. There, now you have what you came for. Now you can go, Lisa. His words sliced my heart. What am I doing? I thought, when I realised I was waiting for this storm to blow over so I could be with Good Carne again. But what for? It was only a matter of time before I would again have my soul smashed to pieces by this cruelty that spewed out of him.

I stood up, grabbed my keys and handbag and left. As I walked out, the devastation of the tsunami seemed to be ploughing its deadly way through my heart, as I literally felt myself falling to pieces. Again my hopes had been obliterated. As I walked to my car, I knew I had finally left him. Whatever needed to break within me had finally broken. This time was different. It was over. I couldn’t stop crying.

To survive this overwhelming heartache, in the days following, I once again committed myself to a highly disciplined lifestyle that implemented the foundations that in the past had never failed to nurse and re-establish me back into a bearable existence. Eight hours sleep a night, three healthy meals a day, work, go to the gym three to four times a week and have one social outing a week with a good friend would be my life, until once again I was mentally and emotionally healed. In the past, every time I held fast to this routine my desired outcome had been achieved. Here I was again, doing what had worked in the past, waiting for the day when Carne was not my first thought as I awoke.

Around a week after leaving Carne, I became overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety as I drove my car. I’d never had anxiety attacks before. However, from what I’d heard of them, this definitely felt like one. Nothing had happened, nothing at all. I had no idea why this was happening. Then I remembered Kerrie telling me how she had become mentally ill herself from existing within the cycles of her abusive relationship. It was then I realised that it was two to three days past the point where I would have been shot to pieces by one of Carne’s explosions again. Had my thoughts and emotions developed their own cycle to coexist with Carne?

Weeks had passed and I wasn’t getting better. It felt as if a giant ice-cream scoop had hollowed out my torso, removing my heart and everything else within me. How could I live the rest of my life without my heart, without Carne? I felt like a breathing corpse, robotically functioning through every day. I would work hard, pay off my home and be pleasant to people until I died. I could taste this death in every breath. Now I would do in life what would please my parents and friends. However I was dead to all of it.

My thoughts and emotions mirrored the state of metal gears spinning hard against one another with increasing speed as their teeth were sheared off. That high pitched screaming of metal on metal was unbearable within my mind, yet unstoppable.

Over the previous weeks I’d returned to Buddhism, attempting to inject some form of peace back into my life. Every morning I sat in the corner of my room for an hour to meditate. Just to shut my mind down or at least distance myself from it was such a relief. So I grafted this practice into my daily routine in the hope of achieving that elusive peace I’d once known.

Many of my friends were involved with New Age practices. Those who knew what I was going through told me to see this healer, and that oracle or this psychic. Seeing that nothing had improved as I adhered to my standard methods, I decided that within the next fortnight they could all do their thing. They could all have their say, and then I would get on with my life.

After the oracle had spoken with me about frogs, and the Egyptian healer had done her Isis healing, I was at Louisa, the psychic’s home, who had requested payment in packets of cigarettes.

After Louisa had done her thing, I drove home with my mind jumping from thought to thought, unable to fully comprehend anything. I had never considered that Carne’s day-to-day life was anything like Louisa’s words had described. Were his days really like that? Was his moment-to-moment life like this? And as for exorcisms, what the hell was that all about? Some kind of freak show that B grade movies were made from?

All I knew about exorcisms was what I’d watched on the John Safran vs. God episode on TV about six months ago; where a red-headed exorcist from America had performed an exorcism on John. The footage from that episode left me speechless; I had never seen anything like it before. John is not a big strong man, yet it took more than six huge guys to hold him, and his eyes were as black as hell. It was definitely footage that was burnt into my memory. But where the hell did Louisa’s words leave me?

Chapter 2

What the #%$@

Over the following two days, Monday and Tuesday, the face of the red-headed exorcist from the John Safran v’s God series, and Carne’s face haunted me. Never before or since has this happened, however as I sat at my desk at work, on the top of each corner of my computer screen sat their faces, as if someone had cut them out and stuck them there. Like cartoon excerpts, everywhere I went, they were there. On the tram to work, at the café for lunch, their cut out faces were right in front of me, sitting on the top of the seat in front of me, sitting on my coffee cup, no body attached, no facial expressions, no words, just their faces.

Mid Tuesday afternoon arrived and the faces of Carne and the red-headed exorcist were still everywhere I looked. I decided that since drugging Carne, locking him in a suitcase, flying to America and finding the red headed exorcist wasn’t really an option, I would write Carne a letter. I shared what Louisa the psychic had said. It was the only thing I could think of doing to try and extricate myself from this situation.

I wrote about the curses and afflictions Louisa had spelt out that Carne lived with. I said I knew some were true from what he had shared with me, but as for the rest, only Carne would know if there was any truth to them or not. I told Carne that if his day to day life was anything like Louisa said it was, I never knew, and if one day he decided to really deal with it, maybe I could be a friend to him in the process.

I walked to the letterbox late Tuesday evening to post the letter. I hadn’t had any contact with Carne for around five weeks. As I heard the letter hit the bottom of the letterbox I wondered whether he would receive it the following evening or Thursday morning, and if his reaction would find its way to me. I felt relieved as I walked home, the whirlwind of thoughts concerning Carne lifted from my mind, and as for Carne and the red-headed exorcist’s faces, they too were gone, just like that. They were no longer there.

I poured my standard vodka, one third vodka, one freshly squeezed lemon and two thirds lemonade. I sat with my cousin Jane, with whom I lived, and shared the latest update on Carne and me. Jane had been pulled from pillar to post as she had supported me through my relationship with Carne. Looking back I’m amazed she didn’t go out of her mind. To follow the commentary on our relationship must have required the intellect of someone who engages with one schizophrenic ward after another, after another.

The following morning I sat at work no longer haunted by Carne and the red-headed exorcist’s faces sitting on the top of my computer screen or anywhere I looked. I was relieved to return to my choreographed week in an attempt to get my life back on track.

Then at 10:15am I received a text on my mobile phone. It read:

In case you