Today’s guest shares her experience of leaving a relationship involving domestic and family violence, the gap between knowing she needed to go and being able to, what held her there, and what the jump actually felt like.

This episode is an honest account of the guest’s experience. If her story lands close to home for you, please know that support is available:

1800RESPECT · 1800 737 732 · 24/7 support for people experiencing family violence and abuse. https://1800respect.org.au/

Lifeline · 13 11 14 · 24/7 crisis support. https://www.lifeline.org.au/

Beyond Blue · 1300 22 4636 · 24/7 mental health support. https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support

13 YARN · 13 92 76 · 24/7 crisis support for First Nations peoples. https://www.13yarn.org.au

Full Stop Australia · 1800 385 578 · 24/7 support for sexual, domestic and family violence. https://fullstop.org.au/

QLife · 1800 184 527 · 3pm–midnight daily · LGBTQ+ peer support and referral. https://qlife.org.au/

If you're listening from outside Australia, please reach out to a crisis or family violence service in your country. The International Association for Suicide Prevention maintains a directory of crisis centres worldwide at https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp, and the Stop Abuse Campaign has an international domestic and family violence resource directory at stopabusecampaign.org. Your life and your safety matter wherever you are.

Today's guest shares her personal experience of navigating legal and family systems. Nothing in this episode is legal advice. If you're in a similar situation, Legal Aid in your state can help.

She Jumped Anyway is a podcast, not a counselling service. While the host has taken every effort to ensure that the episode is trauma informed, Belinda is not a trained therapist.

Send us Fan Mail

She Jumped Anyway is a podcast for all women in all the ways women exist - however you came to yourself. If you've ever stood at the edge of a life that no longer fits, this is for you. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you listen.

Some mornings you wake up feeling like you're on another level of alive. Some mornings the ceiling feels low. Often both happen before lunch.

This episode isn't a sad one. It's a disorienting one, because the fear and the euphoria aren't taking turns...they're simultaneous. That's the vertigo. And it turns out the vertigo is where the interesting stuff lives.

Episode five is about what it actually feels like to be at the beginning of something real. The specific joys that have surprised you. The pattern you've noticed between belief and fear. The people who've gone quiet, and the ones who show up differently than you expected. The grief that's still there...just not the loudest thing anymore.

Everything at once. Mid-air.

I want to hear from you. The highs and the lows and the bizarre thing that made you inexplicably happy this week. Find me on Instagram @shejumpedanyway or send an email to shejumpedanyway@gmail.com. With your permission, I'd love to bring your voice into this show. Because this was never meant to be just my story. And this podcast was never meant to be just mine...I made it for you.

Send us Fan Mail

She Jumped Anyway is a podcast for all women in all the ways women exist - however you came to yourself. If you've ever stood at the edge of a life that no longer fits, this is for you. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you listen.

Four episodes in and I am more scared than I was before I started. I didn't expect that.

Episode five is about what happens when the jump gets bigger than you. When you can see something clearly, something that matters, something real, and you have no idea if you're the person who can build it.

I'm recording this from the middle of my second jump. No resolution. No landing. Just the weight of what I can see, and the exposure of saying it out loud.

Send us Fan Mail

She Jumped Anyway is a podcast for all women in all the ways women exist - however you came to yourself. If you've ever stood at the edge of a life that no longer fits, this is for you. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you listen.