Hi, I’m MEL.
I’m 45.
A creative director.
The founder of Joy Hysteric.
A storyteller.
And a survivor.
For decades, I’ve been untangling the effects of abuse, control and silence.
For a long time, I believed I was the problem. Leaving those relationships was only the beginning — what followed was a much longer road.
After years of running, numbing and denying, in 2025 I finally turned inward and faced the truth of what had happened.
I faced my darkness to find my light.
And I began rebuilding — my mind, my body, my spirit, and my life — from the ground up.
What you see here is the result of that process.
This is a story of healing, strength, and becoming.
My STORY
In my early 20s, I opened my first Joy Hysteric boutique on instinct — without much experience, but with a strong sense of style and the confidence to back it.
What began as a small retail concept quickly grew into something much bigger. From the age of 24 to 33, I poured everything into building the brand — stores, collections, and a community around fashion and personal style.
Those years shaped the creative world I’m still building today.
But behind that success, my personal life felt like a prison.
For years, I was living inside an abusive marriage — though I didn’t recognise it as abuse at the time. I had been conditioned to believe it was normal.
Over the course of ten years, I experienced emotional, racial and financial abuse, along with coercive control. The effects followed me long after I left the relationship in 2013, without a cent to my name.
Looking back, I can see how those earlier beliefs stayed with me.
I accepted things I shouldn’t have.
I minimised what was happening.
I was told I was lucky — that I should be grateful to have someone like him.
It how he had made me feel.
I just couldn’t explain it.
I didn’t understand what I had lived through.
I didn’t know it was abuse.
So I ran.
I built a new life where no one knew me from before.
I told myself I was fine.
I wasn’t.
What I had lived through stayed with me — in how I saw myself, what I believed I deserved, and what I was willing to tolerate.
Seven years later, I found myself in another abusive relationship — this time involving psychological, physical and sexual violence. It ended in an attack that almost killed me.
Even then, I believed I deserved it.
That I was still the problem.
Eventually, with police involvement, I escaped. I became what is formally described as a victim of a violent crime in New South Wales, Australia. Never would I have imagined that would be me.
What followed were years of legal processes — charges, court dates, a guilty plea, victim services, a protection order — and ongoing harassment, stalking and repeated breaches of that order.
All the while, I carried on.
I didn’t speak about it much. It made people uncomfortable.
Even my partner at the time discouraged it — saying it made him “look bad”, telling me to “just have another drink”.
From the outside, I looked fine.
Behind it, I was living with PTSD, anxiety, depression, and periods of substance abuse as I tried to cope with what I had been through.
Like many survivors, I spent years running from the truth of it.
Numbing myself.
Surrounding myself with people and environments that allowed me to avoid facing it fully.
I carried shame, embarrassment and guilt.
I still questioned what was wrong with me — how I could have let myself get there.
I believed I attracted it.
TURNING POINT
At 45, I knew something had to change.
I was tired of feeling tired.
Anxious.
Hopeless.
Lost.
On the morning of June 21, 2025, I decided that was enough.
The night before, I had spiralled over another toxic relationship — a friendship this time — and it became the final turning point. The next day, I cut out everything that felt toxic, including that person.
I removed myself from the chaos I had been living in for so long.
And I began to rebuild.
I booked a therapist. Then a personal trainer.
I started lifting weights.
I stopped drinking.
I ate clean.
I went to breathwork.
I read.
I spent weekends in the gym or at the sauna.
I started writing again.
Slowly, I stopped feeling lost.
I began rebuilding my strength — physically, mentally and emotionally.
I lost 17 kilos along the way.
But the real transformation wasn’t the weight loss.
It was the moment I stopped hiding.
My face.
My voice.
My body.
My personality.
My mind.
For years, I had made myself smaller to survive.
Now I’m learning to take up space again.
NOW
Through this process, I rediscovered what had always been there:
Creativity.
Self-expression.
Identity.
Family.
Fashion.
And the world I’ve been building through Joy Hysteric.
Twenty-five years after I first started, I’m returning to my dreams with a clarity I never had before.
Before the abuse.
Before the doubt that was slowly planted in me.
Before I learned to question my own worth.
Now, I’m becoming the person I was always meant to be.
This platform exists because I wish someone had told my younger self the things I know now.
No one taught me.
These things weren’t spoken about — and they still aren’t, not enough.
I feel compelled to share what I’ve learned — through my experiences, my mistakes, and the empathy that comes from having lived through it.
If my story helps even one person recognise their own strength sooner, then it’s worth telling.
Thank you for being here.
It’s never too late.
— Mel