As he strangled her, he said ‘I will end you’. So why is Amanda the one living with shame?

As a competitive triathlete, it was not uncommon for strategic financial adviser Amanda Thompson to find herself covered in bruises, though “nothing that looked unusual”.

But the florid marks on her neck in 2023 were unmistakable. They showed up red, but turned into dark shadows where her then-partner’s hands had been.

“There was no hiding what happened to me,” says Thompson, an author on women’s financial fitness and a mother of two daughters.

“I woke up the next day with a closed-over eye and clumps of hair missing. My [younger, then 17-year-old] daughter and I watched the bruising coming out as hand-prints around my throat.

“I remember her coming to me and taking the weight of the world, my little girl, just saying, ‘It’s OK Mum, I’m here.’ That is not her responsibility to bear.”

The details of the night Thompson’s world imploded after she decided to exit a relationship she realised had isolated and controlled her are vivid and terrifying.

“I was dragged up the stairs by my hair several times – one hunk would fall out, then another one was grabbed,” she says.

“Then I found him on top of me with his hands around my neck. The words that will ring in my mind forever are, ‘I’m going to end you.’”

Thompson remains mortified that she lost control of her bladder during the attack, and that two young policemen and paramedics saw the aftermath.

Despite the shame she cannot yet shake, and despite losing her sporting life to harm from lasting damage in her throat and clotting in her lungs caused by strangulation, Thompson says she feels fortunate.

At least she could get to her phone and dial Triple 0 during the only episode of extreme physical violence from her ex. At least she survived, and she was immediately believed by police. At least she was financially secure enough to have intensive counselling.

But long after the external evidence faded, Thompson, now 50, is still struggling with stubborn guilt that this happened to her. She is also still wary enough to choose the location for this masthead’s photoshoot in an undefinable place.

The perpetrator pleaded guilty to three family violence charges and has moved interstate, but the traces of her trauma are very much still here. She describes recovering from such an attack as also “brutal”.

It is because she wants the horrific experience to mean something that Thompson has chosen to speak publicly at Safe Steps’ annual candlelight vigil to remember lives lost to events like the one she survived.

She is resolved to spread the message that family violence can affect anyone, and women should not feel ashamed to ask for help. But even so, on the two occasions Thompson has previously attended the Treasury Gardens memorial vigil and stood quietly at the rear, she couldn’t eat all day because she felt sick with emotion beforehand.

In the same year Thompson thought her partner might kill her, 58 women lost their lives by domestic homicide – now referred to as femicide – in Australia, according to federal government statistics.

After a sharp upswing in femicides in early 2024, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared violence against women a “national crisis”. The federal government held a rapid review into prevention approaches to the escalating incidence rates.

But rates of violence continue to climb. According to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, released last month, 2024-25 had the highest national family and domestic violence offender rates since records began in 2019-20. There were 97,800 family and domestic violence offenders in 2024-25.

Samantha Hall, ABS head of crime and justice statistics, said offender rates had risen 8 per cent in a year, from about 90,700 offenders in 2023-24. This was also the largest annual increase in FDV offenders since national reporting began in 2019.

Suzanne Paynter, group director of Safe Steps, Victoria’s 24/7 family violence crisis response centre, says calls for support by those experiencing family violence grew 17 per cent year-on-year in 2024-25, increasing to about 130,000 contacts in the 2025 financial year.

Violent attitudes towards women shared on wide-reaching “manosphere” platforms and violent pornography were coming through in help line calls as factors driving the harm against increasing numbers of women, Paynter said.

The Victorian Crime Statistics Agency’s most recent family violence data, in December 2025, also showed an all-time high of 106,430 incidents in 2024-25.

Increased use of non-fatal strangulation during sex was also driving up help-seeking calls.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare notes that both non-fatal strangulation and separation are common precursors to many domestic homicides, the most common form of homicide in Australia. One woman was murdered by an intimate partner every 11 days in 2024-25.

Paynter says economic uncertainty is adding to present risk.

“Micaela Cronin [the national family, domestic and sexual violence commissioner] just put out a statement in which she flags global uncertainty also creating heightened risk for domestic and family violence, we know this financial stress, contributing to housing insecurity, and fuel insecurity place stressors onto the home,” said Paynter.

“We often see such stressors translated into [violence] trends after these occur.”

On the eve of Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month, May, and of the Family Violence Remembrance Day vigil, Amanda Thompson wants others to know about the long tail of harm, the ongoing impact on those around the victim-survivor and that such events can happen to anyone.

“I am like so many others, there is nothing unique about me, or about my relationship that caused it to end like it did,” she says. “I could be your sister, your aunty, your best friend or your neighbour.”

When she steps up at the May 6 vigil, “I hope people see a smart, successful woman standing up there, who seems to have everything together. But it still happened to me.”

Thompson wants those around women at risk to “listen with belief”. Her wish for survivors is to “overcome the shame you feel”.

“Try to feel strong enough to share [what is happening] with even one other person, a counsellor or a doctor. You should not feel alone, and that shame is not yours to carry.”

• Vigils to mark remembrance day for those who have lost their lives to family violence include events in Sydney on May 6 at 1pm at High Cross Park in Randwick and at 5pm at Kogarah Town Square.

If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636, or Victoria’s 24/7 service Safe Steps (1800 015 188).