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Unpacking the past

By the time Tarese found out about Destiny Haven, it was almost too late. 

“My life was feeling pretty hopeless,” Tarese explains. “I was experiencing severe depression, anxiety, and what I later discovered was complex PTSD from childhood trauma. I was stuck in a vicious cycle of disordered eating, self-harm, and ending up in hospital from overdoses. I was so unhappy and I didn’t know how to make any of it better. I felt like my only way out was to end it all.”

One of Tarese’s case workers heard Janine and Lewis speak at a conference, so he told her about Destiny Haven. 

“I knew that if I didn’t get help that I wouldn’t be alive for much longer,” Tarese admits, “so I applied and two weeks later I flew from Queensland to New South Wales and entered the program.”

Destiny Haven literally saved Tarese’s life.

“The program helped me unpack my life and understand what was really going on underneath all the symptoms,” Tarese shares. “I was able to understand that a lot of it had to do with trauma. I was able to develop different coping skills and begin to heal the brokenness.”

For Tarese, the environment at Destiny felt so different to anything she had experienced in a hospital. 

“I knew that the staff cared and that they actually wanted to see the best for us Diamonds,” Tarese explains. “It’s amazing the difference it makes when you know someone cares. The other thing that was helpful was that the program went beyond treating just the symptoms and looked at the underlying causes. You cannot fix brokenness by simply treating symptoms. You have to heal the actual cause.”

It hasn’t been an easy journey. Tarese admits that sometimes it felt almost too hard just to stay one more day.

“There were feelings I’d spent so long numbing, and I didn’t love the process of beginning to feel some of those things again,” Tarese explains. “And being unable to go back to self-harm, disordered eating or overdosing as a way to escape—and having to learn new ways of experiencing and getting through those emotions—was not easy.”

Tarese has slowly learnt to take it a day, or even an hour, at a time. Since finishing the program, she has gone on to finish a Diploma in Fashion Design and Technology, a Diploma in Business Leadership and Management, and a Masters in Counselling. 

“I have done work in both fashion and counselling, but also continue to advocate and share my story with the world whilst creating gowns in my spare time!” Tarese says. “I have also been exploring sharing others’ stories through film.”

The time Tarese spent at Destiny Haven has changed her.

“I now know that I am loved, valued and cared about,” Tarese says. “I know that I have a place in this world, I have a voice and a choice, and I know that I matter.”

Tarese has been equipped with the tools and skills she needs to navigate through the tough seasons in life. Not only this, but her faith in God has given her a new purpose.

“Life can feel pretty meaningless and empty without some kind of purpose or meaning beyond me. So to have meaning and purpose and be connected with the source of it all helps keep me going.”

From Self-Harm to Self-Worth

Casey’s life consisted mostly of mental health wards for seven years prior to her ending up at Destiny Haven.

“The year before Destiny, I began cutting so deep I required surgeries to repair the damage I had done,” Casey shares. “I had doctors tell me if I didn’t stop self-harming I was going to lose my right arm. The skin was so damaged from the thousands of stitches I had received that it was beginning to become extremely difficult for the doctors to get sutures through, they became concerned the skin would die and no longer heal. I honestly couldn’t have cared at that point. I responded to them and said, ‘I don’t care, you can take my arm now. I won’t need it when I’m dead.’ I was so sure that I wasn’t going to survive. I was determined to end my life and be done with it. I didn’t want life, it was too hard and I just couldn’t seem to get it ‘right’.”

In 2017, Casey was staying on her parents’ farm in Dorrigo when she reached rock bottom. She had recently been discharged from a third surgery to repair tendons in her arm. 

“I told God that I couldn’t do this life anymore,” Casey says. “I told Him my plans to end my life—how I was going to do it, where, when, everything and said I would follow through unless something changed. I then couldn’t shake the feeling I needed to go to a church called Lifehouse in Coffs Harbour.”

At that point Casey barely spoke to anyone, so she sent a text message to her mum—who was in another room in the house—asking her to take her to this particular church. While there, Casey was introduced to one of the pastors, who asked what she had done to her arm that was in a cast.

“I am not one to beat around the bush,” Casey says, “So I told her I cut it with a scalpel.”

The pastor told Casey about a place called Destiny Haven that her friends operated. Casey listened politely, but she had no intention of doing anything about it. By this point she had already experienced hundreds of admissions to mental health facilities, both voluntary and involuntary, and had received 12 rounds of electric shock therapy.

“However, curiosity got the better of me and I Googled it that evening,” Casey explains. “I read every single word available on the website on every single page. I then printed an application and completed it. It took me many hours as I was writing left-handed due to the cast (I’m normally right-handed).”

Initially, Casey’s application for Destiny Haven was rejected because she was deemed ‘too difficult.’

“I couldn’t blame them, because on paper I looked terrible,” Casey admits.

But Casey was deeply disappointed. She ended up at the Dorrigo hospital, where she shared with the doctor on call about being rejected by Destiny Haven. It turned out that this particular GP had been the doctor for Destiny Haven when it first opened.

“He told me he would call Janine and talk to her,” Casey says. “Following a phone interview with Janine, I was accepted into Destiny Haven under strict instructions that if I did anything that hinted toward self-harm I would be discharged and I wouldn’t be given any second chances.”

Casey agreed.

“It was an extremely hard journey,” Casey shares. “I struggled with many aspects, especially living in a community with people 24/7. I think for me the fact Destiny Haven is a working program really helped. I like to be busy, and so having different jobs throughout the day was really helpful. Also learning to recognise and process feelings helped.”

Fast forward six years—Casey has come so far that she now works full-time at Destiny Haven.

“I head up the chocolate kitchen, I oversee the marketing of the Diamond Collection, I do the accounts for Destiny, I am Janine’s second, I run groups with the women in the program, I do case management with some of the women in the program, amongst many other things,” Casey explains. “Faith has been a massive part of my journey. Learning God’s truth for what it really is and developing a personal deep relationship with God. I have learnt that I am valued and I am not a failure at life.”

Learning to let go

In 2014, Karen’s life changed in an instant. She was out driving on a normal day, when she approached a green traffic light. It turned amber just as she was passing through it, so she was driving safely and obeying all laws.

But a young girl ran out in front of Karen’s car, against the lights, and Karen’s car struck her. The girl died at the scene.

It was proven that Karen had done nothing wrong. All the witnesses said the same thing – she hadn’t run the red light, she hadn’t been speeding, it was an accident beyond her control. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a horrific situation to face.

Karen remembers, “I thought I was doing well, and coping, but I wasn’t. I hid. I pretended everything was ok, but it was far from it.”

Karen’s life began to spiral. Her marriage broke down. She and her two sons, aged 16 and 11, ended up living in and out of hotels. And then she turned to drugs.

Karen says, “Heroin took over my life. I told myself I would never become ‘that’ person but before I knew it, I was doing things I said I would never do. I ran drugs. I became a person who just cared about the next hit.”

Heroin addiction is extremely difficult to escape, because withdrawal, known as ‘heroin sickness’ is torturous. Karen recalls, “You do anything not to get sick – heroin sickness just kills you. Every fibre of your being hurts. My eyeballs hurt! I needed drugs and I didn’t care how I got my next fix. I got caught in a web of lies and deceit.”

Over four years, Karen’s heroin addiction escalated to the point where she was spending $500 a day on drugs.

She knew she was in a serious situation. “I needed help. If I didn’t get help I would be dead – that was the road I was heading down.” Karen also knew that without a major change, she might never be able to see her kids again.

Desperate, she reached out to a long-time friend and pastor named Jason. Jason took action straight away, and researched a suitable rehab location for Karen, and he found Destiny Haven.

When Karen arrived at Destiny Haven, like many of the women who come here, she found following the rules challenging. She struggled with the lack of control she now had over her life each day, as she was thrown into different forms of therapy, communal living, and working in Destiny’s social enterprises.

But she also experienced unconditional love, and after years of hating herself and being unable to move beyond her past traumas, this love, combined with all the practical support she was given to learn to manage her feelings and behaviours, was transformative.

At Destiny Haven, Karen has learned, “I am a lot stronger within than I thought, but it’s ok to ask for help. It’s ok to be vulnerable. It’s ok to feel. I am learning to feel.”

She has also been able to discover a firm and flourishing faith in God, saying, “God is my number 1 thing that keeps me going. If I didn’t have God in my life, I don’t think I could have done this. I now know whose I am and who I belong to. I am a daughter of the Most High King.

“I now believe and know that nothing can separate me from the love of God. Knowing what Jesus did on the cross for me is massive! It blows my mind.”

Karen is now graduating from Destiny Haven, equipped with the tools she needs to face whatever life throws at her next. She’ll be making a slow transition back to family life, and wants to pursue her photography business and do a chaplaincy course. She’ll also be volunteering at Destiny Haven each week to keep in touch with our supportive community and offer encouragement to future women like her who come through our doors.

Karen has found a level of peace and joy she never thought possible, and she says, “My past is in the past. The best is yet to come. My journey isn’t over. God is with me every step of the way. God’s got this!”

Finding loving family

Meltem lived with 27 different foster families before she turned 17.

“I was born into a very dysfunctional family,” Meltem explains. “My birth parents struggled heavily with substance abuse. My biological father was extremely abusive toward my mum, and we were witnesses to his actions, often hiding behind the lounge holding each other trying to block out the harmful sounds.”

Moving around so often was deeply unsettling for Meltem. School was a struggle because she was treated like an outcast.

“With all the disruptions and instability growing up, I truly believed that I could never be someone of value,” Meltem admits. “My introduction to ‘love’ was learning that to get what I needed, I had to give in unhealthy ways. If I ever misbehaved, love was taken away. This was a cycle that had followed me for a very long time.”

After Meltem was moved to a Christian foster family where she was shown a different way of life, for once life looked a little bit different.

“I made a good friend at school and I soon learned to trust him,” Meltem shares. “As he finished school we continued to stay close through youth group and church. I told him my life story and he was the first to believe me. He embraced me and said he was committed to loving me for the rest of his life.”

Engaged at 18 and married at 19, Meltem fully believed that she was leaving her traumatic childhood behind her. But she was plagued with flashbacks that started to sabotage her marriage.

“I thought all that I had gone through would be put behind me,” Meltem admits. “But in fact it was a different story. We struggled incredibly and clashed in a lot of ways, often not knowing why.”

After six years of marriage Meltem walked out.

“I believed I was trash and so I should have been treated like that. But he was determined to love me anyway. I just wished he had married someone pure and better than me and this was tormenting me, because deep down I just wanted to live a beautiful life with him.”

Meltem had been working in the Out of Home Care sector for foster children, attempting to distract herself from her own issues. When she lost that job, she found herself overwhelmed with anger, bitterness and resentment.

All of a sudden Meltem found herself numbing the pain with substances that in the past she had dared not touch, having seen the damage it had done to her birth family.

“This path I found myself on escalated to a point in which it seemed I could not recover from it,” Meltem says. “I got to a point where I had nothing left in me. I was just dead inside and out, suffocating a slow and painful death. It was time to stop running and get help.”

Meltem’s friend Anita, a youth worker, ended up dropping Meltem at Destiny Haven. At the time Meltem hated her for doing so—but deep down she knew that Anita loved her.

Destiny Haven saved Meltem’s life.

“It was a safe haven for me. I didn’t have to be afraid to evolve into my true self, I didn’t have to hide anymore. They wanted to meet the true Meltem underneath all the pain, they supported me and gave me space to trust in the process.”

For Meltem, the tools she has been taught at Destiny have been life changing. So has her encounter with God.

“I began to recognise my wrong beliefs and challenge them with the truth, what He says about me and who He made me to be,” Meltem explains. “My heart began to soften and I could see this place as my first home where I would walk in as a little girl and walk out a courageous woman.”

Meltem is now navigating married life in a new way. She is back working in the Out of Home Care Sector, bringing light and hope to young people—but from a healed place now.

“My goals are to move into a team leader role and the organisation is helping me achieve my goals,” Meltem says. “I am not far off completing my Diploma of Community Services with the support of Destiny Haven letting me do work placement and complete assessments with them. I also volunteer at Destiny Haven, as I hope to be an example of what life looks like walking with Jesus in a much more healed state of mind.”

From mess to blessed

Before she came to Destiny Haven, Lucy describes her life as “A wreck. Chaotic, messy, miserable.”

Lucy experienced significant trauma in her past, especially when her dad took his own life. She had become trapped in addiction and an extremely unhealthy lifestyle that was threatening her future.

“I was in bondage to many different people, places and things. I spent years wanting to die and I partook in many different risk taking and self-sabotaging behaviours as a result. I didn’t know how to regulate my emotions, I lacked life skills and my relationships with my family and friends were broken,” Lucy remembers.

Lucy did know someone who had come to Destiny Haven in the past, and her mum suggested it might be a good idea that she come too.

So, Lucy packed up her life and moved to Destiny Haven.

While she found some aspects of her time at Destiny challenging, overall Lucy found that Destiny was exactly what she needed. She particularly found the family home environment created by Janine and Lewis lifechanging.

“I always felt I missed a chunk of valuable years in my teenage years due to addictions and mental health but Destiny as a family really gave those years back to me,” Lucy explains. They allowed me to become innocent, safe and protected again all while teaching me how to mature through the privilege of being trusted with responsibilities within the community.”

Lucy describes the therapy she received at Destiny as “Spirit-led, intimate” and giving her “an extremely vast range of tools and resources” to work through her past trauma and addictions.

But ultimately, she says it was being supported to develop a relationship with God that truly transformed her life.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the leaders who were able to express and embody the love, truth and comfort of the Lord. I was taught how to and encouraged to cultivate my own relationship with God, to the extent that I had a confidence that if I had nobody else in the world to help me, He would be enough. The most valuable thing Destiny gave me was me learning how to have a relationship with God, how to hear his voice and how to have a relationship with his Word.”

Lucy says her love for Jesus will continue to keep her going, and her church community at C3 New Life Heatherbrae. She’s now pursuing YWAM’s Discipleship Training School, a six-month, two-part program designed to help Christians grow in their faith and outreach.

Please join us in praying for Lucy as she takes this wonderful step and continues in her transformative relationship with God!