“ I was born in Greensborough in the outskirts of Melbourne and grew up in a place called Diamond Creek. I had a Mum and a Dad and a Transgender sister. I grew up with Jason who became Sonja at 40 so I gained a sister. That was amazing and we’re very close.
My Dad was very violent. He has a Doctorate in pure Mathematics so he has this amazing brain but he’s mentally unstable. He doesn’t know where I live. He’s not allowed any contact with us. My name on social media is different and I feel safe doing this interview. My father was very violent with my mum and my sister. He was a full blown Narcissist, as bad as you can get. He was scary. I was very well protected by my mum and my sister. He used to wake me up regularly to tell me he was going to commit suicide. He’d say it was Mum’s fault or my sister’s fault. On Christmas eve he woke me up to tell me he wouldn’t be there in the morning, he’d be dead. That was my whole childhood.
I was always very well behaved because I was scared if I did anything wrong, then my family would cop it or that he would die. I still have this fear now that if I do the wrong thing, someone I love could die. I work a lot on it but it’s there. Within all of that he would take me to art galleries, he did Aikido, he meditated every night. He’d take me to Acupuncture and the therapist would explain what Acupuncture was. He taught me that Indigenous people were the first and most important people. He was this unusual figure in my life. So amid all this horror he gave me a great education. My solace was dancing. I was lucky I was born with a sunny disposition. I seem to be able to get through things easily.
At 15 my mum finally left him. That’s when it got really dangerous. We had the house and one night all Mum’s friends were telling us to get out of the house because they feared he would come and murder us. My Mum stayed, my sister took the night off work. I slept with my Mum and we had deadlocks on all the doors. 3am in the morning we woke up with my dad sitting on the bed. It was the scariest thing and sent shivers down my spine. How the hell did this man get in? He said this time I am going to put my head in an oven and this time it’s your fault Sally. I just sat up and said. F#@king do it, just go and do it. I never want to see you again. I was so strong and he left. I was 15 and I think that strength I found at that minute has carried me through. He disappeared and we didn’t see him for a very long time after that which was really good.
I became really sick and was hospitalised with Glandular Fever after that. I think it was stress and unprocessed emotions. My friend was going to France as an exchange student. I needed a change and my Mum probably needed some time. Mum never ever hit me, never told me off. She was loving. With all that violence she was beyond incredible. She copped everything to protect me as did my sister.
I went to France for a year on exchange with this French/Spanish family when I was 17. It was awesome. There was 5 kids and the parents. They were dirt poor. I had the most spectacular year there and learnt fluent French. I went to Spain with them. They are all still very dear to my heart. I came back and finished Year 12.
I started TV acting and did lots and lots of commercials. I did modelling which I wasn’t really into but I loved acting. I did an audition for Neighbours and didn’t hear back so went travelling. I came up the East Coast, learnt fire twirling and shaved my head. I travelled alone and ended up blockading in a place called Goolengook in East Gippsland. I had this amazing time and fell in love with the beautiful old growth forest there. It blew my mind what was happening to the earth. That was sort of the beginning of ‘Climate Change’ It was kind of a dirty word back then. I was reading David Suzuki and people were telling me I was over reacting. I didn’t feel like I wanted to do acting anymore. I felt like I wanted to be an activist.
I got a phone call from Neighbours who had seen my audition tape and wanted me to do a couple of episodes which I did and then went back to blockading. They called again as they loved it and had written me into the show for a few months. It was a great experience. My character’s name on the show was Sally which is my real name so when I was in the street and hear… Sally! I’d look around and it was a stranger. I hated it. I realised I didn’t want to go down that road. I’ve got a big personality but I’m quite private so that took years to wear off. I was on 2 or 3 episodes a week for about 6 months so it was a decent stint. The day I finished I shaved my hair off again and flew to Jabiluka. I thought, Hooray, no-one will know me up there. I went to the shops and this woman said, Hey, you’re that girl on neighbours. Aaaaarrrrrggghh (laughs).
I fell pregnant very fast with a fellow I hardly knew. I was young and wild. I had my beautiful big boy Lorien who is now nearly 20. I had him here in the Northern Rivers in Rosebank. He came naturally before the midwife arrived. His dad got there just in time to deliver him. We totally free birthed our boy. We’d been together for 3 months when I fell pregnant. I decided to keep the baby. Our relationship from beginning to end was only about a year so I was 23 and a single mum.”