'You name it, Monique's gone through it': Saved from a life of chaos

Monique returned to Broadmeadows "We had nothing, literally nothing. "It's like the house of f***ing horrors," Monique mutters as she stands in front of the bleak 70s-style double-storey unit she lived in with her drug-addled step-mother and terrifyingly violent father. "It wasn't until I had had that for a year and I knew it wasn't going anywhere that I felt, okay, this is normal," Monique said. "She would cry, carry on, wouldn't get out of the car, would be in hysterics, didn't want to see him, didn't want to go to her dad's, but it was court ordered and I had to do it," Mel said. That's why I don't want people to feel sorry for me," Monique said.