Poet Daniella Djibidjee Rochford, a proud Bardi, Yawuru, Jaru, Bunaba and Ngarluma woman, was born and raised in Broome, Western Australia. A child sexual assault survivor and advocate for the safety and protection of children, she has found healing by expressing herself through poetry.

"Once I felt comfortable to open up about my trauma it felt as if a whole lot of weight was lifted from my shoulders, the feeling was emancipating and the shackles of shame disappeared, I felt free from a past of pain and torment," she told National Indigenous Times.

After her first poem made headlines in 2014, Ms Rochford made a promise to herself to use her talent to raise awareness for suicide prevention, mental health, and child protection - "because of what I had gone through," she said.

Ms Rochford grew up in a rough neighbourhood and a broken home but school was her refuge. She had a keen interest in writing and became an avid learner, although she never imagined that she would become a poet.

Her academic successes at school gave her confidence and she began to realise "I'm doing this not only for myself but to show my people that you can accomplish anything in life".

Ms Rochford said her mother "grew up in a Broome orphanage, she was taken at the age of two with her two sisters and she wasn't let out until she was 17".

"She was in the orphanage for fifteen years and during those fifteen years her father died when she was three years old and her mother died four years later. So when she was set free from the orphanage, she had no parents to go home to it was very traumatic," she said.

Ms Rochford said that the conditions of the boarding school meant that her mother was never shown affection and the nuns and/or priests would often physically and psychologically abuse the children who were residents.

Reflecting on her childhood, she said her mother had a hard time breaking the cycle of abuse she experienced, however this was something that Ms Rochford who is now a mother and grandmother, was determined to conquer.

"I showed my kids affection and always told them that I loved them," she said.

Ms Rochford was in her twenties when her mother found Christianity, which she said changed her mothers life for the better.

"It was just very traumatic for us growing up as kids but I believe that my mum is a beautiful person, she just didn't know how to relay that kind of love," she said.

Ms Rochford said her grandparents on her mother's side were devout Catholics and were very loving people.

"They came from very traditional loving families. They just had their children taken away from them, which is very, very sad.

"They were basically broken, that's why I wrote this poem. Unbroken survivor."

The poem that Ms Rochford refers to was written as a part of her healing journey as survivor of child sexual assault, however she chose not to publish the poem until her perpetrator had passed away.

Ms Rochford said the alleged perpetrator was a non-Indigenous person who had married into her family.

"I think that he took full advantage of the vulnerability of children and when it comes to child predators, they use sweet talk as methods of grooming," she said.

"I'm unbroken. He didn't defeat me."

The poem comes as precursor to her book 'Unbroken Survivor' which she is currently writing and is hopeful to have finished by the end of the year.

She said the assault took place when she was eight years old.

"I was even crying and saying I want to go back to my mum and it was very intimidating. I just had this overwhelming feeling of fear and confusion because I didn't know what was going on. It didn't feel normal," she said.

"Even at the age of eight, you know that it's not normal. Why is an adult telling you to be quiet? So your parent can't hear you.

"I didn't tell my mum until I was 25 years old. The reason why I didn't tell her is because I was scared. I was ashamed of myself."

Ms Rochford described the shame she felt as a teenager, saying that she was withdrawn at home and the only environment where she felt she could be herself was at school. Which she then said is perhaps why she excelled with her learning.

"At school, I could hide all those emotions. I was too busy being distracted," she said.

Ms Rochford said there were times when she would want to tell her mother but was unable to: "It was very hard for me to talk about when I first come out about it."

Once she did, her mother supported her and wanted to confront the perpetrator.

"I said, well, what's that gonna do? The damage has been done," she said.

"Unfortunately, my brother took the wrong path when it comes to dealing with trauma. He drank his life away. He passed away four years ago and he passed away because he damaged his liver and his spleen. He damaged everything because he didn't know how to deal with trauma, he didn't know how to cope. He really didn't. He just drank his life away. He became an alcoholic at a very young age."

Referencing the high rates of suicide in First Nations communities, Ms Rochford said that people take this path because they don't know how to talk about trauma.

"I think this is one of the most important issues that needs to be addressed within the communities, because how are we going to have the next generation if they're all dying off because of this trauma, it's very heartbreaking," she said.

"I thought to myself, well, I just want to do whatever I can to help people to come out and start the healing process because if they don't, then they're always going to be stuck in their cocoon. And we don't want that, we don't want people to stereotype us, without looking at what trauma we've been through.

"The effects of generational trauma, especially coming from the stolen generation, that's still here today. When people say get over it, it's not a very easy task to accomplish for those struggling with trauma based addictions.

Ms Rochford said the impact of colonisation is still felt within communities, "because one thing that people need to realise we can never be completely healed".

"We need to help our people to think positive. Even though they're going through their pain. We need them to think positive, make steps towards healing and not be negative," she said.

"Jacinta Price's comments were very negative and very untrue. You know, that part when she said we've got running water? We had running water back then without pipes or anything. We were survivors, man, you know we come from nomadic warriors. So it's not as if we didn't know how to survive.

"The way forward for our people is to continue upbuilding one another to stand otgether so that we can show the world that we are still a strong nation.

"I found that this referendum has brought out too much racism and stereotypical comments on social media platform to our people.

"She's just not making it easy for any of our countrymen to move forward or get past their trauma. She's making it even more difficult by adding salt to the wounds."

As poetry has assisted with her own healing process, Ms Rochford has become an advocate for using the artform for self-expression and an essential component of trauma recovery. She described how using poetry enables you to release emotions that might be hard to physically speak about.

Her advice to others who are healing from trauma, is to write it down - "that's what helped me towards my healing. I just write everything that I'm feeling, I write it and I put it into poetry and expressive writing, it's like a release".

"For me when I started writing poetry, it was like me putting all my pain on paper and it was getting all my emotions out and just kind of like getting rid of all that pain. It just made me feel so emancipated, no longer enslaved to the shackles of my pain.

"Every day I wake up, and I have a cup of coffee and I write something even if it's just four or five words, I write it down. You know, it's emancipating."

Ms Rochford said that although her youth was marred which challenges even at a young age "my mindset was so strong, and my mind was so powerful".

She said that even though her mother was dealing with her own trauma, she believes she was a strong person because she always made sure her children had three meals a day and "she always made sure that we had a roof over our head and our house was clean".

"She basically raised us, the way the nuns raised them."

Ms Rochford describes the impact this had on her, particularly when she became a parent. She admits that she became overprotective with her own children and this caused misunderstandings with her now ex-husband who she was married to at the time.

Her children weren't allowed to have sleepovers at other people's homes for example and her ex-husband "didn't know how to cope with that, because it didn't happen to him", and her children didn't understand either.

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Unbroken Survivor

I used to think

what good am I broken?

only now I have spoken

about tales of my rape

only now have I found

my voice to escape

from scars hidden

behind layers of scars

scars from my past

that I've kept in the dark

of battering bruises

and tight choking nooses

only now I found courage

to expose my abuser

Who can understand there are nights I can't sleep?

Who can understand I fight daily with that creep?

Who can understand I fight wars that don't cease?

Who can understand my demons come in fleets?

over and over I battled with my head

there were days I felt worthless

even cried in my bed

I kept telling myself I am beautiful

and my heart matters most

but my past kept on haunting me

like an unwanted ghost

every day I looked at my children

and found strength to survive

I couldn't forgive myself

if I took my own life

so in order to find happiness

I took control of my mind

I kept telling myself

to keep moving forward

and stop looking behind.

________________________________________________

Ms Rochford continues to work toward her own healing and in sharing her story, she hopes to inspire and support others, in particular children growing up in remote and small communities.

"We can accomplish anything we want. I think that our children just need encouragement. I think it's up to us as Aboriginal people to continue to encourage them and not put them down, we need to help them believe in themselves," she said.