Ex-Team GB martial artist Anette Khepri excelled in competitions across 3 continents and ran her own successful dojo – all whilst suffering horrific domestic abuse that left her with a fractured skull.
She explains that many people have no clue what’s going on behind the scenes: “People think of domestic abuse as some big brutish man and his tiny timid wife. I don’t fit that bill, and it still happened to me”.
Annette and her husband had been running a business and raising two children together when they hit hard times and sadly lost everything.
“We were £750,000 down. We lost our house, we lost my parents’ house. We were homeless”.
Annette was determined to start again, but explains that her husband – who struggled with depression and had been previously institutionalised for 6 months due to cannabis-induced psychosis – was struggling to cope.
“I used to tell him to get help but he refused. He used to drink. He’d punch me, kick me, strangle me. I’ve had broken teeth, black eyes – I’ve got a lump on the back of my head from a fractured skull”.
Domestic abuse can often be psychological as well as physical, leaving the victim feeling ashamed.
“I was embarrassed. I used to think ‘I’m a martial arts instructor. I have three black belts, I teach self defense and all this is happening in my own home’. I think when it happens a switch goes off in your brain and you just don’t know what to do. When you’re in those situations it feels very surreal”.
After several incidents of abuse, and her husband setting up recording devices in their home when he became paranoid she was having an affair, Annette decided she couldn’t keep coming up with excuses for him, hired a solicitor and got him out the house.
Annette now raises her two daughters as a single parent, and built her own six-figure business coaching entrepreneurs from the ground up.
She explains that everything she went through has made her realise that “there’s a common thread in all people that we keep overcoming things. We just keep going” and now uses what she has learned “for the greater good”.
