For some women, Valentine's Day flowers aren't given to say 'I love you'.

Content warning: This post deals with domestic violence, and may be triggering for some readers.

Today, Valentine’s Day, people everywhere will be gifted with red roses.

Vases will be fetched from cupboards, and promptly filled with water.

For most accounts, that will be an act of love and celebration – one that acknowledges a caring, happy, vibrant relationship.

But that will not be everybody today.

For some, the flowers they will receive do not represent brightness. They represent something far more sinister. Something powerful in its darkness and brutality. Something menacing and breathlessly cruel.

For some, flowers represent ‘Sorry’ for the violence of the night before.

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It was Tuesday, September 25, 2012, and Simone O’Brien was steeling herself to break off her engagement with Glenn Cable, a local real estate agent she met online.

From the exterior, the pair from Horsham, in Victoria’s west, were a happy couple. Glenn was affectionate and, from time to time, would show this materially as most partners do; promising his fiancée handbags and dinner dates. Despite Glenn’s displays of ‘love’, Simone was uneasy.

“I just had this gut feeling that I had to get out of the relationship,” Simone tells me some four years on. “Money was being stolen, the messages and contacts on my phone were being deleted, I was blaming my son that he had lost his technology and games – but it turns out he [Cable] was taking them and selling them.”

A dodgy cheque that was supposed to be a deposit on a family home was another warning sign.

“Lies were evolving,” Simone continued. “I started putting the puzzle together, and noticing the red flags.”

Glenn’s controlling behaviour and Simone’s swelling suspicion that something wasn’t quite right intensified – and the mother-of-three, then 36, decided to end the relationship over a phone call. That was at 6:06pm.

By 6:16, Simone’s eldest daughter had called an ambulance.

Glenn Cable had arrived at their house, taken Simone into the bedroom, and bashed her head repeatedly with a baseball bat in front of her daughters Gabby, 15, and Ashlyn, 11.

A few agonising minutes later, two male neighbours dragged him outside, while fellow neighbour Karen Roper faced the task of holding Simone's shattered skull together while they waited for an ambulance.

Simone's left arm was snapped in two places. Her top jaw was smashed. Her nose was so damaged she permanently lost her sense of smell. Her right cheekbone was broken. Both eye sockets were destroyed. She was left blind in one eye.

Gabby, Ashlyn, and little brother Zac, then nine, were told to say goodbye to their mum, two nights in a row.

“They had to say goodbye to me twice, they thought mummy wasn’t ever going to come home," Simone says. "The family packed up my entire house."

Despite her grim chances of survival, Simone O'Brien achieved the incredible - and sat in court as her abuser received a life sentence for her attempted murder. That day of Glenn Cable's sentencing will always stay with her, Simone says.

“In the courtroom, I just had my head down, I couldn’t look at him," she told me. "He was in a closed area. It just made me feel creepy. I just thought to myself ‘How could you do this to me?'

"I can distinctly remember the judge giving him 17 years and four months and saying ‘This isn’t enough’."

Four and one-half years on, Simone's recovery is still not over. The now 41-year-old still flies to Brisbane every fortnight for treatment. Treating her wounds is a tedious job that consumes two hours every day, and she will have to complete physiotherapy on her jaw for the remainder of her life.

Despite happy appearances, Simone O'Brien's relationship was deeply problematic. It impacted her life, and the lives of her children profoundly. And that's precisely why the conversation of domestic violence is one she encourages us to have every day - even on those that symbolise love.

"The more conversations we have, the better it is," Simone says. "I’m not going to hold back. Because I’m a survivor of domestic violence.”

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A unique Valentine's Day movement, coined by the Full Stop Foundation, aims to vehiculate stories like Simone O'Brien's.

Today, the organisation is encouraging women to circulate a poem in honour of those who are invisibly suffering at the hands of their partner, with the hashtag #IGotFlowersToday.

“When it comes to domestic violence, there will be emotional, financial, or physical violence, and then there will be apologies and sorries and tears and flowers," Karen Willis, the foundation's Executive Officer of 15 years, told me.

“Overwhelmingly people buy flowers for people they care about, but unfortunately flowers can be used as a way to reel that person to that groomed experience of violence.

“It’s using that incredibly socially accepted expression of love and honour for a really dark and insidious way.”

The #IGotFlowersToday poem reads:

It wasn't my birthday or any other special day. We had our first argument last night. He said a lot of cruel things that really hurt me. I know he was sorry and didn't mean the things he said.
Because I got flowers today.

I got flowers today. It wasn't our anniversary or any other special day. Last night, he threw me into a wall and started to choke me. It seemed like a nightmare. I couldn't believe it was real. I woke up this morning sore and bruised all over. I know he must be sorry.
Because he sent me flowers today.

I got flowers today. It wasn't Valentine's Day or any other special day. Last night, he beat me up again. And it was much worse than all other times. If I leave him, what will I do? How will I take care of my kids? What about money? I' m afraid of him and scared to leave. But I know he must be sorry.
Because he sent me flowers today.

I got flowers today. Today was a very special day. It was the day of my funeral. Last night he finally killed me. He beat me to death.

When I spoke to Simone about the movement, she said it was "absolutely fantastic" to see something like this on Valentine's Day.

"I can’t give the Full Stop Foundation enough of my support," she said. "It’s great that people are out there now wanting to make a change and help women share their stories.

"Once I got encouraged to speak up, it’s been a weight off my shoulders. Even now, speaking to you, I’m relieving information that’s stuck inside me.”

And to any woman, who is receiving flowers today for those dark, menacing reasons?

“Don’t hold back. The help is there," Simone says. "You should get out if you have a gut feeling, because your life can change in five seconds like mine did."

If you or a loved one is battling domestic violence, Mamamia urges you to contact 1800 RESPECT or visit this website.

You can donate to the Full Stop Foundation here.