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Everyone has a breaking point, but once we decide to take action, how can we be sure it's the right move? From toxic relationships to high-stress jobs and religious beliefs, Insight hears from people who've reached their final straw. Watch our latest episode The Final Straw on SBS On Demand.
Nine years ago, Daniel invited a group of people he'd never met before to stay on his farm. This decision led to him later testifying in a parliamentary inquiry into cults.
He and his wife had recently returned to their Christian faith when they were feeling significant pressure due to the breakdown of their business and the birth of their twins.
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"We were physically, financially, and emotionally wrecked," Daniel told Insight.
"I basically leaned on that because everything else was crumbling around me."
Daniel started watching online videos about Jesus made by a little-known religious group. He soon contacted the leader, and they began exchanging emails.
"Because they told me they were a travelling group … I [said] 'We've got a farm; you can camp here while you're passing through,'" Daniel said.
"But then within the two weeks, we had the whole Australian group there."
Daniel says that at first, the group was "super friendly" and helped around the farm and with taking care of Daniel and his wife's 11 children.
But things took a turn after a few weeks, and "the 'straws' started raining down".
"They became very demanding, very [critical] of everything we did — especially our parenting," Daniel said.
"It just got worse and worse to the point where they were even physically punishing our kids without us even being there — locking them in rooms, hitting them to the ground, pulling them out of vehicles."
When the group said they were thinking of leaving for Sydney after a few months, Daniel and his wife felt relieved.
"But then the next day, two of the members came up to us … and said, 'We will stay if you want, but you have to understand: your children are not your children, and you have to submit to us fully'."
That was the breaking point for Daniel, and he said it'd be best if they followed through with going to Sydney.
"After they left, I turned to my wife and said, 'What the f--- was that?'
"I'd never sworn up until that point."
Daniel said that when the group tried to return a month later, he called the police, and they left before the officers arrived.
Daniel believes the whole experience was also the final straw for his Christian faith.
He says he was forced to ask himself, "Can I be a good person without believing in God?"
"It takes a long time to break it all down," he said.
"I went through many years of literally questioning every thought that came up in my head, every action I was about to do — and reprogram it."
Monique Crane, a professor at the School of Psychological Sciences at Macquarie University, says a final straw is "often not really about that one small event".
"Usually, the person has been feeling uncomfortable, stressed, disappointed, angry or unhappy for a long time ... they may have been trying to understand what is wrong — even if they have not been thinking about it consciously ..." Crane told Insight.
"However, one moment can bring a sense of clarity ..."
The Sydney-based psychologist and researcher says that psychologists sometimes describe this type of sudden understanding as an "insight".
"An insight happens when ideas or experiences that have been building over time suddenly come together and make sense," Crane said.
She said this might come in the form of realising a job is unsustainable or a relationship conflicts with someone's values or beliefs about how they should be treated.
Crane said that a final straw moment can help the person recognise there is a gap between their current situation and something important to them.
"That is why a small event can sometimes lead to a large decision," she said.
"The reaction is usually not just about what happened that day; it is about what that event helped the person finally understand about everything that came before it."
For Wendy, a decision arising from a final straw caused her regret.
She had hired a builder her friends recommended to build her dream home in the mountains of Montana, US, where she used to live. But she grew concerned.
"He would present me with bills that, in my opinion, did not seem accurate … he really never worked an eight-hour day … he was a fellow who liked a very long lunch."
Wendy eventually let the builder go when she thought the construction was not progressing quickly enough.
She was "heartbroken" when he handed her the final bill of $200,000 as it was much larger than she expected, but she paid it after he threatened legal action.
"I really couldn't afford to finish the home at this point," she said.
"I felt [people I trusted] had betrayed me by saying he was a great guy… I went with him, and it was disastrous for me ... That was the final straw with him and with Montana."
Wendy felt she needed to change her whole situation.
After selling everything and rehoming her 27 dogs, she moved to Sydney, Australia, where her son lives.
She says it took time to adjust to the change and that she "sobbed" for the first two-and-a-half years of being in Australia.
"I didn't realise how much I would miss my life in Montana, my ice fishing, my hunting, my friends — it was very hard."
"I felt that I had made the wrong decision, but it was an economic impossibility to move back."
Wendy has since taken up ocean fishing and now loves living here and feels like she has found herself again.
Jenny didn't have any regrets about leaving her situation when she reached a breaking point in her career.
She loved being a teacher but likens her time as a school principal to being "a frog in boiling water".
"The water just kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter until it got to the point where I was completely overwhelmed and burnt out," she said.
She says it only got more difficult when she became the principal of a special education school, where she encountered "challenging behaviours [such as] biting, kicking, pinching, running away".
"It wasn't malicious; they were just really challenging students."
It was a text that spelled the end of Jenny's career.
"My phone went off in my pocket and I just snuck a look at it and it said, 'Please come back to school. A student has really injured a teacher'," she said.
After returning to school and calling a crisis meeting, Jenny turned to her deputy principal and said: "You're going to have to ring the district director and tell them that the principal's left."
"I picked up my handbag and drove away. It was gut-wrenching to leave them behind."
While she initially felt she had let her students and staff down, Jenny is now involved in education in a different way — as a leadership coach for school principals struggling in their careers.
"I think life brings you to where you're supposed to be," she said.
"I'm in and around schools all the time, but the difference that I can make is to keep people well, happy and successful in their jobs."
Psychologist Crane, who specialises in resilience, workplace mental health and human performance, says, "There is no single point at which everyone decides that 'enough is enough'".
"People have different values, goals, expectations and circumstances; so the same situation can feel manageable to one person and unacceptable to another."
"People will often have tried to cope, hoped things would improve, changed the way they approached the situation or tried to fix the problem. Then, after all that, they reach the realisation that ... a more substantial re-orientation is necessary."
The professor said that when changing or fixing the situation isn't possible, leaving the situation may be the most resilient response.
"Resilience ... is about adapting, solving problems and making choices that help us continue to live and work in ways that are consistent with what matters to us."
Daniel later gave evidence about what happened when a religious group moved onto his farm as part of a parliamentary inquiry into cults.
He and his family left their farm after the experience and travelled for two years.
"Everything was just about having fun, joking about what had happened, then trying to understand why this had happened."
Daniel now lives happily without religion but says, "It took many years to rebuild … to some sort of normalcy."
He says podcasts have helped him "understand cults and how they worked".
"It was a lot of working on yourself to get yourself out of that sort of thinking, that extreme thinking ... "
Insight is Australia's leading forum for debate and powerful first-person stories offering a unique perspective on the way we live. Read more about Insight
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