Briar

‘In my life, the biggest concern is being believed and being seen as capable.’

Briar is in her 50s and lives with multiple mental health conditions.

Briar said that when she was a child, before she came to Australia, a person known to her family sexually assaulted her.

‘My behaviour was seen to be the result of immigration rather than what it was, which was being a child sexual assault survivor,’ Briar told the Royal Commission.

Later, in Australia, she was sexually abused on her way to school. Her parents didn’t know about it.

‘I ran away from home quite a bit, because I didn’t feel safe and protected at home from these things.’

In her teens, Briar was gang raped. Her doctor prescribed medication for anxiety.

‘[The medication] was the only advice I was given, despite the fact that I went to him and told him about what had happened.’

Later, she was admitted to a hospital mental health unit, where she said a member of staff raped her.

‘I will not go into it further because I have brought it up with people in the past and nothing’s been done.’

Briar told the Royal Commission that mental health unit staff held her down to inject medication and told her if she didn’t comply, she’d be isolated.

‘It feels like child abuse again. It doesn’t feel like treatment. And it doesn’t feel less than violent. And that brings up a lot of the old feelings. And I’m then unable to represent myself effectively.’

Briar said coercive treatment put ‘people in positions where they learn helplessness instead of developing coping strategies and ways of doing things that are sustainable’.

When she was able to she left the unit and moved interstate, to escape the state’s mental health system. She married a man who abused her and later left him, but she struggled to escape his controlling influence because they had children together.

One day, Briar’s son threw something at her and she slapped him.

‘My reaction was not an adult parental reaction, and I shouldn’t have done it. I slapped him on the face. But my ex-husband called the police.’

Briar was arrested and taken to hospital. She said her ex-husband denied her access to her children until she took medication.

‘When people like myself, child abuse survivors [who] have witnessed situations where we’re forced and coerced and pushed into getting treatment, we don’t feel that we have any rights left.’

In another abusive relationship, Briar said the police saw her as ‘the perpetrator’ because of her medical history ‘when, in fact, that was not what was going on’.

‘I have felt defensive and that I’m not going to be believed, and I ramble, and I feel scared that people are not going to hear what I’ve got to say, are going to judge me through the lens of mental illness. And therefore, I won’t be able to have my rights honoured and respected, and people won’t hear what I’ve got to say and understand the situations that have contributed to what’s going on.’

Briar said forcing treatment on people living with psychosocial disability, and punishing them if they don’t accept it, is damaging.

‘I’ve been better than I have been for a very long time because I’m not dealing with the power and control at home. And I have people around me who love and support me rather than people who challenge my right to do what I want to do and what I think is important.’