Clive
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Clive is a First Nations man in his late teens who lives with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Clive’s mother died when he was 10.
‘Before my mother died, I was a good kid,’ Clive told the Royal Commission. ‘I was going to school and all that, like, wasn't getting in trouble with the law and that. But when my mother died, that's when I went into [child services]. I just went downhill, you know?’
Child services placed Clive in a series of foster homes where he was ‘bashed by the carers’.
‘Then they called the police, and then the police would flog me there, too.’
While Clive was in foster care, his father died. Clive didn’t know his father well.
‘My father was 50 minutes down the track … When I turned 18, they give me a book about him and when he died and where he was from. And I was thinking, they had it all this time, there's not one conversation. They could have said to me, “We'll take you for a visit” or something, you know? They did nothing about it.’
While in foster care, Clive said he was ‘constantly in trouble’.
‘I started using methamphetamine at 13 years old. Because, like, there was no way to escape it, all the stuff-ups going on in the care, you know?’
Clive went to jail when he was 14 and, when released, became homeless. He stayed in hostels for a time. ‘But it got to a point where the hostel wouldn't take me.’
‘I haven't had an address since I was 10, you know … They just leave me to hang out and dry, basically.’
Clive is now back in jail, where staff won’t let him have his ADHD medication.
‘They only put me on sleepers … Up all night, get up, agitated from no sleep. Yeah, they couldn't care less.’
Without his medication, Clive sometimes acts impulsively. Prison staff send him to solitary confinement as punishment.
When Clive spoke to the Royal Commission, he was several weeks away from being released. He was planning to live with a relative.
‘My [relative], right, where he lived his whole life, he's in university … I could have potentially done the same. He went all through school, he's got everything, you know … And that's the environment [child services] deprived me from. You know what I'm saying? They say it's better in [foster] care. But look where care got me.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.