Crosby
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.
Crosby is in his 50s and lives with complex trauma.
‘My sons have autism and [I] feel that I probably do have that, autism, but it never got properly diagnosed back then,’ Crosby told the Royal Commission. ‘I think because you acted up or you didn’t sort of fit the mould, then you were classified as, you know, being “uncontrollable” or a naughty boy.’
Crosby’s parents put him up for adoption after he was born. A large family adopted him.
‘My [adoptive] dad wanted a son, but he didn’t know how to be a dad. He knew how to provide education and all that sort of stuff, but there was no love, you know, no acceptance.’
Crosby’s adoptive father physically abused him.
‘If I was eating with my mouth open, he’d clench his fist and he’d go like that to shut my mouth. He used to flog me with a strap. If I did something wrong at night time, when he’d come home from work, and my mother would tell him if I’d done something wrong, he’d start flogging into me while I was sleeping.’
His adoptive mother also beat him.
‘She used to kick me so hard up the bottom that I couldn’t sit down.’
When he started sleepwalking, he was ‘tied in bed with shoelaces’.
‘That’s how I slept at night.’
Crosby said he had learning difficulties at school, but was ‘too scared to do homework because if [he] got it wrong, [he] would cop it’.
Just after starting high school, two men in a car abducted and raped him.
‘I was put into that car by that guy and that door slammed and … I thought, “This is it, this is how I’m going to die” … And that still triggers me, when I hear a car door shut at night time or someone is walking behind me at night time.’
After being discharged from hospital the next day, the police took him back to the scene.
‘They put me in a car by myself. I had no-one go with me as a support, at all. No-one … There was no follow up from them after that. Like, zero.’
The men were never found. Crosby said his parents gave him no support. He ran away from home.
‘I was locked up in a juvenile detention centre for being “uncontrollable”.’
After he turned 18, Crosby left home and lived on the street. He found a job, took night classes in maths and English and taught himself financial skills.
‘I reckon I could’ve gone further, but because of that disability, because of all the impacts of the adoption, the sexual assault, the abduction and all that sort of stuff, what happened within the institutions, that’s hindered me, financially as well, being able to achieve the goals that I wanted to achieve.’
Crosby told the Royal Commission he’s done his best ‘not to be a financial burden on society’, but struggles to have his trauma acknowledged.
‘I’ve lost a lot of family and friends over the time because of that, because of the trauma that I’ve been through. Some people think that you should just get on with it, get over it, you know? Forget about it, what’s in the past, and all that sort of stuff. I’ve been working for [more than 30] years in the same job. Do you know what I mean? So, it’s not like I’m saying, “Poor me”, type of thing.’
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.