Tricia
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.
Tricia is in her late 50s and has a cognitive disability. She lives with complex trauma and a brain injury caused by childhood sexual and physical abuse.
‘My mum said she was going to kill me when I was a child,’ Tricia told the Royal Commission. ‘She got my head, punch in the wall. She got stick, she got straps. She got – everything thrown at me.’
At school teachers were cruel to Tricia. ‘Because I'm illiterate, I can't read or write or anything. I told the teachers that I can't do it.’
Tricia’s mother pulled her out of school when she was about 12.
‘She was wasn't a good person at all. She didn't send me to school, she didn't took me to doctors, she didn't took me anywhere.’
Tricia said her eldest brother raped her repeatedly – and her mother encouraged him.
‘Every time he was weird with me, he bashed me up. Mum set me up … She said to me, "You do what your brother wants you to. You go make his coffee. You go make his lunch. You go get his dinner." Like I'm a slave to him.’
Tricia begged her mother to foster her out.
‘I said to Mum, if she didn't want me why did she put me into someone else's place?’
She tried for years to get away.
‘Police, the welfare, I was pleading to them to get me away from her. But no, the welfare said, when I was 12, "You go to your mum." The police told me, "You go to your mum."’
The police threatened to arrest her if she ran away from her mother again.
‘What I used to do is camp under the bridge. And that's when the police seized me … Even when I was in my 20s they told me I had to stay with her.’
Later, when Tricia was in a violent marriage and wanted a protection order, the police response was much the same.
‘The police say, "Oh, just let it go. Don't need to worry about it. He's not doing anything wrong.”’
Her former husband caused her a spinal injury and Tricia has used a wheelchair since. She can’t understand why, as a child and as an adult, police refused to protect her.
‘There is child molesting, there's violence. It should have been stopped … Why can't I get the public to help me? Someone help me, I have to fight by myself.’
Tricia has four children. After her traumatic childhood she wanted to show them ‘what a parent should be to their kids … how to love a child’.
‘I gave them what they need … They got discipline but not bashing or anything.’
She’s still trying to get justice and compensation for the sexual abuse, but her lawyers ‘wouldn’t touch it’.
With NDIS support, Tricia is now seeing a therapist. She often wakes up at night screaming, reliving her trauma. She’s had trouble finding stable housing, but a community agency is helping her with her application.
If she gets ‘a nice little place’ she wants to be a foster carer.
‘To show how I can look after kids … These kids would get a proper care and attention, all the good educations, which is what kids really need.’
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.