Snakes and Ladders Out Now

‘Tough, courageous, and moving, it’s about empowerment as much as powerlessness and, ultimately, the nature of power.’
The Age

What I learned from sharing my psychotic break on social media (10 min)

My name is Angela and I have complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In 2016/7, I had a psychotic break, was hospitalised twice, had Electro Convulsive Therapy and then started trying to get better. This is a short list of the biggest lessons I learned. 1. No-one is immune to mental illness The last time I […]

13 – Heat Delirium – excerpt (20 min read)

The heat has sapped those in green of the will to follow orders and those in blue of the ability to give them gently.

2008 On’ya Sonja – excerpt

The man on the table barely moved as I gripped the piercing needle firm between my latex-clad fingers, breathed in, out, and then drove it through the pinch of his skin I held between my fingers.

Suppression Orders or Why transparency matters (8 min read)

Suppression orders very rarely protect victims. In a post #metoo world, after that awful Royal Commission, we need to be looking at this system of enforced secrecy which forces victims to carry the crimes in their heads forever. We need to question how keeping the secrets of guilty people has contributed to Australia’s sickening history of institutional abuse.

1997 – One Star Caravan Park – an excerpt from S&L

The date on the warrant isn’t a mistake. It was from 1997 but was reissued when the system went computerised between 1999 and 2003. The crime I was arrested for had happened back in 1996 and I’d received a sentence of fifteen months’ weekend detention. I rocked along to five months’ worth when my addiction got out of control.

Sonja’s Look – excerpt from S+L

I remember standing in a dungeon with a slave grovelling near my feet. His shoulders were hunched down and his face took on a look, half worship, half terror, that I remember seeing many times on my stepfather’s face.