Holding Space for Justice in her New Book: ‘Survival is an Instinct’ by Brooke Forbes
By Brooke Forbes (she/her)
This piece contains non-graphic discussions of sexual harm and assault, detailed discussions of mental ill-health and schizophrenia, and descriptions of psychosis, involuntary mental-health admission, and the criminal system.
Almost a decade ago, I survived sexual assault in my workplace, which triggered a mental health decline that eventually saw me diagnosed with schizophrenia and later schizoaffective disorder.
Part memoir, part creative fiction, part reflection, Survival is an Instinct captures the torment of life unravelling, the loss of personal control and the public systems used to help and hinder recovery.
In my fight to regain sanity, I find solace in the written word, carving a way forward through language and storytelling. It’s a raw attempt to maintain identity, maintain dignity and continue my right to occupy space and exist within the visceral truth of it all.
The work includes 10 short stories and creative fragments, that punctuate a personal essay on trauma, recovery and the creative will to survive.
THE POWER OF A STORY
I started writing Survival is an Instinct in the notes section of my phone late one night. It started with the chapter ‘A Space for Justice’ and was heavily influenced by my therapy sessions at the time. I also drew on my search for personal justice, given the ‘justice’ system neglected me and I kept hitting dead ends. Not everyone gets a sense of justice from the system. In fact, only 13% of sexual assaults are reported at all. I pondered this issue from both a theoretical and personal perspective. It bled into my advocacy for other survivors of sexual assault. I landed on the concept of story-telling and creativity and how I might reclaim my story through the seemingly simple act of telling it.
‘Finding justice isn’t a legal process. It’s a mindset. It’s a space I need to occupy to stay sane. A space that haunts me, twists and turns through layers of reality. The questions keep coming: What did happen? Who did it to me? Why did they do it? And most of all, was it my fault? I can get lost in peeling back the layers of reality. Like never-ending post-it notes on one of those memes about mental illness or detective work, inclusive of string mapping each event to the next, a massive mind map with no beginning or end. It makes sense to have no logical starting point when you try to describe your trauma. It grows within you, writhing in an ebb and flow. Softly falling waves of red-hot pain one day, another a distant memory that jabs you as you walk down the street. Should I turn left or right here? I forget. Then I remember. Then I forget.
The allusive nature of trauma is something I’ve been working through, however. Because despite itself, it does have narrative—a logical string of events where I can rest my easy mind, find the dot points and rely on factual truths. I can strip the events bare and place them in an order. What date did I start this job? What date was my first hospital visit? What was I in for, sexual assault or mental health treatment? Are they linked? Is the beginning something inherent in myself, a slowly growing fungi that eventually reared its magnificently ugly head? Or was the biggest event a catalyst for change—back to the fireworks—was it a loud bang, the loudest bang, that sent shock waves through my system and reverberated for years to come.
“You can live with one shock wave, one epic event. But it’s the reverberation that slowly sends you insane, the inability to escape that repetition, that ebb and flow, from beginning to end and back again.”
Beginning with ‘A Space for Justice’ and ‘What I’ve Learnt About Survival’, I started to map out a book. However, when I landed on the chapter ‘White Coasts and Shiny White Floors’, I couldn’t move forward without describing psychosis in a creative way. I decided to include a creative piece to convey the overlapping thoughts, perspectives, and narratives I experienced.
Additionally, I added the short story Killing for Love, a piece I wrote when I was still hearing voices in recovery. It’s one of my favourite inclusions. Intertwining non-fiction and fiction forms the structure of the book, Killing for Love was very cathartic to write. It is based on some of my experiences of the male gaze and male violence towards queer women. The narrative begins with a women imprisoned, where she states:
‘Away is where I currently am. It’s not a place, it’s more of a space. Time here is irrelevant and thoughts span across unmarked days. I’m in the limbo of a cell, between an act and a judgement, between a life and a life lost. I can feel the people before me; their crimes, their lack of crimes, their voices, their thoughts, layered into the pores of the concrete, oozing from the air like mould spores. It’s a build-up that carries the weight of history. And I’m in the middle of it, sitting still, silently breathing in the toxicity.’ – From the chapter, Killing for Love.
Writing has been essential to my understanding of what was happening to me, and also allowed me to maintain a sense of self during recovery. I lost my first career due to sexual assault and subsequent corporate bullying across different companies by people I should have been able to trust. In addition to the complex and confusing psychosis, these experiences have unsettled my sense of self and self-esteem. I was living with my parents, had little savings, and no back up career path—I became dependant on writing to express myself.
‘Her Lucid Mind’ was also very cathartic. I tried to encapsulate the narratives within psychosis and different layers of perception.
At times, my psychosis was manic with delusions of grandeur—like believing I was training to become the next Prime Minister. At other times, my psychosis was really dark and terrifying, containing horrifying, uncontrollable thoughts. I’m not sure I was able to encapsulate the realities of psychosis in the piece, in all its twists and turns, but I have given it a go.
JUSTICE AND HEALING
What I realised while writing this work is that justice and healing can often seem at odds with each other. It’s really hard to navigate a justice system, that doesn’t always consider the perspective of the victim or allow them to heal at the same time.
If given the two options, I’d always advocate for healing first.
However, this tactic cut off many avenues for justice in the traditional sense. The police questioned why I didn’t report earlier and the civil system had a time limit barrier.
I wrote about the threat of defamation in the book, which still prevents survivors from speaking about their experiences in detail. If the perpetrator tries to sue for defamation, the onus is on the defendant—the writer—to defend themselves from litigation in these circumstances. This is a really unfair trick of justice, demanding the survivor to litigate. Their defence of course is the truth, but establishing legal representation is a costly exercise only available to some. I chose to de-identify in my story to escape defamation claims.
The criminal justice system can re-traumatise victims at every step and conflicts with healing. If you are lucky enough to get charges laid, you need to go through a long and invasive court process, being held to the standard of proof of beyond reasonable doubt. This may involve cross examination and many reiterations of filing evidence. In my story, the police actually told me, ‘it would have been better if he had punched you in the face’, a confusing and belittling statement, and not very trauma-informed. The question of healing or justice is an extremely personal and tricky one that must be made on your own, however there are many services, such as Victims of Crime counselling, that can assist with this decision.
NON-LINEAR HEALING, MULTI-FOCUSSED NARRATIVES
‘Her Lucid Mind’ begins as follows:
‘Below a window shards of light begin to dance. They move patiently and softly, pouring through the gaps between outdoor foliage, building in depth one moment and evaporating in a trick of light the next. On a bed in the middle of this slow dance sits Jasmine. A leisurely heat pulsates through the air, thawing her mood and mind. She waves her hand across the display, toying with the balance between light and dark. It’s sitting here Jasmine can piece together the last 48 hours. Her memory was previously like the light shards, fragmented and impossible to catch, like the edge of a dream before it turns lucid, eerily foreboding and just out of reach.
Her thoughts turn to the morning. What could she remember?
First her hands, shaking and clammy, holding her statements of rights in a tight fist. Surrounding her were a circle of nurses, each with a more serious facial expression than the other.
“You’ve been sectioned,” a young male nurse said, walking towards her – “you can either take this medication or an injection”.
Jasmine met his eyes with a blurry stare, then darted to the rights, reading the words slowly and clearly:
“What happens when you arrive at a mental health facility?”
“When can I be kept in a mental health facility against my will?”
The words were moving across the page, blurring across the white sheet of paper. She looked at the Doctor who had administered the orders, he was standing silently, waiting for her to cooperate. He was a tall black man, with a thick African accent and a coy, child-like smile.
“Jasmine you can request a second opinion after you have entered the facility,” the Dr said, “For now you have to trust us.”
A question that may be asked about Survival is in Instinct is why I chose to fictionalise some elements of the story, or re-tell fictional fragments of my past. Part of it, truthfully, was deflection, as studying my journey in the bare light opens itself to re-traumatisation. Adding a layer of a fictional narrator enabled me to cover the themes and happening, while keeping trauma at bay.
But I also think that trauma is multi-layered, in some cases re-occurring, and can be observed through multiple perspectives. Creating a creative journal through reflection on what I wrote during psychosis and periods of being unwell enabled me to also depict the nature of trauma and psychosis; multifaceted, hard to pin down and often elusive.
While I fall short of calling this a ‘how to’ survive trauma deliberately, the journeying through multiple narratives, and of tell and re-telling stories, enabled me to create a pathway for personal healing.
PRAISE FOR SURVIVAL IS AN INSTINCT
‘This book captures what many survivors know too well: that justice is not always found in courtrooms, but in the ongoing act of surviving, creating, and reclaiming one’s story. Through a blend of memoir and fiction, Brooke’s writing invites readers into the complex and often misunderstood intersections of trauma, psychosis, and healing.
As an organisation dedicated to preventing sexual violence and supporting those affected by it, WGG Australia acknowledges the bravery it takes to write and share such personal experiences. Survival is an Instinct is not only an act of art, it is an act of resistance. It challenges stigma, amplifies survivor voices, and reminds us that creative expression can be a pathway to justice and recovery.’ – WWG Australia
Full statement on Brooke Forbes’ website, where you can also purchase a copy of Survival is an Instinct.
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