australia family-law divorce drugs family
Lifetime of gaslighting, abuse, and being forced to take Ritalin. Permanent brain damage. Unable to quit. Can I sue my parents and/or psychiatrists?
<p>Sydney, Australia. I was coerced into taking Ritalin at age 4. Now I'm 28 and the long term effects have ruined my life, plus being &quot;medicated&quot; with this stuff went hand in hand with psychological and verbal abuse by my parents. I've tried to quit many times but at this stage, my brain is permafried and I'm unable to function without Ritalin (and even <em>with</em> Ritalin it's not exactly smooth sailing). I did not ask for this addiction and it was forced on me by a lazy mother who would have rather just aborted me, and a deadbeat absent father. They were such pathetic parents that they couldn't bother raising me properly. I'm also pissed at the psychiatric industry, which is only out to make a buck, even if that involves foisting brain-melting drugs onto little kids like I was.</p>
<p>Now I'm struggling to afford food, hold a job, pay rent etc, and the threat of homelessness is constantly rearing its' head. Meanwhile my father is a selfish, card-carrying-satanist, silicon valley technocrat billionaire who refuses to make amends or support me financially or otherwise. My mother is middle-upper class, remarried to a doctor, financially stable, and has pumped out 4 more brood. She has scapegoated me and vilified me to the point of suicide multiple times (and while I would struggle to definitively prove it in a courtroom, I have evidence and reason to believe that she is <em>intentionally</em> trying to get me to kill myself) and cut me off from both her and the rest of my brothers and sisters (She gaslights them and tells them lies about what a lazy, horrible drug addict I am. Ironic. She is despicable)</p>
<p>Can I sue? Want to sue for betrayal of duty of care (abusing my trust when I was a child by getting me hooked on dangerous and addictive stimulants and permaf*cking my brain) as well as all the psychological and verbal abuse (Gaslighting me, scapegoating me, ruining my life, then kicking me out to the kerb, cutting me off from any further communication, and then cruelly withholding even the bare minimum amount of material and emotional support that I need right now).</p>
<p>If I can sue, whats the most that could happen? A lump sum? Dad forced to sign one of his many 5 bedroom houses and a couple of his lambos over to me? Or could the court order ongoing support and penitential cash payments? Seems weird that the state and the taxpayers should be supporting me via disability and unemployment benefits when it's these loser a$$hat parents who forced me into this position, and they are totally financially loaded. Would love to see some magistrate force them to their knees financially, and trash their social reputation by getting them officially convicted as child abusers, as retribution for what they've done to me.</p>

<p>In order to sue someone for the harm you believe you suffered you would have to prove that they failed in a duty of care. That is going to be difficult.</p>
<p>You might be of the opinion that your treatment made things worse, and with the benefit of hindsight you might even be right. But if the people making those decisions at the time acted in good faith following the best information available to them, then they are not liable for honest mistakes. You would need to identify information available to them at the time and show that they ignored it, either deliberately or by negligence. For instance you might find a doctor who ignored evidence that the rest of his profession found persuasive, or you may find that your parents ignored mainstream medical advice and went with some fringe practitioner instead. However from what you say it doesn't sound like that is the case.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that not every drug works for everyone who takes it. Ritalin in particular has worked well for many people. If you were diagnosed with a problem for which Ritalin was indicated then it is not the fault of the doctors, the drug company or anyone else if you happen to be one of the unlucky ones for whom it did not work.</p>
<p>Your parents duty of care for you ended when you turned 18. From then on you were legally considered an adult, capable of making your own decisions, taking responsibility for the outcomes, and generally looking out for yourself. Legally, anything that has happened since then is down to you, not your parents. If you want to argue that you were or are incapable of making rational decisions due to your upbringing and medical treatment as a child then you could try that argument, but claiming that you are mentally incompetent is probably not a good way to persuade a court that you can, for instance, be trusted when on the witness stand to tell the truth about what happened in your childhood. Also, your post shows that you are at least partly motivated by hatred of your parents, and that is likely to be used by the defence to impeach your testimony (e.g. &quot;I put it to you that you are lying about this incident because you hate your mother&quot;). All of this makes the prospect of courtroom success even more remote.</p>
<p>If you win a lawsuit then you may be awarded money in compensation. If the court believes that you cannot be trusted to manage the money yourself then they may appoint a conservator to look after it for you. If you really want to go down this road then you need to talk to a lawyer or three. But if they tell you that your case is unlikely to succeed then listen to them: they are not lying.</p>
