September 4, 2025 • 14 mins
This week we chat to a Tasmanian Organisation that's lifting the lid on brain injuries caused by domestic violence.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My Heart Tazzy.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
We often hear about brain injuries sustained through sport or
road collisions, but it's also critical we talk about brain
injuries inflicted through domestic violence. They result from injuries sustained
to the head and neck, can can lead to chronic
symptoms and high death rates. A Tasmanian organization is lifting
the lid on such injuries, hoping to raise awareness on
(00:24):
an issue that has been overlooked when it happens through DV.
I'm Olivia Hicks and this is I Heart Tazzi and
just a warning, some of the content in this episode
might be distressing to some listeners, so discretion is advised. Bernie.
Woman Deb Thompson is living with a brain injury acquired
as a result of her experience with family violence. She
(00:47):
speaks with a disability due to the brain injury and
subsequent surgery. So Deb, can you tell us your story
and how you received your brain injury.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I didn't realize the I had a brain injury for
a long time, but what caused it was two major
head injuries from the sault by my then partner who
also non fatally strangled me on occasions and also choked
(01:20):
me and these results in two aneurysms in my head
they have found thirty years later by accident while having
an MRI for the latest keeping the salts.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Did that come as a shock, Yes, it.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Did, and the aneurysms are placed directly where the head
salts to my head occurred. So the surgeon said, unless
I have predilection to traumatic bad brain injury, it would
(02:04):
highly be highly likely that the sults caused the animalisms.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
What were your main concerns following your injury.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well, at the time of the assaults, all I was
concerned that was survival. I'd never been assaulted in this
manner before and it came to huge shop abuse. I
was traumatized for a long time after, so I really
(02:39):
didn't have concerns about my own health afterwards. I was
just trying to survive. And it wasn't really until the
MRI discovered the aneurisms that I became concerned about my health.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So those two aneurysms had been sitting there for thirty
years essentially.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yes, yes, we the surgeon assumes that is the case
because there was no of the reasons why they be there,
of the jury to my head, so they've been sitting
there and growing. They were quite large. Bo told we
(03:29):
found them, but fortunately they didn't rap.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, that's very very lucky. Did you have any did
you have any symptoms at the time.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Well, I had a lot of headaches from the time
of the assaults, but with they were related to the assaults,
I'm not sure, but i'd fellow high blood pressure migrain
(04:05):
like headaches after the assaults, so they weren't there before.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
So other people going through a similar situation to you,
what's your advice?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
The first thing I'd say to anyone, there's no sham
in coming forward. As soon as you seek help after
an assault, the early medical inventions can be put in place,
and while they remain silent, the perstrate isn't how account for,
(04:40):
and the violence often escalates the longer the perstrate to
continue its uses. And this may lead to a bit said,
and it certainly gives the heightened risk of assaults leading
to tremad brain injuries. So assuming that you just bose
(05:05):
the better, and I just can't emphasize enough, there's no
shame in coming forward.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
In Gender Equality is advocating that brain injuries resulting from
family violence need urgent attention to support victim survivor's health
and to improve justice outcomes. Elena Thomas says recognizing and
responding early can prevent further harm, improve recovery, and strengthen
a victim survivors access to justice.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
So it's not necessarily an immediate idea that victims of
survivors will whole. That they might have had a possible
concussion or might have had some kind of damage to
their neck or their heads. So we need to be
able to have a conversation about what can cause a
traumatic brain injury, and then we need to be able
to frontline respond whether it's police or health. Need to
(05:56):
be able to ask those questions so that victim survivors
might be recognizing themselves or their experience in the questions
that they're being.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Are coming up next on iHeart Tasi, we look at
the research the University of Tasmania is doing into a
brain Injuri's long term impact caused by domestic violence.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
My Heart, My Heart.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Doctor Christine Pagett, a senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania,
is collaborating with in Gender Equality as she researches brain
injury caused by intimate partner violence. One of her current
projects explores the nature of long term recovery after brain
injury caused by intimate partner violence.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
So we know that brain injury can occur and a
range of different ways of her experience intimate partner violence.
People can experience things like blows to the head, being
shaken violently, or even things like non fatal strangulation sometimes
referred to as choking, and all of these things can
cause brain injury, even if they're fairly mild in the
context of things. If you have lots of repeated injuries,
(07:01):
then that can also lead to longer term consequences. And
so my research is really exploring how when injuries like
of that nature occurring into a partner violence, that might
lead to both short term and long term outcomes or
consequences for people as a result of that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And in terms of the Tasmanian population, I mean what
instances of this occurring in the population roughly what is that?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, So we know that Tasmania sadly has one of
the highest rates of intimate partner violence of any states
in Australia, So we know that experiencing intimate partner violence
can be more common in Tasmania Unfortunately, we don't have
good data on the amount of times when people are
experiencing that sort of violence they experience head injuries as
(07:48):
a result of that, and that's internationally, we have really
poor numbers on this because it's been really tricky to
pin down, and that's been for a range of different reasons.
But we know that, you know, it can be as
significan number of people that experience that intimate partner violence
that do also sustain an injury that could lead to
a brain injury.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
And your research what will it entail? What are you
going to be doing?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, so we've already started doing research and we've recruited
a number of people who have either experienced intimate partner
violence without having those physical injuries attached to that, or
having experienced physical injuries as part of that, as well
as people that have sustained brain injuries elsewhere. And what
we're trying to do is look at and try and
(08:34):
tease a part what can happen in particular in the
nature in the context of intimate partner violence. So we've
done a range of assessments where we're looking at things
like cognitive functions. Are things like memory, your ability to
pay attention and concentrate on those sorts of functions as
well as some other biological things. So we're looking at
(08:55):
sort of some genetic predictors and some neurological responses that
can happen, and just really trying to get a sense
of is there any difference for people depending on the
nature of the injuries that they've experienced, and so that
when I say nature of the injury, that could be
something like, you know, is there differences between people that
(09:15):
have experienced lots and lots of head injuries across their
life versus one sort of quite severe one, or comparing
types of injuries. So is there more complex or more
negative outcomes associated with experiencing a combination of choking, non
fatal strangulation and blows to the head as compared to
just blows to the head or just non fatal strangulation.
(09:37):
And is it different for people with infant partner violence
because of course in victim survivors, they also have attached
that psychological stress and trauma that might not be the
case with other types of brain injuries. So we've got
this sort of double whammy of the psychological and the
physiological trauma which could lead to even more severe consequences
(09:58):
down the track.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
And in your dealings with victim survivors with these injuries,
what's the most common thing that they say that they're
dealing with.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Look, it's really varied. I think that for a lot
of people, there are a really diverse range of symptoms.
So a lot of people report memory troubles, so they're
having a lot more difficulty remembering things. Some people will
report a lot of physiological symptoms, so some people can
experience things like visiers, swinging in the ears, those sorts
(10:30):
of things as well. It really does vary a lot.
I guess the key thing those that for many people,
they're just very aware that they're just not feeling the
same as they were before. They might feel as if
they are a little bit more distressed at times because
sometimes emotional regulation is a fact that can be influenced
as well, or there might not be able to recall
(10:53):
things as they used to be able to or pay
attention to things, and those sorts of responds.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And the brain injury is that we're seeing, Is that
something that improves over time or is this does the
injury stay the same essentially?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, absolutely, So we know that as for any injury
that we experience. She do have periods of recovery afterwards,
so people can have improvement across quite some time after
a brain injury. It really does vary for some people
that recovery is a little bit slower or it isn't
as a parent, or for other people that can recover
(11:29):
incredibly quickly, And it just really does vary quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Deb Thompson moved to Tasmani with her daughter in twenty
ten and now lives with her partner in Bernie. She
moved to escape domestic violence, and inspired by her new partner,
wrote her first book, Whose Life Is It any Way,
recognizing and surviving domestic violence. She recently completed a second
book detailing lived experience with domestic violence by her then husband,
(11:57):
spanning seventeen years from nineteen eighty five to two thousand
and three. In your experience, what is lacking in supporting
people with a brain injury required via domestic violence?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
First and foremost, it's really important to train first responders
like police and GPS to understand that victims might have
traumatic brain injury and it's not immediately recognized as such.
(12:34):
So we train first responders to consider that might be
the case, and I think also i'd like to see
support workers on call to a company victims to medical settings,
especially the emergency department, and the worker might have clearer
(12:59):
heads at the time. Victims are often traumatized and can't
explain what's going on, so it's important to have a
worker there who can speak to her professionals. I think too,
we need a lot more maybe a focus on domestic
(13:19):
violence related brain injury. There's quite a lot of focus
on thoughts related concussion and brian injuries, but not not
thoughts about regarding domestic violence and how that violence can
cause traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
If you're someone you know is impacted by family and
domestic violence, call one eight hundred respect on one eight
hundred seven three seven seven three to two, or visit
one eight hundred respects dot org dot AU. In an
emergency call triple O. And that's it. Very hard to
for this week. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure
(14:02):
to subscribe to the iHeart Tazzy podcast feed on the
iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts, and if
you'd like, you can leave us a review while you're there.
I'm Olivia Hicks. Thanks for your company.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Iheartazzy
My Heart Tazzy.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
We often hear about brain injuries sustained through sport or
road collisions, but it's also critical we talk about brain
injuries inflicted through domestic violence. They result from injuries sustained
to the head and neck, can can lead to chronic
symptoms and high death rates. A Tasmanian organization is lifting
the lid on such injuries, hoping to raise awareness on
(00:24):
an issue that has been overlooked when it happens through DV.
I'm Olivia Hicks and this is I Heart Tazzi and
just a warning, some of the content in this episode
might be distressing to some listeners, so discretion is advised. Bernie.
Woman Deb Thompson is living with a brain injury acquired
as a result of her experience with family violence. She
(00:47):
speaks with a disability due to the brain injury and
subsequent surgery. So Deb, can you tell us your story
and how you received your brain injury.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I didn't realize the I had a brain injury for
a long time, but what caused it was two major
head injuries from the sault by my then partner who
also non fatally strangled me on occasions and also choked
(01:20):
me and these results in two aneurysms in my head
they have found thirty years later by accident while having
an MRI for the latest keeping the salts.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Did that come as a shock, Yes, it.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Did, and the aneurysms are placed directly where the head
salts to my head occurred. So the surgeon said, unless
I have predilection to traumatic bad brain injury, it would
(02:04):
highly be highly likely that the sults caused the animalisms.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
What were your main concerns following your injury.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well, at the time of the assaults, all I was
concerned that was survival. I'd never been assaulted in this
manner before and it came to huge shop abuse. I
was traumatized for a long time after, so I really
(02:39):
didn't have concerns about my own health afterwards. I was
just trying to survive. And it wasn't really until the
MRI discovered the aneurisms that I became concerned about my health.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So those two aneurysms had been sitting there for thirty
years essentially.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yes, yes, we the surgeon assumes that is the case
because there was no of the reasons why they be there,
of the jury to my head, so they've been sitting
there and growing. They were quite large. Bo told we
(03:29):
found them, but fortunately they didn't rap.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, that's very very lucky. Did you have any did
you have any symptoms at the time.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Well, I had a lot of headaches from the time
of the assaults, but with they were related to the assaults,
I'm not sure, but i'd fellow high blood pressure migrain
(04:05):
like headaches after the assaults, so they weren't there before.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
So other people going through a similar situation to you,
what's your advice?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
The first thing I'd say to anyone, there's no sham
in coming forward. As soon as you seek help after
an assault, the early medical inventions can be put in place,
and while they remain silent, the perstrate isn't how account for,
(04:40):
and the violence often escalates the longer the perstrate to
continue its uses. And this may lead to a bit said,
and it certainly gives the heightened risk of assaults leading
to tremad brain injuries. So assuming that you just bose
(05:05):
the better, and I just can't emphasize enough, there's no
shame in coming forward.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
In Gender Equality is advocating that brain injuries resulting from
family violence need urgent attention to support victim survivor's health
and to improve justice outcomes. Elena Thomas says recognizing and
responding early can prevent further harm, improve recovery, and strengthen
a victim survivors access to justice.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
So it's not necessarily an immediate idea that victims of
survivors will whole. That they might have had a possible
concussion or might have had some kind of damage to
their neck or their heads. So we need to be
able to have a conversation about what can cause a
traumatic brain injury, and then we need to be able
to frontline respond whether it's police or health. Need to
(05:56):
be able to ask those questions so that victim survivors
might be recognizing themselves or their experience in the questions
that they're being.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Are coming up next on iHeart Tasi, we look at
the research the University of Tasmania is doing into a
brain Injuri's long term impact caused by domestic violence.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
My Heart, My Heart.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Doctor Christine Pagett, a senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania,
is collaborating with in Gender Equality as she researches brain
injury caused by intimate partner violence. One of her current
projects explores the nature of long term recovery after brain
injury caused by intimate partner violence.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
So we know that brain injury can occur and a
range of different ways of her experience intimate partner violence.
People can experience things like blows to the head, being
shaken violently, or even things like non fatal strangulation sometimes
referred to as choking, and all of these things can
cause brain injury, even if they're fairly mild in the
context of things. If you have lots of repeated injuries,
(07:01):
then that can also lead to longer term consequences. And
so my research is really exploring how when injuries like
of that nature occurring into a partner violence, that might
lead to both short term and long term outcomes or
consequences for people as a result of that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And in terms of the Tasmanian population, I mean what
instances of this occurring in the population roughly what is that?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, So we know that Tasmania sadly has one of
the highest rates of intimate partner violence of any states
in Australia, So we know that experiencing intimate partner violence
can be more common in Tasmania Unfortunately, we don't have
good data on the amount of times when people are
experiencing that sort of violence they experience head injuries as
(07:48):
a result of that, and that's internationally, we have really
poor numbers on this because it's been really tricky to
pin down, and that's been for a range of different reasons.
But we know that, you know, it can be as
significan number of people that experience that intimate partner violence
that do also sustain an injury that could lead to
a brain injury.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
And your research what will it entail? What are you
going to be doing?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, so we've already started doing research and we've recruited
a number of people who have either experienced intimate partner
violence without having those physical injuries attached to that, or
having experienced physical injuries as part of that, as well
as people that have sustained brain injuries elsewhere. And what
we're trying to do is look at and try and
(08:34):
tease a part what can happen in particular in the
nature in the context of intimate partner violence. So we've
done a range of assessments where we're looking at things
like cognitive functions. Are things like memory, your ability to
pay attention and concentrate on those sorts of functions as
well as some other biological things. So we're looking at
(08:55):
sort of some genetic predictors and some neurological responses that
can happen, and just really trying to get a sense
of is there any difference for people depending on the
nature of the injuries that they've experienced, and so that
when I say nature of the injury, that could be
something like, you know, is there differences between people that
(09:15):
have experienced lots and lots of head injuries across their
life versus one sort of quite severe one, or comparing
types of injuries. So is there more complex or more
negative outcomes associated with experiencing a combination of choking, non
fatal strangulation and blows to the head as compared to
just blows to the head or just non fatal strangulation.
(09:37):
And is it different for people with infant partner violence
because of course in victim survivors, they also have attached
that psychological stress and trauma that might not be the
case with other types of brain injuries. So we've got
this sort of double whammy of the psychological and the
physiological trauma which could lead to even more severe consequences
(09:58):
down the track.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
And in your dealings with victim survivors with these injuries,
what's the most common thing that they say that they're
dealing with.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Look, it's really varied. I think that for a lot
of people, there are a really diverse range of symptoms.
So a lot of people report memory troubles, so they're
having a lot more difficulty remembering things. Some people will
report a lot of physiological symptoms, so some people can
experience things like visiers, swinging in the ears, those sorts
(10:30):
of things as well. It really does vary a lot.
I guess the key thing those that for many people,
they're just very aware that they're just not feeling the
same as they were before. They might feel as if
they are a little bit more distressed at times because
sometimes emotional regulation is a fact that can be influenced
as well, or there might not be able to recall
(10:53):
things as they used to be able to or pay
attention to things, and those sorts of responds.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And the brain injury is that we're seeing, Is that
something that improves over time or is this does the
injury stay the same essentially?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, absolutely, So we know that as for any injury
that we experience. She do have periods of recovery afterwards,
so people can have improvement across quite some time after
a brain injury. It really does vary for some people
that recovery is a little bit slower or it isn't
as a parent, or for other people that can recover
(11:29):
incredibly quickly, And it just really does vary quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Deb Thompson moved to Tasmani with her daughter in twenty
ten and now lives with her partner in Bernie. She
moved to escape domestic violence, and inspired by her new partner,
wrote her first book, Whose Life Is It any Way,
recognizing and surviving domestic violence. She recently completed a second
book detailing lived experience with domestic violence by her then husband,
(11:57):
spanning seventeen years from nineteen eighty five to two thousand
and three. In your experience, what is lacking in supporting
people with a brain injury required via domestic violence?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
First and foremost, it's really important to train first responders
like police and GPS to understand that victims might have
traumatic brain injury and it's not immediately recognized as such.
(12:34):
So we train first responders to consider that might be
the case, and I think also i'd like to see
support workers on call to a company victims to medical settings,
especially the emergency department, and the worker might have clearer
(12:59):
heads at the time. Victims are often traumatized and can't
explain what's going on, so it's important to have a
worker there who can speak to her professionals. I think too,
we need a lot more maybe a focus on domestic
(13:19):
violence related brain injury. There's quite a lot of focus
on thoughts related concussion and brian injuries, but not not
thoughts about regarding domestic violence and how that violence can
cause traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
If you're someone you know is impacted by family and
domestic violence, call one eight hundred respect on one eight
hundred seven three seven seven three to two, or visit
one eight hundred respects dot org dot AU. In an
emergency call triple O. And that's it. Very hard to
for this week. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure
(14:02):
to subscribe to the iHeart Tazzy podcast feed on the
iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts, and if
you'd like, you can leave us a review while you're there.
I'm Olivia Hicks. Thanks for your company.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Iheartazzy
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