Sarah’s Story: From Custody and Chaos to Healing and Purpose

I never expected to walk into prison carrying hepatitis C, and I definitely didn’t expect to walk out with a purpose. But that’s how my story goes – messy, painful, and somehow still full of hope.

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When I first came into Mulawa, I was already falling apart. I had no support on the outside. My family was split; Mum was deep in alcoholism, and my dad loved me but we clashed constantly because we thought so differently. I was more westernised; he was old‑school, and we just never met in the middle. So, when I hit custody, I hit it alone.

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They put me straight into the fishbowl for observation. I was withdrawing from speed, heroin, pills, everything. My celly was withdrawing from alcohol. What a combo. She’d been in plenty of times before, so she took me under her wing. We were both sick, scared, sweating, shaking, and trying to hold each other together. That tiny cell felt like the whole world closing in.

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I remember pushing the intercom because she was worrying me. I asked for Valium, something, anything to take the edge off. They refused. We kept calling because we were getting worse, and no one was listening. That’s when the riot squad came in, it was one of the scariest moments of my life. I was so sick I spewed on one of them when he got too close. I’ll never forget the look on his face.

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This was my introduction to custody.

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I got put into the main part of the jail, after being on the run from police for years, for fines. They raided my house, and I went straight to jail. I was living side by side with murderers, robbers, violent girls! There was an altercation one day, and I was jabbed with an implement. I didn’t know it yet, but that was going to be one of my darkest days ever! That’s how I got hep C. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t get tested. I didn’t get treatment. I didn’t even get information. I just carried the fear, the shame, the not knowing what it was doing to my body.

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People think prison is loud, but the truth is it’s full of quiet suffering. You learn to keep things to yourself. You learn to survive.

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One day, I saw a pamphlet about hep C treatment. Just a little folded piece of paper stuck on a wall. But it hit me, that “aha” moment. It said treatment was simple now. Curable. No needles. No hospital trips. Just tablets for a few months. I remember thinking, if this is real, maybe I don’t have to live like this forever.

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But inside, nothing happened. No one followed up. No one asked. No one checked. So, I held onto that pamphlet in my mind like a tiny bit of hope.

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When I got out, I pushed to get tested properly. I was terrified they’d need to dig around for veins – anyone who’s used knows that fear. But it wasn’t like that at all. It was just a finger-prick test. Quick. Easy. No judgement. For the first time in years, someone actually listened to me.

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I started the hep C treatment expecting the worst, but honestly? I had no side effects at all. None. Some people get them, though, like tiredness and headaches. After everything I’d been through, the treatment was the easiest part. And when I finished it, it felt like I got my life back. Like I could breathe again.

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That was the turning point.

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Today, I’m living a life I never imagined for myself. I’m a peer worker with NUAA, and I sit on the Justice Health LEAP advisory group. I use every part of my lived experience – the withdrawals, the fear, the riot squad, the silence, the hep C – to help people who are still inside or just coming out. I get to be the support I never had. I get to walk beside people who feel alone, ashamed, or forgotten, and show them that change is possible. That healing is possible. That they matter.

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I can’t change what happened to me in custody. I can’t rewrite the trauma or the mistakes or the moments I thought I wouldn’t make it. But I can use it. And I do every single day.

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If someone inside reads this and thinks, “Maybe I can get help too,” then everything I went through has meaning. I want people to know that hep C is treatable if they chat to a nurse or doctor. That they don’t have to carry it alone. That there are people out here fighting for them, even when they feel invisible.

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I walked into prison with hep C and no hope.

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I walked out with a second chance.

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And now I use that chance to help others find theirs.