Not Alone: Perth woman let down by the system before suicide

Brittany Nicholas was released by a mental health clinic with a full bill of health and some new medication. The next day she was dead.

Brittany Nicholas was released by a mental health clinic with a full bill of health and some new medication. The next day she was dead.

Her family says she was let down by the system that is supposed to protect her. But what happens when your own doctor can’t tell how ill you are?

The tragedy for the Nicholas family unfolded in September 2017. It had been building for some time before that.

“She tried (to take her own life) once, left a note. Mum and Dad didn’t tell us,” her brother Rhett tells news.com.au.

There were lots of signs that she would try again, but her family says they were a bit “naive” about what to look out for.

Then one day it happened.

“I got home and my partner was in tears,” Rhett says. “She held the phone out to me and it was my Dad on the other end saying ‘We’ve lost her’.

Mental health and suicide are not easy subjects to talk about, but news.com.au wants you to know you’re Not Alone. News.com.au’s Not Alone will raise awareness about these issues and provide you with the resources needed to reach out for help.

“A day earlier she had come home from a mental health centre because they had given her the all clear.”

“Britt”, as she was affectionately referred to by family and friends, was in a car crash in 2015 that led to hip issues. She was bipolar and diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, anxiety and depression.

She was in and out of mental health facilities and therapy. Her behaviour was impulsive and unsettled, Rhett says.

Brittany, Conor and Rhett Nicholas. Brittany took her own life at the age of 24.

She was also able to manipulate people, including mental health professionals.

“People with bipolar and borderline personality disorder can be manipulative. They can get you to do anything,” her brother recalls.

She changed psychologists and was given new medication in 2017. Rhett says Britt “manipulated” her doctor into believing she was fine. He discharged her a day before she took her own life.

“This guy was inconsolable. He thought he’d done the right thing. He had discharged her but he had been manipulated,” Rhett says.

Brittany left several notes before taking her own life.

‘The system doesn’t lend itself to being flexible’

Rhett says his sister was let down by the system but also that he now understands that some mental health problems don’t lend themselves to a straightforward diagnosis.

“I think I was a bit naive to it. I was in denial,” he says.

“You grow up in a middle-class family. You know people have all these different things but you just don’t understand it a lot. After it, I felt ashamed. I had to ask myself, ‘Why was I not more receptive to it?’

“We’d seen this pattern of behaviour from age 13 through to 24. There were phases where we didn’t talk because I couldn’t cop it and I didn’t understand it.”

He doesn’t want other people to feel the way he felt.

“What could I have done differently? In our circumstances at the time, there was probably a lot more I could’ve done. I could’ve just been in tune with what was happening.

“But if you’re not able to process what is in front of you, it makes it hard. What I learnt in the years that followed is that conversations only go so far.”

He says families should talk with their children and siblings and their feelings and what they are going through.

“It’s something that isn’t spoken about at a young age. We’re taking steps forward but there’s not enough of it.”

Brittany Nicholas was released by a mental health clinic with a full bill of health, the next day she was dead.

‘There were 2000 people at her funeral’

Britt was “always chasing something”, her brother says. She was so smart that it frustrated him and good at whatever she wanted to do.

She was wildly popular and never happier than when she was included.

Under a tree at the yacht club in WA where her family spent countless weekends is a park bench in her honour.

She used to sit there and drink Sparkling Whispers. She was “the life of the party”.

When she died, there were 2000 people at her funeral.

“We had mates of hers who showed up the day after she died and they were a mess,” Rhett says. “Blokes I’ve known for a number of years. A mate from Hong Kong rang me and wanted to get on a plane straight away. They just didn’t get it. They just didn’t know (what she was going through).”

Rhett says there was nothing his sister would not do for those she loved. Nothing was too much to ask of her.

“The amount of times I would ring her drunk and she’d come and get me. She was this selfless, selfless person.”

The family still mourns for the bright, bubbly young woman that left too soon. But they are healing. Slowly.

“To have to go through a tragedy like that to get to this point is hell and back,” Rhett says.