Ian Bryson (49:32)
So I, like, I, I had a whole plan because I. I knew my wife was running a script, and I knew that I could break that down and that she wouldn't be able to answer my questions. So they. I, I started to do that, and she started to, like, unravel. And then the judge banned me from trial. I wasn't even allowed to participate in my defense. I wasn't allowed to call witnesses on my behalf or get a second opinion from, like, another psychiatrist. This was just the court psychiatrist. And I had witnesses in the Netherlands that would have came and, and said, you know, that we were. We were in Counseling for what we thought was borderline personality disorder that I had, like my wife's psychiatric questionnaires where she's saying there's trauma and she doesn't know the extent of that, the impact on our family because of it. So I was just trying to, like, I wanted to present that case. Just like there's more going on than, than what this side of the story is telling. Like, it's, it's a he said, she said of sorts. So let's, let's look at this deeper for the child. Like, I'm, I'm absolutely not trying to defend myself. Although they're lying. But of course they're lying. That's how this thing works. So let's, let's look at what we can look at. But they, yeah, no witnesses, banned from trial. And, and I wasn't allowed to bring up my daughter in the court. It was all, you know, they turn it into. It's attempted murder. Because that's what we think you wanted to do. Even though the medical report didn't show any, you know, hammer damage. Just that's what you wanted to do. This situation looks like you came here to kill him, so we're going to get you with attempted murder. And the judge even said what you did was assault, but what you wanted to do was attempted murder. So you're looking at eight to 25 years. And I just kept going back to my daughter, my daughter, my daughter. So what happened there was they had the court psychiatrist evaluate me and I say my daughter's being abused. The, the prosecutor says they investigated and ruled out that my daughter was being abused. Of course they didn't evaluate her. Their investigation was talking to my wife. So like, so, so the prosecutor says they ruled out abuse. I say abuse. The court psychiatrist takes that and says, okay, Ian must be delusional. So I got, I got diagnosed by the court psychologist as delusional. And, you know, and I tried to, I tried to question them in court too. And just like, what. Is there any other sign of mental illness other than I say my daughter's being abused? They say, no, you know, how do you, how do you know my daughter's not being abused? Well, the prosecutor says so just like this circle of nonsense where, like, they don't have evidence to say she's not being abused, but they're stating they do. So then the psychiatrist states, takes that and says, well, he's, he's insane. He's. And so then I got sent to one of the three or four maximum security psychiatric prison hospitals Where I, I walk in and like, there's, there's a guy pretending he's John Deere tractor. There's other guys with their wrists strapped to their waist because they'll just punch people randomly, just stuff like that. And at that point, I found out I was in a trap. Like, once you're sent to this place, it's up to the psychiatrist to decide whether you get sent home. But the psychiatrist is working with the court, who doesn't want to send you home. So the initial, the first guy I talked to, the director of this hospital, he's like, I don't know why you're here. It's a mistake. But the court wants you here. And you're going to be here for at least six months. And then you have to go to medium security. Then you have to go to minimum security in order to go through the system and get out. So I, I just, I hunkered down. They were trying to force medication on me, and this was antipsychotic medication that just shuts down your thinking. So I, I, I practiced with gum, hiding the, the pill in my upper lip, and became pretty good at that. But there was also, like, this rumor going around that they'll test your blood, and if you don't have that in your system, then they'll do injections or hold you here longer. So I would take, like, a little piece here and there in case that happened. But it was, it was making it so like, it felt like I poured rubber cement in my head. I couldn't, I couldn't watch a TV show and focus on, and I couldn't read, like, you know, I couldn't pray. I had no connection to anything. So I really fought for my mind. And just every day I was under the cameras, I'm constantly being questioned by these people. And I learned that I had to put my daughter on the shelf and get out. So I met my first opinion there. He said, yeah, Ian's good. I got sent to medium security across the country. And they sent me, like, in the, shackled and handcuffed in this Plexiglas cage across the country. I get to the medium security, and it's, it's worse than maximum security. The, they were giving me a low dose of that medication at this maximum security because the director didn't, he couldn't see any issues with my mental health. But he was like, we, everyone gets, everyone gets medication because that's what the court wants. That's what he told me. So I get to meet him. Security and this doctor Says, we're going to double your medication because they weren't really treating you. I'm like, treating me for what? Like, and she doesn't have a good answer. Is treating you because the court wants you to be treated. And at this place, it was, it was literal hell. Like, there were people who were trying to escape. One guy jumped over a razor wire fence. Another guy asked me to kill him. He said, take me in the bathroom, choke me out and, and kill me. And he was serious because this was, this place was just, it was torture to be there. I would, I would sleep as much as I could to the point where I was getting bed sores. The food, you were always hungry. But that doctor that I had to deal with was absolutely just horrific. And I, at that point, I was looking at potential escape. I, I didn't ever come close to it because getting caught would have pushed me further from my daughter. And I knew that all I had to do was plod through the system and I would come out the other end. But it was, it was to the point where like, I was, this was on like the Belarus border with, with Poland. I was thinking, I was planning how I could get out, where I would go if a friend from Amsterdam could come and get me up and drive me into Belarus or Russia just to get me out of Poland. And like, I, I contemplated it because of how bad it was.
