For almost 30 years, Narelle Fraser stared into the darkest corners of humanity. She investigated murders, sex crimes and some of Australia’s most confronting cases.
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But when the veteran detective reached breaking point, it was a Rochester doctor who helped change the course of her life.
Dr Eji Ekeanyanwu was the local GP who recognised within minutes that Narelle was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
More than a decade later, he appears alongside her in The Policewoman, an intensely personal documentary about her policing career, PTSD and fight to rebuild her life.
And when the film premieres at Echuca’s Paramount on Saturday, October 17, Dr Ekeanyanwu will be there supporting her once again.
“When I was at my lowest, I thought there’s something very wrong here, and I went to Eji,” Narelle said.
“This is just the local doctor in Rochester, and he had just done a thesis on PTSD.
“Apparently my symptoms were textbook PTSD. He was able to identify it within five minutes, really.
“Without his support, and just his knowledge and his care, I don’t think I could ever have recovered to the point I have.”
After years of exposure to trauma, Narelle realised something was badly wrong when she found herself losing the compassion that had always driven her work.
“I had lost all my compassion, my care, and that was when I thought, ‘Boy, what is going on?’” she said.
“That’s when I went to Eji on the Monday ... and I never went back into the office.
“I realised I was just so damaged.”
Dr Ekeanyanwu told her bluntly: “Narelle, you’ve got to have a break.”
He then referred her to Echuca psychologist Ingrid Hilton, beginning the recovery Narelle credits both with helping make possible.
“Between Ingrid and Eji, they got me back. They brought me back, sort of,” she said.
“They were instrumental in my recovery.”
Narelle spent 27 years with Victoria Police, including 15 as a detective across the rape and homicide squads and Missing Persons Unit.
Her 2012 PTSD diagnosis brought the career she loved to an abrupt end, but accepting she was struggling proved another battle.
“I didn’t want to tell anyone when I was first diagnosed with PTSD,” she said.
“I was so humiliated, ashamed. I was so nervous about being viewed as weak, unable to cope, that I kept it a secret.”
Today, Narelle has built a new life outside policing, including as a public speaker and podcaster, but her experience with PTSD remains central to her message.
That journey is laid bare in The Policewoman, taking audiences behind the tough exterior of the detective to reveal the personal toll of decades spent confronting trauma.
Narelle hopes her vulnerability will help people better understand what police and other first responders face.
“I want people to understand and be a bit more sympathetic to first responders, what they are faced with, what they are exposed to,” she said.
“In policing, I had to put on this facade of strength and courage, and underneath it all I’m just like anyone else.
“Beneath that facade is just a normal member of the community.”
She also wants to show that a mental illness diagnosis does not have to define someone’s future.
“I want to inspire people that just because you’re diagnosed with a mental illness, it’s not the end of the world,” she said.
“There is another world out there. And I have found it is just so unexpected, my life after policing.”
For Narelle, that new life also came with an appreciation for the community around her.
“The community here in Rochester is something that city people, people that don’t live in the country, will never get, and I didn’t either,” she said.
“Just that community spirit ... the community support.”
The documentary’s Victorian premiere will be particularly personal, with parts filmed in Echuca and at Narelle’s home at Burnewang, about 15 minutes from Rochester.
The Policewoman screens at the Echuca Paramount at 4pm on Saturday, October 17, followed by a Q&A with Narelle and director Claire Pasvolsky. It opens nationally on November 5.
Tickets are available at echucaparamount.com/movie/the-policewoman