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Allegations of Abuse
in Institutions |
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Sometimes she would grab a piece
of broken glass, a razor blade – anything sharp – and slice into her arms and
legs. She had started self-harming when
she was 12 years old. She did not know why except that she felt driven to it
when feelings of misery overwhelmed her. Sally's mother had a drinking
problem and paid her little attention. She lived in great fear of her
"mean, miserly" father until he died of cancer when she was 13. It was Sally's school that finally
noticed she was having problems and suggested she see a hospital
psychiatrist. Sally was secretly pleased. Aged 16, she hoped the doctor
would help her become like the other girls. "I thought `I'm going to be
normal, I will go to dances and do all the things the other girls do'." But it was not to be. Sally would
never be a normal teenager. Her first psychiatrist found her
unco-operative – Sally had resisted his attempts to check her breasts – and
announced she must be admitted to hospital. She was about to embark on 14
years in the hands of psychiatrists and psychologists who used increasingly
extreme and bizarre attempts to cure her "madness". Not one would ask why she was so
desperately unhappy. "They told me I was mad, and I believed them,"
said Sally. "Though in my heart I always knew I had nothing wrong with
me." Initially she was in and out of
both Little progress was made and in
1975 she was committed to Stewart Villa in Sunnyside. "I spent three
years in a secure unit where murderers, rapists, arsonists, and retards
became my family." Her diaries record 74 treatments
of ECT. She has little memory of them but is convinced she still suffers the
after-effects; absent episodes, epileptic-type seizures and short-term memory
loss. The ward was filled with violence.
One patient narrowly missed her throat with a fork; a doctor was put in
hospital after being stabbed by another. One male nurse would push her
against the wall and forcefully kiss her. Another staff member physically
hurled her down the corridor for misbehaving. One Christmas, she won a basket of
goodies in a raffle which bewilderingly including sewing needles and razor
blades. Her room-mate, a 14-year-old girl from Kingslea, took the blades and
cut herself badly. Sally was blamed and ordered to
clean up the blood. In front of other patients in the
communal day room Sally's psychiatrist railed against her, accusing Sally of
being "bad" and "menacing" and causing her room-mate
great damage. Deeply hurt and humiliated, Sally retreated
to her room and cut herself, seriously. She ended up in Back at Sunnyside, this same
psychiatrist offered Sally the choice of a lobotomy or an extended stint in
solitary confinement. The latter was intended to force
Sally to "regress" to a neonatal stage so that her supposedly
disordered personality could be rebuilt. The room had nothing but a mattress
on the floor and a potty. The window was too high to see out of and Sally was
not allowed anything to read, listen to, or write with. "I went downhill very badly.
I screamed and banged the walls, I was in total despair. "It was like I was being
punished over and over again, for being a dirty little girl. That was what my
mother called me." At one point Sally was brought out
for a meeting and noticed the ward door open. "I ran for it. I was
heading for "It was the most helpless
feeling, there was nobody there to help that you could tell anything to. My
family never kept in touch. The State owned you and doctors and nurses could
do anything." If the doctors discovered she had
cut herself she would be given ECT. Her cuts would be stitched without
anaesthetic. She remembers her terror the day
she was given ECT without being anaesthetised. She was given a muscle
relaxant needed to prevent spasms so violent they could throw a patient off
the bed. "It felt like I had concrete poured inside me, it was the worst
experience. I passed out." On another occasion she was denied
medical treatment for a chronic physical condition. A sympathetic nurse
sneaked her out to a GP. He was shocked by her condition and prescribed
medication but back at Sunnyside this had to be kept hidden. Sally was variously diagnosed as
schizophrenic, paranoid, manic depressive and an hysterical neurotic. They
were all wrong. A number of supportive staff were convinced she did not have
a mental illness and would sneak her to their homes for visits. She was
encouraged by them to get out. When her psychiatrist was on sick
leave – having been stabbed by a patient – Sally asked for a trial release
and it was agreed. In 1978 Sally was released from Sunnyside and vowed she
would never return. She immediately stopped all her
psychiatric medication. Determined to rebuild her life, she lied about her
past to land a job and her own flat. She had to teach herself how to
cook and to look after herself. After all, for years she had had to ask
permission to have a shower, even to go to the toilet. Sally eventually fell in love,
married and had two children. Tragically her daughter died in her cot at just
four months. After 13 years her marriage broke
up. It was to prove a turning point in
her life. Broken-hearted at losing the first person she believed had ever
loved her, Sally slid back into a deep depression. But she recognised the
signs and having a young child to care for, knew she needed help. She remembered a sympathetic
psychologist from Sunnyside and discovered he now worked in the community. He
was the first professional Sally was to talk to about the horrific details of
her childhood. As a six-year-old Sally had been
raped by a neighbour. He was the brother of a high-profile member of her
community who threatened to kill her if she breathed a word about the abuse.
The abuse continued for another four years. Sally has since discovered her
mother knew of the abuse but feared the shame it would bring on the family if
it became public. Failed by her parents, Sally
believes she was easy prey for abusers. "They could see that no-one
cared about me." At 11, on a horse riding trip at a
friend's farm, four teenage boys held her down and raped her. Her friend
watched, doing nothing to come to her aid. "That was when I went really
mad. I used to sit at school and think I was going to have four babies. "I became really withdrawn.
That was when I started to sandpaper my skin off, I felt dirty." Though Sally had never forgotten
the sexual abuse, she had never associated it with her teenage depression and
self-harm. And nor had any of the countless
medical professionals who cared for her as a teenager and young adult. The
connection was first made in her counselling sessions following her marriage
break-up. Now aged 56, Sally's warm brown
eyes and easy smile reveal nothing of her past. She is one of about 200 people
wanting an inquiry into the psychiatric hospitals of She does not seek financial
compensation, nor even an apology. "I just want the world to know about the
injustices and hope it doesn't happen again." Tim Beswick, 39, grew up in Ilam
where he was sexually abused by a neighbour. He developed behavioural
difficulties and was sent to the now notorious At 13, diagnosed as having a mild
intellectual disability, Tim was sent to He became something of a child
arsonist, repeatedly lighting small fires. "I was an angry, angry little
boy." In 1980 he was sent to Sunnyside
where he was heavily medicated, given ECT, and kept in solitary for days on
end. When he was "a good boy"
he was rewarded with cigarettes and has not been able to kick his nicotine
habit to this day. Now living in his own house in
Leeston, Beswick said he still found it difficult to trust people. He had made countless attempts to
take his own life and nightmares often woke him in the night. "I'm a
mess at the end of the day. "I never had the experience
other young people had. They took my life away, my manhood, my reading and
writing away, my family away." He said
he wanted the truth of what happened to him and others to be told. |
