Abigail

‘At times I've got quite angry because I've lost 20 years of my life, of earning potential, the chance to have children. I’ve lost that bit by bit because I was just left to rot. I was labelled and I was drugged.’

Abigail is in her 50s. About 20 years ago, she was told she has bipolar disorder.

‘When I first approached the mental health system I was in a difficult situation and I was asking for help on how to manage that. Instead I got drugs and a label,’ she told the Royal Commission.

Over the next two decades, psychiatrists changed and increased her medications.

‘No-one ever explained why I was having so much medication. I've never had a manic attack. I've not been consistently under the care of a psych professional. When I've been assessed, it's been at times of crisis and they've assumed that my emotional state … was my normal headspace.’

Things ‘came to a bit of a head’ about five years ago when Abigail was ‘repeatedly given a different label’ for mental illness.

‘I mean people would meet me and give me snap diagnoses. Nobody ever attempted to explain what any of these diagnoses means, it was “cluster this, cluster that”, “acronym this, acronym that”.’

That same year, Abigail ‘was beaten up by a housemate’.

‘The police didn't take it seriously … I was made homeless.’

She went to a hospital ‘to ask for help with the depression’. Mental health professionals talked to her family, not her, before admitting her to a psychiatric ward.

‘That was a massive breach of my privacy. They should have at the very minimum had a conversation with me, asked my consent … When I complained about that situation, I was brushed off and I was ignored. I felt totally disempowered, I felt not listened to.’

Later in the year, Abigail was living with her cousin whose husband ‘was getting quite aggressive’. She rang police. When they turned up six hours later, they took her to hospital emergencies and she ended up on a mental health ward again.

Abigail felt ‘invalidated by the police and the health system’. She ‘got knocked back every time’ she sought help. Her interactions with the police ‘have been quite problematic’.

‘They just turn up out of the blue … saying that someone had called them, saying I'm suicidal,’ she said.

‘I've had cops bashing on my doors, front and back, screaming at me that they're going to take me to hospital. It's terrifying, absolutely terrifying.’

A couple of years ago, Abigail reported that a neighbour assaulted her.

‘The police insisted that I'd assaulted him … I was so distressed, I couldn't talk, I couldn’t get a lawyer … When I did speak to Legal Aid she refused to read what I had to say, so I was convicted.’

Abigail believes ‘police deliberately provoked’ her. They ‘target’ her because of the ‘mental health stigma’.

‘It’s really hard when you’re told you have a mental disorder. You can't trust your own brain. And you're trying to assess your own behaviour and you don't have anyone you can trust to talk it over with.’

About three years ago, Abigail took herself off medication. Then she started seeing a new counsellor who’s helping her ‘with strategies to manage difficult situations’.

‘And it's been incredibly useful, very effective. She’s the first person in the psych industry who’s never given me a label. I've been waiting 20 years for someone with this kind of skill and listening capacity. It's kind of bizarre.’