Tameka
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
‘I was begging and begging and begging them to get off the medication. They just said, "You've got schizophrenia. You need to take this.”’
Tameka is in her late 20s and was diagnosed with schizophrenia a decade ago.
Prior to her diagnosis, Tameka was in the creative industries. All that stopped when psychiatrists placed her under an involuntary treatment order.
‘I just wanted to work … Then they put me on all these medications. I didn't want to take it. And I started getting all these adverse reactions. I was just sitting in my bed all day, like, not moving, or I just was looking, like, at the wall and I couldn't fold my clothes. I couldn't do anything.’
On her release, Tameka lived in a ‘mental health rehab place’. Doctors never helped her deal with the ‘horrible’ side-effects of the treatment, which led to ‘suicide attempts’.
‘I kept trying to negotiate with them to come off the medication … I kept telling people, like, "I can't think." There was no way to come off of it. They wouldn't listen to me.’
Tameka said that a couple of years ago she had ‘the worst’ mental health review of her life. Psychiatrists told her that all of her ‘dreams and aspirations’ were irrational and placed her under a guardianship order.
‘And I just broke down and I was crying my eyes out. I didn't let that stop me. That was their perspective on me, that I was delusional about my life, but it really affected me.’
After that, Tameka was admitted ‘plenty of times’ to a mental health inpatient facility.
‘So that was that. For about two years I was going in and out of psych wards. Every single time it's been involuntarily.’
During this time, doctors started her on a new antipsychotic treatment.
‘They decided to give me injections in my butt cheeks. And this medication … it numbs my brain.’
Tameka said the pubic trustee has abused her while managing her finances.
‘At one stage, they were only giving me $30 a week into my account along with food vouchers … So they would always be in control … I never really had a say of where I was living.’
Meanwhile, the negative fallout of her ‘zombifying medication’ continued.
‘So I absconded. I just didn't have a choice, because the mental health workers, my GP, they were so in control of my life. They would enter my house without, like, asking me. I had no privacy. They would pick me up for my injections and I didn't want it, and I knew I didn't need it.’
After six months in a psychiatric facility, Tameka recently took herself off the injections. The injections have left scars and she has had to have surgery for an abscess they caused.
‘But now I can sleep. I'm on tablets just weaning myself off. Definitely, I feel way better. I've pretty much gone through everything.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.