Gladys
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.
‘There were things outside my control, which I didn't understand and had no ability to influence. I felt completely sort of invisible to anything that might have a moral compass.’
Gladys is in her 70s. She lives with bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and physical disability.
‘I've gone through a bit of a slew of different sorts of disorders,’ she told the Royal Commission. ‘I also have … narcolepsy with cataplexy. I go into REM sleep whilst I'm actually walking or something, so I fall and often injure myself, sometimes seriously.’
A few years ago, Gladys was ‘very deeply depressed’.
‘I was in a stage of the bipolar cycle where I hadn't gone to sleep for five days and I was starting to be affected in my ability to walk and those sorts of things.’
When her usual private hospital was full, Gladys’s GP had her ‘admitted voluntarily’ to a public hospital.
When she arrived, medical staff took her clothes and possessions and placed her in a room alone for hours. They also confiscated her prescription medication and gave her a different one instead.
‘Over the next few days I became increasingly sick, which apparently is what happens if you don't wean off these antidepressant pills.’
The stress triggered a cataplexy episode.
‘I’m on the floor. I can't move. And they say, “She's had a heart attack” … Somebody then says, “She's faking it.” So they do something called a sternal rub … running something very heavy down your sternum … It bruised my chest. And I could feel the intense pain, but I couldn't scream or speak or do anything.’
Gladys said if staff had read her medical history, none of this would have happened. She feels the hospital neglected her complex health needs because of her mental health issues.
Two days later, they admitted her to a mental health ward.
‘I was sectioned … I was made an involuntary patient. I wasn't allowed to leave the hospital.’
During this time, staff denied her access to belongings and the right to call family members.
‘They had my mobile phone, they had everything.’
Gladys said that by law she was free to leave within 24 hours of admission as an involuntary patient. ‘Because I hadn't been certified twice … and that period had lapsed.’
But when she went to walk out the door, two uniformed men tackled her to the ground.
Gladys said she was ‘forced’ to stay in the psychiatric unit for another 10 days. During this time, if she needed something – ‘water … pretty much anything’ – she had to go to the nurses station to request it.
‘I would stand there for half an hour, three quarters of an hour … nobody would come and speak to me. And I wondered if perhaps I've actually already died and I wasn't really there,’ Gladys said.
‘It was almost a denial of my existing as a person. You know, taking up volume. Being real. I felt dematerialised in some sort of weird way.’
That feeling continues ‘to revisit’ Gladys, who was traumatised by the mistreatment at the hospital.
‘I've had PTSD treatment and I take medication for PTSD and, you know, to make me sleep. And of course, I still don't sleep.’
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.