Paityn
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 struggle to believe this has happened to me. Sometimes I think this must be a dream, a really bad dream.’
Paityn is in her 50s and lives with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.
Paityn told the Royal Commission that after her marriage ended, her husband gained custody of her children.
‘I was the worker of the family … he was the prime caregiver, so the children were with him until we managed to get through court.’
Paityn said stress made her sick and she lost half her body weight in a few months.
‘I’d been functioning really well in work, and it was just really the sadness had got to me … My GP admitted me initially for an infusion. But then I came on the mental health radar.’
Paityn said after a psychiatric review she was forced to spend a weekend in a mental health unit.
‘That whole weekend I didn’t see any doctor, I received no treatment and I was not on any medication, so I do not understand why that was necessary. And, come Monday morning, I had an interview with a psychiatrist and I was discharged.’
Paityn said the experience ‘derailed’ her.
‘For somebody who has survived 15 years of violence with my husband and to be locked up in a place like that is just, I can’t even explain, you know. You’re just putting me back in the lion’s den with all these people … it was a crazy place.’
Paityn was diagnosed with an eating disorder and re-admitted multiple times over the next few years to make her gain weight. She said security guards held her while a staff member inserted a nasal feeding tube.
‘I’ve been dragged along the floor by my arms and stuff … I’ve had security guards come behind me, I’ve been strangled in the past, come behind me and grab hold of my neck and it’s to drop me to the ground. It’s just wrong, it’s wrong that people are treated like that when they’ve come from a trauma background … Every day I woke up there I just wished I was dead.’
Paityn tried to kill herself. She was re-admitted to the same mental health unit.
The day she was being discharged, someone gave Paityn chocolate cake to eat.
‘I’ve never eaten cakes in my life. And there was no way that I could eat it. I’d put on the weight that I needed to put on and I was about to go home.’
She refused to eat it.
‘They cleared the room … and then a couple of security guys [came] to pin me down and it was just really bad and they inserted a [nasal] tube in the wrong place and then they just ripped it out, and it was just the worst experience ever … it was just another torture.’
To avoid going back to hospital, Paityn ‘went on the run’.
‘I actually had a lot of backing from people who probably shouldn’t have backed me. I had people in hospital tell me whatever you do, don’t let them get hold of you because once you’re in here nobody can help you. And it’s true, you have no rights at all.’
Paityn told the Royal Commission that although she’d been diagnosed with an eating disorder, ‘there has since been some talk whether that initially was a misdiagnosis’.
‘Other psychiatrists have also noticed that it was due to trauma and post-traumatic stress of how my marriage ended … So, kind of the misdiagnosis at the beginning … has really escalated the problem.’
Paityn says she has ‘just got [her] life back together’ and is trying to support herself.
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.