Mary-Kate
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.
As a small child, there was a lot of fighting and abuse in Mary-Kate’s home. Her parents separated when she was six and she remained with her mother.
During primary and then high school, she had to care for her mother who became deeply and sometimes suicidally depressed.
‘School was my only stable place, so I did my best to do well there,’ Mary-Kate said.
But over time that became more difficult. ‘I was completely isolated, ashamed and deprived,’ she told the Royal Commission. In high school she developed social anxiety and depression that she tried to conceal. It affected her capacity to study and she barely passed her final school exams.
‘This has led to an extremely difficult life of just struggle with severe depression, social anxiety, you know, and they are crippling. Absolutely crippling.’
By the time she was in her early 20s, Mary-Kate was also dealing with ‘excruciating’ back pain, the result of multiple car accidents.
‘So at this point … I entered the world of daily chronic pain which causes depression in itself.’
Now in her early 50s, Mary-Kate has had chronic pain ever since. It has limited her ability to work and enjoy a normal life. When her father died she inherited some money, enough to buy a house in regional Victoria. This has been problematic too, with mistakes and faults in construction of the home leaving her fighting for compensation.
To meet the costs of repairing her home, Mary-Kate has had to work harder than her body can tolerate. She is angry that the federal government reduced the number of health support visits it covers, as she depends on these to keep functioning.
‘They reduced the chiropractor – that was one thing that helped me – down to five visits a year. Five visits a year, that is disgusting. I'm needing them twice a week. Physio. Now it's five visits for everything per year,’ she said.
Access to free counselling has also been cut back. ‘That's down to 10 meetings a year,’ Mary-Kate said. She was seeing a counsellor regularly and finding it very useful.
‘I saw her for two years … I was actually getting somewhere with her and then funding stopped. I had to – you know, had to retell my story and dredge it up maybe 15 times to different counsellors because, you know, funding.’
With the help of her doctor, Mary-Kate is applying for NDIS support. She said she’d been slow to apply because of her sense that people in her situation, whose disability is invisible, receive very little help.
‘There needs to be a lot more done about the fact that, you know, that the walking ones, with back pain and neck pain and all that kind of thing, we are still kind of hidden.’
She is concerned about the level of funding available to people in her situation.
‘Just because I'm receiving a disability pension … it doesn't mean that I don't have the mental processes to be able to manage money and budget. And the problem is you can only do so much with what you've got. It’s not an issue of mismanagement. It's not having the resources. The DSP [Disability Support Pension] needs to be doubled immediately. You know, for people – we want a life, you know.’
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.