Freia
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‘When a patient is given the wrong medication and has an allergic reaction to it which induces psychosis, it should be acknowledged as a cause and not be labelled as schizophrenia.’
Freia is in her late 40s and lives with mental health issues. She worked as a teacher until she was diagnosed with a ‘schizoaffective disorder’ about a decade ago.
‘Basically, I’m not even sure what classification I fit into with disabilities,’ she told the Royal Commission. ‘There’s a chance that maybe I have undiagnosed autism or Asperger’s syndrome.’
Freia said she had been admitted to hospital several times since 2009 after seeking assistance for her mental health. Every time she felt she was overmedicated.
‘[Doctors] keep me in hospital and put me on the drugs and then tell me I have to stay on the drugs.’
Around 10 years ago, Freia took herself to the emergency department after she had an allergic reaction to a drug a doctor had prescribed. The drug ‘kept [her] awake for 72 hours’.
‘And I basically went into, like, a psychosis, and my heartbeat was 165 beats per minute for three days.’
Freia said she was then put on medication used treat schizophrenia, which ‘sent her loopy’.
On discharge, Freia was ‘drugged up so much’ that the side effects were debilitating.
‘The drugs they put me on … made me really fat. And, so, I went from being a lovely teacher who was fit, healthy, to incapacitated for a whole year, where I couldn’t work and I had to use up all long service leave.’
The high dosages of the medication made her lose control of her bladder.
‘I would wet my pants about 16 times a day and – which made it very difficult – and … I started lactating.’
Freia said she had just been starting to get back on her feet after experiencing domestic violence about four years earlier.
‘I was sexually assaulted in my own home by the father of my child … Well, basically, I had been in a domestic violent relationship for a long time.’
She said she had ‘got through the trauma’, but then the treatment for schizophrenia knocked her down again.
‘My perpetrator doesn’t get any slap on the wrist or anything and I end up … labelled … and I still have that label today.’
Freia said she came off the medication about four months ago.
'When that happened, I started to [have a] clearer mind and started enjoying life more, because I’ve been drugged … for seven years.’
An ‘expert psychiatrist who specialised in trauma’ said there was ‘no way’ Freia was schizophrenic.
‘The psychosis I had was due to that medication I was given by my doctor.’
Freia would like to see the ‘whole system, especially the medical system’, take ‘a holistic approach to a person’.
She described the way medical professionals treated her as ‘the lithium cycle’ which, she says, often happens often after a woman is raped.
‘The doctors just see a traumatised girl or woman. And they’re put on drugs and a common one is lithium, and it just turns them into zombies. They’ve tried to put me on lithium several times.’
Freia would like to teach again but doesn’t like her chances of finding work.
‘Living through this … it’s impeded my chances of full-time employment having this schizoaffective thing labelled on my teacher register.’
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.