Bee
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Bee is in her 20s and has muscular atrophy and an intellectual disability. She uses a wheelchair and needs 24-hour support.
Bee’s grandparents cared for her when she was a child. Since her grandmother died, she has been living in a hospital.
‘I was admitted initially because I was sick, and then they kept me there, yeah. Then they kept me there, but I was living on the adolescent ward,’ Bee told the Royal Commission. ‘There was like a back room where you could sit and just look around and I would sit there on my own sometimes and just watch people and I would talk to the nurses at the nurse station. I would draw pictures … I had birthdays there and I had Christmases there.’
In her late teens, Bee moved into a group home where she shares a kitchen and bathroom with another person.
‘I have dolls that are my children … I have always wanted to be a mum, and so because it’s not safe for me to have real human children, I decided to treat my dolls as children. And I take them out and I dress them and I look after them.’
Bee dresses her dolls, which she calls her ‘kids’, and takes them shopping and to the playground.
‘It's a kind of a therapeutic thing for me. When I dress them, when I hold them, it gives me a sense of … You know?’
Bee said that since she’s had her kids, she’s become more assertive and asks for help. She said the support staff don’t seem to like it.
For example, the dolls live on a table, off the floor, in her room for safety. Bee said one of her support workers moves them around ‘without asking’.
‘She came in and said to me what the manager of the house says – babies are not to sleep on the table. But the manager didn't actually say that, [the support worker] just said that, and I got upset. Because … when they're sleeping on there, I can actually go up and, you know, interact with them in my height. When she said that, I got emotional because it took that independence away.’
Bee said another support worker has become ‘very snappy’. Others are rough when they move her on her bed.
‘She kind of pulls harder to get me over quicker.’
Bee said she’d like to be more confident, but fears the quality of her care will be affected if she speaks up too much.
‘I don’t expect everyone to like it, but you just have to be more respectful to me about it,’ Bee told the Royal Commission. ‘Because I'm asking for a lot more nowadays as well. Before my kids, I would just sit on my iPad all day and do nothing.’
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.