Esme
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.
Esme is in her 70s and lives with bipolar disorder.
‘I am a working-class girl and the only thing I ever had really going for me was I was smart, you know. I had a high IQ, I could apply it,’ Esme told the Royal Commission. ‘And the thing I wanted least to mess with was my brain. The thing that I thought [was], “Don't take this away from me.”’
Esme said that, as she aged, the emotional lows of bipolar disorder became harder to treat. Several years ago, her usual medication wasn’t working and a doctor admitted her to a clinic where she was given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) ‘over 30 times in that three months’.
‘I was waking up and not being able to remember the names of my grandchildren, not remember language and knowing that that was happening, and me saying, “Please stop this.”’
Esme said the psychiatrist at the clinic coerced her to continue treatment when she didn’t want to.
‘I was asking, “Please stop this.” I was being ignored.’
Esme said she originally consented to the ECT when she was ‘at [her] worst’.
‘You know, you’re depressed, you don’t care, your family have walked away from you … If [the psychiatrist] believed I was in good enough condition to say yes to 48 treatments, when I said “I don't want anymore” I should have been [considered] in good enough condition to make that decision.’
When Esme asked for a second opinion, the psychiatrist refused to make a referral.
‘I mean, it was bullying, it was intimidation, it was threatening. It was a total abuse of power and it got to the stage where it was not even hidden. It was, “If you stop having this now and you want to start again I won’t see you through the system, you’ll have to start all over again.”’
Esme described the clinic as an ‘ECT factory’.
‘I can remember sitting in a line, there’d be three of us in a line, one of us would be taken in, the two would move along and another one would join the line … if you look at the bill that I got, it … is about $300 or $400 every time.’
Esme said she attempted to kill herself between treatments, but a friend saved her.
‘I woke up every day wanting to die … The things I've forgotten are half of my life … I don’t lay down memories now.’
Esme said when she tried to find another psychiatrist, she discovered the industry was ‘a closed shop’.
‘It’s, “I don't want to know about that.”’
When she did find another psychiatrist to treat her, Esme had to promise she wouldn’t complain about her previous treatment.
‘All I really wanted to do is to be heard, [but] it was made very clear to me if that was what I wanted, one, he wouldn't help me and, two, he would think twice about whether he wanted me [as a patient],’ Esme told the Royal Commission. ‘Now, he is a decent man, but that is the accepted and standard behaviour in this small community of people who have total power over people.’
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.