Kerrin

‘Having a disability and neurodiversity has put me in lots of positions where I have vulnerability, either as a child or because there is such an imbalance of power when you’re needing help.’

Kerrin, mid-40s, has a degenerative genetic condition affecting her mobility and physical health. For much of her life she couldn’t stand for too long without ‘passing out’ or having seizures. She uses crutches and a wheelchair. She is neurodiverse and has complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

When Kerrin was a child a family member sexually abused her, twice over a six-month period. Kerrin told the Royal Commission she ‘became aware over time that people who have a predisposition to being abusive are able to spot, sense vulnerability’. She said she was ‘more of a target’ because of her troubled history – her mother was ‘in and out of hospital because of depression’.

When Kerrin reported the abuse, nobody believed or supported her. Instead they ‘pathologised’ her, misdiagnosing her with mental illness. This ‘discredited’ her and made it harder to get help.

At 14, Kerrin had anorexia. She was hospitalised for five months, during which time doctors ‘didn’t even want to know’ about her trauma. She described the treatment model as ‘punishment and privileges’ and ‘being punished for having trauma’. She said it set her up for ‘further vulnerability going forward’.

Some time later, Kerrin was an inpatient in a ‘locked special ward’ at a different hospital. Here, a male nurse sexually assaulted her numerous times. She asked a female nurse how to report the abuse and the woman responded, ‘I wondered when you were going to ask.’ However, when Kerrin reported the abuse the nurse ‘didn’t back [her] up’.

The head psychiatrist at the hospital tried to convince Kerrin the abuse didn’t happen. She felt extremely unsafe and asked the hospital to remove the male nurse from the ward. The hospital refused, and instead moved her. Kerrin phoned the official visitor service and the sexual assault service, but no-one came to see her.

Eventually Kerrin decided to ‘submit completely to what their picture of being dischargeable looked like’ in order to leave.

Kerrin said the hardest time in her life was seeking justice for sexual assault that occurred in her 20s. The trial was ‘worse than the initial experience’. She’d ‘never ever recommend, ever’ anyone report an assault.

It began with the police officer who took her initial statement using his own words instead of hers. Police didn’t give her a copy of the statement until she was in court, where she was asked to read it out loud. But Kerrin ‘couldn’t read it’ because she felt the language ‘of intimacy’ the police officer used didn’t reflect what happened.

Kerrin felt confused giving her testimony. Under cross-examination, the lawyer asked her to recount events in the order they happened. She couldn’t remember the order and contradicted the statement. They questioned her about her sexuality and psychiatric history. To discredit her, the defence called as a witness the head psychiatrist at the hospital where she’d been assaulted. Despite having ‘forensic proof’ and ‘proof of damage’, the court found her perpetrator not guilty.

‘What I saw when I was in and out of psychiatric wards, was so many women with and without disabilities who were abused as children and then misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder.’

Kerrin says her medical record makes it impossible for her to get help for her physical disabilities in the public system. She is treated as ‘drug seeking’ or ‘there for attention’ and her physical symptoms are ‘in her head’.

‘It’s awful,’ she said. ‘No-one should have to experience that … If there is a way that I can contribute … making sure other people don’t go through that, then I would like to do that.’