Lorenzo and Cindy-Lou
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.
Lorenzo, an adult with learning disabilities, lives ‘out in the sticks’ with his mother, Cindy-Lou.
Lorenzo was diagnosed with dyslexia and other learning impairments at primary school.
The local school promised to provide learning supports, but ‘that was just gobbledy-gook’, Cindy-Lou told the Royal Commission. She and her husband wanted to pay for a teaching assistant to ensure Lorenzo didn’t ‘fall through the cracks’. But the education system didn’t enable this and he was left to ‘fall behind’.
‘The system gives you so much … crap. We kept him at school because the headmaster kept saying, “We’ll work with him, we’ll support him, we’ll get him through. He doesn’t need to pass the units, he just needs to attend.”’
Cindy-Lou organised some out-of-school programs for Lorenzo.
‘By the time he was about to leave primary school and go into secondary education, he could not put a sentence together. He was always ostracised because of his literacy skills. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t skip, he couldn’t catch a ball and that’s all part and parcel of this dyslexia issue.’
In year 12, the school changed its tune.
‘It became important that he did pass all these assessments. It wasn’t just good enough that he handed something in. It had to be of the calibre that was required.’
The school put pressure on Lorenzo.
‘They wanted him to leave because his results would impact on all the other children’s results’.
The system pushed him through ‘with a deluded sense of his ability’, Cindy-Lou said.
‘Part of the disability impact is of course the literacy. He didn’t get the skills to progress. And because he did not complete his HSC, he was compelled to go back to school. At which stage he had a psychotic episode, which the psychiatrists have directly linked to the pressures we put on him to learn to read and write.’
Today Lorenzo is ‘crushed’, she said.
‘He is so broken we will never get him fixed. You believe you’re doing the right thing … That was the advice. And then all of a sudden, the wheels fall off and you think, “What have I done to him?” … Well you know, I kept him at school because I believed in education. I believed the system would help him.’
Lorenzo’s ability to ‘find work and have a fulfilling life has been so compromised’ by the learning failure, Cindy-Lou said.
‘And the sad reality is … it was picked up early. Now, in the end, it didn’t help. He is never ever going to be the happy person he was … Everyone should go and hang their heads in shame, absolute frigging shame.’
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.