Patrica

Patrica has had complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) since she was a young teenager, the result of sexual abuse she experienced as a child.

Patrica said she has received mental health support for her C-PTSD since it was first diagnosed.

‘All my life, I've worked on it and got a lot of support for the trauma … And I was doing pretty well, and always getting supports, seeing psychologists and doing different support groups.’

She is now about 40 and recently had her second child. The baby was removed from her care just hours after the birth and, following a court determination, is now in the care of the father, Rolf.

Throughout her pregnancy Patrica was seeing a psychiatrist, a counsellor and a person she thought was a psychologist, who turned out to be a social worker.

Patrica had not spent much time with Rolf when she became pregnant. During the pregnancy he was living in another state and she saw him only occasionally. She said he was addicted to drugs and when they were together he could be abusive. He was also fearful of COVID-19 and its possible impact on the baby, and made Patrica afraid too.

About halfway through the pregnancy, a close family member died and Patrica’s mental health began to deteriorate. There were numerous pressures, including medical issues that also affected her mental health. She took confronting photos of herself and sent them to Rolf.

‘He didn't take it seriously, he knew that I was just being dramatic,’ she said.

Patrica also told the mental health professionals in her life how she was feeling.

‘Obviously I was trying to look at better ways to handle my emotions and my feelings, and act in better ways.’ 

Without telling Patrica, the social worker reported her to child protection services.

‘In my hospital notes, it shows they were planning to take the baby behind my back.’

Patrica believes she was discriminated against because of her psychosocial disability.

‘They just completely were biased towards the father after the removal of the baby. Everything in the court reports was very prejudiced against me. And they said things like my mental health had never been treated and it was always unstable … And they never even sat down with me to talk about the work I'd done on my mental health.’

A court-ordered psychologist’s report confirmed Patrica’s diagnosis of C-PTSD, and didn’t identify any other mental health issue.

‘The psychologist's report said that with the right treatment, my post-traumatic stress could be treated within a year,’ Patrica said.

Yet the court considered her disability to be a greater risk than the father’s drug addiction and, once he produced a clean drug test, gave the baby back to him.

Patrica said that pregnancy can be a ‘quite challenging’ time even in normal circumstances.

‘Any mum during pregnancy probably has, you know, a quite high vulnerability to suffering mental health because of the fears that a pregnancy can bring up. Let alone a pregnancy where there's health problems, two family deaths, domestic violence and isolation. They just need to take it into account that, you know, mothers don't need to lose their babies because of it. That they needed to be offered more support.’

Patrica felt better immediately after the baby was born.

‘I just felt that it was finally over – like I can just relax and enjoy being a mum. And I was so happy, and I was so relieved … And they didn't give me a chance. They never gave me one chance. And now the baby's interstate … and it's been so heartbreaking. Sometimes I feel like I could die from a heart attack, from just the pain of losing my baby.’