Steph
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.
‘This work is uncomfortable. This work is challenging … You need to deal with that, and that's your responsibility. If you're going to use black humour and these horrible stigmatising ways of trying to distance yourself, that doesn't work. And actually, it creates more damage and it perpetuates stigma and shame.’
Steph, mid-40s, has psychosocial disability. A few years ago, she worked as a mental health peer support worker at a community health organisation.
She told the Royal Commission she had been ‘excited’ to use her experience of mental illness to support others. She was the only peer support worker within the organisation.
Steph immediately noticed staff using ‘a great deal of black humour, inappropriate language, stigmatising language’.
Staff would make crude jokes about clients. ‘You name it, they joked about it.’
Steph felt they were probably ‘letting off steam’ and tried not to take the jokes and comments personally. But being a trauma survivor, she started to internalise the things they were saying.
‘I took them home with me and so, over a period of time, that started to really affect me.’
When she attempted to challenge her colleagues about what they were saying, they would ostracise and exclude her.
‘I would get laughed at, at things that I would say or suggest.’
When the organisation moved into a new office, Steph’s supervisor asked her to move out of the team space. She had to sit at a desk isolated from everyone else.
One time, Steph was in high spirits after a successful session with a client who, like her, was a survivor of child sexual abuse. When she told her supervisor about the session, they responded with an inappropriate joke about paedophilia. It left Steph ‘gobsmacked’.
Steph made a complaint to her team leader about the workplace culture. He was very defensive and didn’t take any action.
Steph said she had realised by now her role was ‘tokenistic’. She became quite unwell, had to commence medication and take leave from the workplace.
Steph is now employed by a new organisation and is well supported.
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.