Tonya

Tonya is in her 40s. She is autistic and has epilepsy. She has many children, who are also autistic and have a number of other disabilities.

Tonya’s family lives in a rural area. A few years ago, bushfires threatened their home.  

‘We've been watching the bushfires like everyone else for about a month because they had been up in the mountains there, watching them come down … We've got lots of special needs children … so it wasn't rocket science to us that we'd leave.’

One day the state government sent a message telling them to evacuate.

‘We've practiced for a few weeks fire evacuation drills with our children. Being an autistic family it's really important that we practice everything … So we came home and told the kids we're on a 10-minute leave.’

Tonya said one of her teenage children had an ‘extreme meltdown’ and started punching himself.

‘He said that he punched himself because his brain couldn't actually think anymore. It was pretty horrific … At 4 o'clock in the afternoon it was pitch black. It was like it was a night with no moon. There was just ash and I had an asthma attack in the car.’

Tonya said the relief centre in a nearby town was expecting them when they arrived.

‘They knew that we had an autistic family. When we arrived the lady said, “You're not in the red zone. You don't need to be here. You shouldn't have evacuated.” And I said, “But the government sent me a message to evacuate and we were told to get out.”’

The family was eventually allowed to stay in a busy, public part of the centre and didn’t feel welcome.

‘By then [the son who punched himself] was quiet. All the kids were pretty good. In fact we had not one meltdown the whole time we were at the relief centre and we didn't have any undesirable behaviour. We just felt a lot of judgment from particularly the management.’

Tonya said she overheard the manager refer to her as ‘the mother with kids who have autism’.

‘The feeling that we had at the time was that we felt like we were a nuisance. … So we made a decision [that] we would use our savings, put ourselves in a motel.’

After a few days when their money ran out, they tried to stay in a bed-and-breakfast that was being opened to evacuees, but were told they weren’t ‘real fire evacuees’ because their house hadn’t yet burnt down. Tonya said she was coughing constantly from the smoke.

The family returned to the relief centre where the manager told them to leave.

‘Sometimes people think, “Oh they're autistic, they'll be a problem.” But … our kids just become withdrawn and quiet. They were really well behaved. I actually can't express how impressed I was with the children's behaviour.’

Tonya said some of the children are still traumatised. One son has ‘panic attacks’ when he sees smoke and another ‘never has been the same boy since’.

‘He was very soft, gentle boy and now he's out of control.’

She said they didn’t lose their home, but the family’s treatment at the relief centre made a traumatic situation worse.   

‘We’re used to [being judged] … but when you get it from professional services, the level that we got, it's very damaging. I'll think twice before I go to a relief centre.’