Turner
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.
‘Some of these drugs send you insane. You feel like you’re going to die. Under the guidelines of the pharmaceutical companies, they make you into drug addicts.’
For three decades, Turner has been a ‘victim of abuse’ in the mental health system, he told the Royal Commission. Psychiatrists have given him ‘mind-altering and dangerous drugs’ that make him ‘suicidally depressed’.
‘They bully people and they force drugs on people. They inject you with stuff that sends you absolutely crazy. It paralyses your body … you can’t walk. Thirty years of drug abuse from mental health departments, you know, I’m lucky to be alive. They’re very aggressive people. They forced us to sign forms to get electric shock treatment. I’ve lost all my teeth from all the drugs and the electric treatment.’
Turner ended up on a Disability Support Pension.
He is under an involuntary treatment order and says he is given medications ‘known to be harmful’.
‘I’ve been subjected to this for 10 years, you know. Once every three months. Then you’ve got to try and reach out to all your friends to try and help you to stop you from, you know, necking yourself. All the evidence is there on what the drugs do to people and they don’t listen. They just keep abiding by the same protocol.’
Turner has tried to talk to his psychiatrists about this, but said ‘they just keep doing what they do’.
‘They don’t change it because they’re just aggressive bullies. It doesn’t matter what you say to them, they just override it and they force you, and they call the police around. Then they inject you with stuff. Like the last time they gave me an injection, I kept getting infections,’ he said.
‘All they’re worried about is their jobs. It’s created an industry of psychiatrists, drugs … And the system, you know, they just use us like experiments for their own gain. Like guinea pigs. Like rats. It’s manslaughter what they do to people. They disable your mind.’
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.