Zillah

Zillah, early 40s, is autistic and has schizoaffective disorder.

‘I've also had eating disorders – anorexia, bulimia, but they all relate back to what happened in my childhood and teens, which is trauma,’ she told the Royal Commission.

At 16, Zillah was living on the streets.

‘So much abuse – psychological, mental and sexual abuse I experienced in my teens – I thought was normal. And when I ended up in the psychiatric ward the first time, none of that was spoken about. They just saw me going blah, and they diagnosed me with schizophrenia without questioning the last 20 years.’

Since then, Zillah has been in and out of psychiatric wards and mental health units.

‘The psychiatric wards – they're violent, and they're using violence against people who have been traumatised by violence.’

A few years ago, Zillah’s support dog died.

‘My dog was my only link to love and support … So when he died my whole world collapsed.’

Zillah’s mental health deteriorated and a friend took her to emergency.

‘I remember being taken to a small room off the triage – like an interview room or something – and told to wait there … I don't know how long I was in there for. It was a long time. No-one came to talk to me or anything.’

Eventually a nurse told Zillah she was going to be admitted to the psychiatric unit.

Terrified, all Zillah wanted to do was escape. She ‘made a run for it’ and was thrown to the floor by a security guard. 

‘At this point, I was having a sensory overload episode – of touch, the noise of the emergency department, the movement of people, the smells, everything. I started to fight back and scream.’

Three additional security guards jumped on her and held her down.

‘That added to my sensory overload … And I wanted to get these men off me because it reminded me also of sexual abuse that happened in my teens.’

Zillah struggled to breathe and screamed at them to get off her chest.

The last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness was being trolleyed out of emergency.  At some point between the emergency and the psychiatric unit she wet herself. 

Zillah woke up in solitary confinement.

’I'd not been in solitary confinement for a long time, so it was an absolutely shock.’

There was a plastic mattress on the floor and a drainpipe in the middle. She could hear male patients screaming outside her door. 

‘I was absolutely petrified. Still no-one had talked to me or anything.’

Zillah doesn’t know how much time passed while she was in that room.  At some point somebody came in and told her ‘she could go now’. 

They led her back to the general ward where they left her, still in her soiled clothes.

Zillah made a complaint, but it went nowhere.

A private psychologist is helping Zillah deal with her complex trauma.

‘There was only one trajectory for me in the public mental health system, and that was death.’

Zillah believes public psychiatric units need to change.

At the moment, people using drugs, people with depression, people with psychosis, people from different cultural backgrounds, ‘30 divergent strangers’ are all ‘thrown in the same space to live together’.

‘I find that highly inappropriate, especially people with complex trauma who are terrified of other people,’ she said. ‘I feel that we need to have separate spaces … because they're very, very, very different realities.’

‘They need access to open fresh air, trees, nature, arts, activities that give people a feeling of healing and storytelling. We need to have spiritual spaces where people can talk to God or whatever their belief is.’