Name Ms OF
Hometown Waihopai Invercargill
Age when entered care 15 years old
Year of birth 1960
Time in care 1977–1984
Type of care facility Psychiatric hospital – Ward 12 Southland Hospital in Waihōpai Invercargill, Cherry Farm Psychiatric Hospital in Ōtepoti Dunedin.
Ethnicity Māori (Ngāti Kahungunu)
Whānau background Growing up, Ms OF’s home life could be violent, but she knew she was loved and supported. She is close to her brother and four sisters. Ms OF was the only child to go into care, and her parents were devastated to find out what happened to her at Cherry Farm. Her mother has since passed away, and her father still lives in Invercargill. They have a reasonable relationship.
Currently Ms OF has a partner, who encouraged her to study. She also has a daughter in her thirties, and a grandson. She was friends with her daughter’s father but not in a relationship with him. Her daughter has been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.

“I was never schizophrenic, I was simply a lesbian”

I was in Cherry Farm on and off for 10 years. I was told I was crazy, and treated like I was crazy, but I wasn’t crazy when I went in there. 

Growing up, I had a family that loved me, but it wasn’t the best environment. There was the normal sort of argy-bargy with my brother and sisters, and my parents fought a lot, but it was a violent home. There was no engagement with te ao Māori or with my culture. My father was frustrated with how Pākehā treated Māori. 

Several factors combined to make me depressed and angry, including being sexually abused by a friend’s father for about three years from 6 years old, struggling with my sexuality, and my best friend moving away when I was around 16 years old. As a result, I got into trouble a lot at school. I wasn’t stupid but I was put in the ‘cabbage’ class. I think I was treated pretty unfairly throughout school simply because I am Māori. 

I began attempting to take my own life and was admitted to hospital – and they just sent me over to Ward 12. I was admitted maybe three times that year. Before that, I had seen a school counsellor but not a psychiatrist. I had been involved with Ward 12 for probably for a year before an incident that led to police involvement. I was then remanded to Cherry Farm for psychiatric assessment.  

I was 16. Up until then I had probably been depressed, but not psychotic.  

On my first day, a woman who’d had a lobotomy picked me up and threw me, for no reason. In the showers, women would smack me in the back of the head, and nothing was done. I was in with a bunch of very unwell women. 

I saw a counsellor when I was admitted. I remember being told I was a lesbian because I had penis envy, and that I came out of my mother’s body the wrong way and got damaged on the way out. I was diagnosed as schizophrenic. However, I was never schizophrenic, I was simply a lesbian.  

They focused on the schizophrenia and what they described as my ‘personality disorder’. This involved constant treatment. I would act up about a lot of it, but they would simply increase my medication or add something new.  

I don’t believe my parents consented to me receiving ECT treatments. I don’t think they even knew about it until they came to visit. But they wouldn’t have challenged it because doctors were gods. Everyone’s view of doctors at the time was the same. 

A normal course of ECT was three times a week for two weeks but I would go four or five times a week for weeks on end. We’d be herded into a room and one after another we’d go in and then be trolleyed out. I was given anaesthetic, which contained a muscle relaxant to ensure I was asleep, and electrodes were put on my head. After the shock I would be zombified.  

We did a deep sleep programme in the narcosis unit where they filled us up with highly addictive barbiturates and didn’t tell us much. I wasn’t asked for my consent. It probably went on for six weeks, but it could have been several months. I was so out of it that I really can’t remember a lot of what went on.  

I do remember going to court when I was about 18 or 19. There was no social worker or support person, just nurses. I think I had to sign something after they decided what was going to happen to me. I believe I was put under a section of the Health Act where I had no say.  

The punishments at Cherry Farm were horrendous, and I started cutting myself because of them. I hadn’t been a slasher before that. We’d be put in seclusion, which meant being put in a room with windows and a cardboard potty for up to 12 days – they wouldn’t tell you how long it would be for. You’d be naked with only a horse blanket, and they’d observe you. I hated isolation and I don’t like locked doors because of it.  

I was never sexually assaulted at Cherry Farm but there was some physical harm. Once I had a serious cut on my wrist, which the doctor stitched without anaesthetic, on purpose. The pain was excruciating but I didn’t want that bastard doctor to see me cry. A student nurse was watching, and she cried.  

When I first went to Cherry Farm, there were separate units for males and females. Once, as punishment, I was taken to the male ward. There were rapists, murderers and child molesters in there. Men would also do stuff to your clothes in the drying room and your clothes would be covered in whatever. 

I was afraid of men even before I went to Cherry Farm. I didn’t like being around them, except for my brother and father. I think the staff knew about my fear. Male staff would observe me when I was naked and supervise baths and showers. We couldn’t do anything because if we misbehaved, we’d be dragged down to seclusion again.  

I did make some friends in there and I was close with some of the nurses. One gave me a hug once, but a senior nurse saw it, so the nurse was shipped off to another unit. I thought it was weird they couldn’t even show affection.  

Mum and Dad came to visit every month and it was traumatising for them. It was clear I wasn’t getting any better, and they couldn’t understand it. Dad told me how one time I was dribbling and incoherent. I don’t remember that, but he said it was simply heartbreaking. They were devastated when they found out what happened to me. Mum died thinking it was their fault. I’ve told Dad we can’t go back and change it, but I do feel sorry they feel so guilty. 

I got out because one of the doctors saved me. She took me under her wing, got me off the drugs and into a job. She said she understood this wasn’t right and that a young woman shouldn’t be like this. 

When I left, I initially went home to my parents, then moved in with my sister and got a job. It was hard because I didn’t know how to function properly and I had a lot of issues, particularly with alcohol. This became too much so I went to AA and got sober. 

I had my daughter in 1989. I was friends with her father, but we weren’t in a relationship. I wasn’t taking any drugs while I was pregnant but was still getting injected with a very strong anti-psychotic drug every few months. I said I wouldn’t take it anymore because of what it might do to my baby. They said it wouldn’t do anything major, but they were wrong. She was in neonatal for over a week, twitching, with low body temperature and wouldn’t feed. I did some research and found getting the injection in the first and second trimester can cause this. 

My daughter has some issues and has been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. She isn’t living the life I’d like her to, but she’s okay.  

I met my partner, and she encouraged me to go to a polytech open night, which led me to start studying. I now have two degrees and have worked in public health for 14 years, including for the DHB that locked me up, which is ironic.  

Once, when I was in seclusion, I was extremely distressed and could only think of the life I wanted. This included having someone I love, children and grandchildren, travelling and being educated. The staff at Cherry Farm said I’d never have these things, but now I do. I did it all without their ‘help’. Without their drugs.  

I am very proud of who I have become, but I am extremely frustrated at how I was treated, like a piece of shit, like a nutter. There was no schizophrenia, it was just a waste of years. You simply wouldn’t do that to a 16-year-old now.  

I do have survivors’ guilt. So many in there died, a lot of them by their own hands, and I didn’t die. I still have nightmares about being there and trying to get out. I still get anxious, and some smells take me back.  

“Thank goodness those places have gone but the issue remains the same – no one listens. We must listen to those with mental health issues.”[184]