WHOSE MENTAL MADNESS? by Paulyne Pogorelske

 Part IV – SADISTIC SHRINKS and PSYCHOTIC POWER?

(Question: Am I deluded for believing I live in Australia; a supposed modern, western democracy or was I mysteriously misplaced in a masked, mad milieu masquerading as a hospital with concern for patients’ health – both mental and physical?)

The last time I was in a psych hospital (Melbourne Clinic) was in August 1986 when after four days, I rang my mother and asked her to get me out of the fucking place and to bring a Ventolin. She did and I walked out with her, to return to work the following week. I thought IT – and what’s IT? – reality of IT was that too many yet again inexplicable comments deeds were happening in my life and I found myself unable to sleep. I knew however that I was INDEED talking to myself; I voluntarily rang the Melbourne Clinic because I needed some Mogadon sleeping tablets to fall asleep. Strangely, a person usually needs a doctor’s referral to be admitted as a patient at the clinic; this time, however, I called a taxi and went by myself (and now I’m wondering if that situation was what I thought at that time) and as well as taking two Mogadon was given some anti-psychotic tablets…. suffice to say it only took four days for me to realise all was amiss – I had bad asthma and the nurse – who called me Cathy (from my diary I started to wonder?) – when I replied – the name’s Paulyne – I mixed U up with another patient – was her reply – I asked for some Ventolin to which she said – the doctor hasn’t prescribed it – and it was just a few minutes before I rang my mother. She had come to see me before that Tuesday morning – asking me- I believed quite pointedly – whether I wanted to see my two sisters, Pam and Ruth. I told her No, I did NOT.
So, roll on – how many years – to Friday,August 23, 2013- 27 years- sometime in the early hours of the morning – about 4 am or thereabouts – where I’m minding my own business in the Melbourne Victoria AUSTRALIA apartment I live in but which is owned by my sister Pam and her husband, Barry. (That’s another story for another blog) and while my memory is a tad unclear about how two policemen and two male paramedics actually got in to my apartment, (pretty sure they must have had a key and let themselves in as I know I didn’t have to let them in from downstairs thru’ security) They started to grab me as I sat on one of my chairs (I had been lying on my couch and had stayed awake all nite as I thought I had a GP’s appointment early that Friday morn to discuss with him about whether I could be suffering from the side effects of untreated concussion – my GP had been an AFL club doctor previously and I surmised he might know about concussion- as I had once been king hit in my head by my ex-boyfriend in May 1973 and had always been unable to remember exactly how it happened. Moreover, when I was in Adelaide (see earlier WHOSE MENTAL MADNESS?) in 1980, I had slipped in the bath while I was under the shower and had grabbed the close-by washbasin to stop myself falling over completely and the next thing I remember is I just thumped my head – BANG!- on the edge of the washbasin. I came too in a couple of seconds, thought I might haver cracked my head open but there was no blood – and within a couple of hours, I had an almighty big lump on my head. BUT it was just a few days later, I started hearing the male voice behind the wall as I detailed in that blog.
But that Friday morning at 4am – as I’m writing this, it seems so – I’m not sure I can even find the right words – but as I sat on my brown velvet chair, dressed in jeans, boots and a black jumper, they started to grab me and I fought for a few moments before unconsciously realising I couldn’t beat four big men…..they then lay me on a trolley; my hands pulled behind my back and placed in handcuffs – arrested for what? – with other thick, black strapping around my arms (not sure what these were for) and I was wheeled to the lift (I live on the fifth floor) and then into an ambulance – for which I was later sent a bill for $288 which I was NOT going to pay – more about that later) where I was then placed in an isolated room in emergency (wasn’t then sure what hospital I was in – while I was being wheeled in it appeared it might have been the Melbourne Clinic as some of the outside building reminded me of the clinic) – it was as if I was there and in some inexplicable way – not there – as if I was protecting myself from going mad – keeping part of my mind in lockdown to stop facing the true horror of it all – – but I was left for what seemed more than an hour or two – my mouth was so unbelievably dry and while I had been trying to get some attention – to no avail – I started swearing my head off – every fashion of cunt, fuck, et al – (I look back now –it’s November 7 2013) and I believe it was all on purpose – How much do I want to live? How important is my life? Does my life matter? – so someone did respond eventually after some time of my ugly swearing – bringing me a red, plastic cup with a white straw full of water… I was still handcuffed and she had to hold the cup as I gulped down the water and think I asked for more – what then transpired is that they were giving me an injection in my right arm (I’m presuming they took off the handcuffs as my arm was free and the thick black strapping was gone but I had dark bruises on my arms (remember seeing the bruises but am a trifle unclear about whether it was later). I was in shock – that’s the only word I can use- and the next thing I’m conscious of is waking up –though I didn’t know what day it was or where I was – (again, I thought it was the Melbourne Clinic) in a bed in a sterile, cold room wearing one of my black dressing gowns (minus the belt), a black winter night dress….. I needed to go to the toilet and walking out of the bedroom must have asked for the toilet and went to pull down my knickers only to find I wasn’t even wearing any. I just couldn’t believe it. I think I must have asked where I was to be told it was St Vincent’s Hospital – don’t recall them saying it was the psych part of the hospital – and I still couldn’t believe it. It all seemed like some nightmare reality I couldn’t AT ALL COMPREHEND. I didn’t grasp what was really happening or what they must have thought of me. Now I’m just writing what I remember…..I think it was two or three days later I spoke to my sister on the phone who told me I’d been suicidal as I had stood on the balcony of the partment naked – I told her I wasn’t at all suicidal….that I felt like I was being tortured as I was when I was left in the emergency section of the hospital, I may have also added I’m being persecuted …..I don’t remember whether she said anything in reply – if she did I wasn’t listening…. I knew only too well why I’d stood on the balcony naked and suicide wasn’t anywhere on my mind even unconsciously…what I realised as I hung up that my sister didn’t care at all how I was feeling or anything about me at all – it was quietly horrifying to me but there was still so much confusion about how I had ended up in this concentration camp which is what in part it felt like….I was a prisoner – .so I was taken back to ECU which I realised was a tight security fortress that I couldn’t get out of. I then realised I’d been wearing my teeth plate for a few days – however long it was I’m not exactly sure –two or three days– I needed a toothbrush and toothpaste and had to have a shower which I did but still had to put on my nightdress without any knickers….. I was given food and talked a bit to the nurses and I told a female nurse Michelle why I’d stood on the balcony naked… I also recall talking to another male nurse Ken about my knee which was still very painful and I found it hard to walk properly…told him about the Prendisolone I’d taken…he told me it was the wrong drug to take for my knee and it had led to my mind being unwell or words to that effect – it had a bad effect on my mind – I knew it was a very strong drug that stopped you from sleeping and gave U a bit of a high – they gave me a toothbrush sealed tightly in plastic and I couldn’t open it without using my teeth to break the plastic seal and after much yanking I opened it but a filling fell out of my front tooth at the same time and I just felt so upset at that as I knew I’d have to pay heaps to get it fixed and that it looked terrible- I also looked at myself in the mirror and asked for a comb for my hair which needed cutting but I also asked for a band to tie it back and was given that – I stayed in that high security prison area for about five days I think – I knew they’d given me an injection in emergency which had knocked me out as I don’t know who undressed me etc but I thought it wasn’t Modecate because I at least didn’t feel agitated at all – just quiet and in deep shock – I was going over a few things I could remember but it all made no sense at that time –
So how had I ended up in this place? It was a few months previously when I first told my sister, Pam, herself a GP, retired but still doing voluntary breast cancer work at the Alfred Hospital, that I was only taking about 1 or 2 mg of Stelazine and that a couple of the shrinks had almost killed me; albeit all those years ago. She asked if I was hearing voices(?) which should have been a clue but it was so predictable that I didn’t think much about it. I told her I wasn’t which was absolutely true. I felt pretty good though tired as the last few years without a job or money have been very tiring, sad if not even painful to say that least but there were times many of them when I enjoyed myself with a few people I believed were good friends in a way even though I had no real support…but a couple had helped me out with money and I still enjoyed the football and a few other activities and believed life was precious – I never hyave thought about suicide again since toying with it in 1984 (see previous blog) After I told her about how the shrinks had nearly killed me, she said: I’m a doctor and so is Rebecca (her daughter) to which I then got up (we were supposed to have lunch in an expensive restaurant in Richmond for which she always pays because I have no money) and said I’m going home – to which she patronizingly told me to – “sit down!” and I replied – “I’m protecting myself” and walked off homeward. What followed is just a series of mad comments (I can’t think of a better word) both told to me verbally by those I thought were friends of a kind and also- in emails – including one from a woman I liked who said she didn’t want to get involved with me – it was all incomprehensible and then – the REAL rot set in in my apartment. It’s a bit hard to remember the actual sequence of events but I started being unable to remember where I was putting things and I was getting concerned about WHY I was forgetting. (I believe my unconscious was, without me consciously acknowledging it, realising things in my life were very, very WRONG. I did consciously realise about my so-called friends and thought they were playing a sick game; but I kept on dismissing their games and words by saying – it’s their problem, not mine and left it at that.) My forgetting things coincided with me injuring my knee at a football game (haven’t heard at ALL from the so-called friend I went with to the game to see Carlton V Fremantle in late July) and I managed to get to sleep – my knee was in agony – by masturbating when I fell asleep for seven hours. Also, in the apartment, I was hearing the odd comment which I clearly knew was not coming from my own mind – it was nothing AT ALL like what happened in Adelaide – as I wasn’t even forgetting things then. The following day I started taking 50 mg of Prendisolone- a very strong anti-inflammatory – for my knee- and then, all hell broke loose for me. Things started to disappear from the apartment – I have always put my electricity bill in a certain place and I received it around the 12 August – and when I went to check exactly when I would pay it – it was gone. I thought maybe I might have misplaced it but I just couldn’t find it at all. I looked up the supplier- ORIGIN – in the phone book and thought I’d have to go to ther head office in the city to pay the bill. At the same time, my computer- Internet – things I’d been looking up – started to go haywire. I started to think someone was playing more sick games with my computer and by this time I even watched a DVD of Carlton’s 72 Grand Final win to be astounded when one of the commentators was Ron Barassi – who couldn’t have been because he was then coaching North Melbourne that year- and furthermore, he made some comment about ‘a whack in the face being part of the game’. At that point, I knew someone, or some shrinks – were interfering in my life and trying to drive me mad with sick games. I knew Barassi JUST would NEVER make that comment!!!!! I did not at that time, associate all of this with my sister, Pam.
Not sure of the timing, but I was also masturbating quite a lot (my libido seemed to be back to normal as I termed it after stopping my HRT patch as I’d been on it for 17 years and felt I shouldn’t be using it nor did I need it- I’d just have to put up with some of the hot flushes I’d still got anyway) and then Pam and Barry turned up one afternoon – Barry wearing a black suit and white shirt without a tie which I noticed immediately as it seemed so inappropriate – can’t recall what Pam was wearing and I don’t recall the conversation as I’ve got so used to switching off from them and not listening. But it might have been the next night or even that same day at night when Pam turned up with two police and two paramedics. By this time, I was more than aware something was SO fucking sick – I went to the bathroom, turned on the shower (hot water, I told them) and started screaming at them through the bathroom door I’d closed. I believed it was all to do with my book The Circle War and the so-called rape though I didn’t use that word when I wrote it in 1978/79. I then came out and screamed at Pam that her middle name was JOY but that she was JOYLESS. At some point they left. I turned off the shower smoked cigarettes, can’t remember whether I’d eaten dinner but everything was going mad. Was I, too? Indeed, to a point! I decided then to test myself by taking off all my clothes, putting various garments in a certain place and throwing a crumpled piece of paper off the balcony to see if I could remember exactly where I put the garments and to see where the paper landed. I made sure I couldn’t see anyone in the street, quickly took off my clothes, stood on the balcony for a few seconds only, naked and threw the paper (it wasn’t a windy day) before hurriedly going inside and getting dressed and all the clothes were where I’d put them. I took off my mogen dovid as well and left it with a glass of wine on the balcony table. I think (and now I’m not absolutely sure of this) that I went downstairs to find the crumpled paper and it seemed to be where I saw it land- though I’m not now sure it was the paper I’d thrown. There was something in the position I saw it land – but thinking about it again now – it wasn’t the paper I’d thrown. Still, I came back up to the apartment and I’d completely lost my appetite and got halfway thru a spaghetti dinner and left it on the sink. I just wasn’t hungry – tho not at all nauseous or anxious – just lying on the couch thinking of all the amazing ironies in my life, laughing a lot at them, and talking to myself. I decided to stay up all nite as it was late and I thought my GP’s appointment was that morning and if I went to bed I wouldn’t be able to get up easily in the morning in time for the appointment. It was that nite the police and paramedics arrested me! I was still taking 25 mg of Prendisolone and while my knee was no longer in agony, I was still in a lot of pain with it. I’d also started wondering whether the apartment was bugged and even if there were cameras in the rooms. None of it however frightened me – just more sick games and what WAS going on? More than just a memory lapse when my electricity bill went missing, when my internet was all fucked let alone the Carlton DVD as well as another couple of DVDs I’d hired including A Man & A Woman ands A Star is Born…… it appeared the films had been hacked into and changed from the originals I remembered seeing, albeit many years before. Also, I wasn’t hearing from any of my friends – I rang the Freo game friend and left my number twice on her mobile but never heard from her again. That was after the Richmond game I went to without her because she couldn’t go. It was the following Friday I got arrested. For WHAT? I have absolutely NO fuckin’ IDEA!!!!!!!!
After they let me out of ECU, I asked for some clothes to wear to be then given a plastic bag full of some of my clothes except the boots I’d been wearing were NOT there – no shoes – just a pair of leopard skin slippers – my sister had bought these in – there were a couple of pairs of knickers, a body suits as well as some jeans, black jumpers and a pair of trackie pants I knew weren’t mind – how they ended up there I have no idea either – so I was given a room on my own initially – got dressed – went outside and started having to ask other patients for cigarettes – I had no money or any handbag at all – what had happened to that I presumed it was still in the apartment – I saw one shrink when I was in ECU – an Indian guy called Dr Chopra and I expressed my horror and disbelief at where I was among other things – can’t recall whether I asked why I was handcuffed etc….what was interesting was that of course I hadn’t had a cigarette for at least five days and I was alright – I wanted one but wasn’t obsessing about them I can only presume because I was reeling in deep, deep shock and was trying to work out what had happened….I was also masturbating in the security prison as some pleasure from the deep pain I was in – outside, my knee was still hurting like hell, patients were helping me with cigarettes and I told them I would give them back when I had money etc….it was all still shock for me I started talking to a young guy of 24 called Joel Collins who said he was half Filippino and he was a very intelligent guy who could talk philosophy, politics etc though he told me he worked in a factory, had bad teeth but had spent $700 on a cardigan from Ralph Lauren – we shared lots of conversation and at night, my knee was so painful I could not life in bed so went to sleep in the TV room and Joel and I sat up for a couple of nights with my knee resting on a pouffe it was better than lying in bed for me…anyway, I was out of the prison tight security (I was in shock as to why I was in there – what did they think I was going to do?) but the rest of the place was a prison too as I wasn’t allowed out…. after a few days I saw a female shrink called Zara Otewicz and I asked her if she was Polish – she looked obviously Jewish too – and fat – there was a male shrink too called Uneash someone – also Indian I assumed – I was talking about all sorts of things going on in my life before; how I thought I might have been suffering from the effects of untreated concussion told them about the night my ex boyfriend had hit me and I’d woken up with a shocking black eye and also about slipping in the bath in Adelaide – I also said something about being a macho female – and I was told by the male shrink I had to take 15 mg of Stelazine and valium which I said I’d never taken in my life and I didn’t need all that stelazine either – next thing I’m back in high security prison again – I decided I’d take 15 mg of Stelazine to see what happened to me but I refused the fffin valium as I had one taken it for a spasmy back pain which my GP had prescribed umpteen years before and I cut it in half and couldn’t bear the feeling from it – horrible drug that made me feel weired – the 15 mg of Stelazine also started my head spinning and I felt terrible too – OK I don’t need this much – I was talking to the nurses again and now I think it was this time in ECU that O spoke to Ken about the Prendisolone and my knee – not the first time in ECU as a I just previously wrote – anyway, spent another few days in there and was tipping the valium down the grill drain outside and stopped taking 15 mg of Stelazine – went back to the 5mg I’d been on for years and was alright – was still masutbating alot as a way of getting to sleep – had no sleeping pills – but wasn’t sleeping that long – a few hours only – they let me out of there again and went to another room and my sister arrived to see me and we had a confrontation and I said I didn’t want to talk to her and walked away –she replied not to be so childish and I wasn’t looking where I was walking and I tripped over a basketball and went flying landing on my bad knee – I was even more horrified that she just kept on walking away to leave as I lay spreadeagled on the grass – once more, she didn’t even care about that – I was back in agony again – spent more time botting fags and talking to Joel watching some football – then Joel came outside where I was sitting on one early evening sat down and just said to me: “I”M NOT AN ANTI-SEMITE!” Stunned is the only response I had and replied I didn’t even think U were- why would I? What the fuck is this all about? Who put him up to say that? I was pretty angry and he walked away saying something along the lines of we didn’t realise what we were up against! Me? What is going on?
Back to the first time I was in high security prison when I first work up there – I had deep and painful cuts on my fingers on my left hand and they wouldn’t even give me anything for them – moreover, I also needed Ventolin and they kept me giving me some puffer I couldn’t use – I asked for the one I used at home – Air-O Mir – to no avail – if this was a hospital they ABSOLUTELY did NOT CARE about my health – mental AND physical – only adding to my horror as I felt the cuts on my fingers were manifestations of the harm I felt was done to me by my so-called ex friends etc moreover, I had been out with my sister and her husband before the night I was arrested (a week before- it would’ve been Friday 16 August nite) and I knew I wasn’t well as the cuts had already appeared and I was completely at a loss about a couple of my friends and thought it was all sick games (which I kept saying to Joel too) anyway, I wore no make-up and just pulled my hair back to go out for dinner that nite – hoping that they might say something that I didn’t look well and what was wrong? They said and asked NOTHING except that I got into an argument yet again with my sister about shrinks and one more, I got up and left and walked home in the dark- it was only a ten minute walk away – I also took note that the food which I ate as I was hungry was tasteless and the wine cheap – now I’ve also remembered about the night she then turned up with two police and paramedics – I think it was the Wednesday or even the Thursday nite before the Friday 23 August I was taken prisoner by the police- I’ve also found out it was a CAT team she turned up with – anyway, I went into the bathroom alone with cigarettes and apart from turning on the shower because I thought they all thought I was Diane Fisher in my book The Circle War so I was also talking about the knife the character had picked up and wanting to kill someone – I may have said yeah, I’ll pick up a knife and kill you – I was saying it because I believed they thought the book was really me and that’s what and how I feel – (I’ve remembered this now because a report I got from shrink Otewicz said I threatened to kill them so it all now adds up – they thought and tragically still do that the book is true, I’m violent and psychotic and homicidal and full of hatred for my sister which is a projection onto her of my own unconscious self-hatred which is why they think I was suicidal – it all starts to add up because I know one shrink, the DR C I wrote about in earlier blogs about Whose Mental Madness told me The Circle War was ‘close to the truth’ and the shrink DR Ian Fitzgerald at the Melbourne Clinic when I said I’d picked up a knife instantly replied – you were violent and psychotic – anyway, it’s indeed horrifying to me ) …see these earlier blogs and it all adds up for me)
Back to St Vincent’s where I now knew I was because now it makes even more sense because I’d complained to the AMA Psych section in 1985 about DR C – and now his name – Dr Timothy Blashki – a friend no less indeed, of my sisterthinking the book was true etc and the shrink I got a reply from was a Dr Edmund Chiu from – would U believe St Vincent’s where he worked. Moreover, what I couldn’t understand and still don’t entirely is why the police took me to a public hospital when my sister took me to the Melb Clinic (and I did tell her, ask her, in a phonecall from St Vincent’s that why wasn’t I at the Melb Clinic? She paid my private health insurance and it wouldn’t have cost anything!
The next thing I remember is walking out of the hospital through the front door after a couple of weeks – they saw me walk out and didn’t stop me – I walked home in the slippers – but of course I didn’t have my bag or keys – so – I went to the nearby Freemasons Day Procedure Centre to a obstetrician’s office – Dr Len Kliman – who had previously removed a cyst from my vagina- and he had told me- albeit it was several years ago – about a Dr friend of his a female – who had been in partnership with my sister in her GP practice in East Malvern- and how my sister had been trying to control her and the partnership had split up because the female Dr Carmel don’t know her surname – had walked out on my sister. I knew of the split but remembering what he’d said about my sister and her control mongering not that he used those words but certainly implied that – that I felt he at least knew what a control freak my sister was and/or could be. He was away but his secretary let me use the phone and still not realising just how my sister had had me arrested etc I rang her because she had another set of keys and I genuinely believed she would let me in – I still had NO real idea of what had happened and WHY far more significantly – so I rang and explained I’d walked out and come home and asked her if she come to the apartment and let me in. I believed she’d be there in about 20 minutes but nearly an hour later, she hadn’t turned up. A couple living in the apartment block who knew me let me in and I went to their apartment and rang the body corporate manager and arranged to get a master key from the chairman of the body corporate and got into the apartment. It was a bit of a mess so I washed the sheets, changed my clothes, did other washing too, made myself a cup of tea and was sitting on the balcony when the downstairs bell rang. Guess who? The police! It was about four/five hours later. Of course, my sister hadn’t turned up at all. The police from North Fitzroy police station M<athew Allen and Danny Kilyucik (something like that) told me I had to go back to the ‘prison’ but they were waiting for an ordinary police car to take me back there. I drank my tea on the balcony while we talked about drugs in sport and the Essendon scandal as Danny barracked for Essendon- we waited about 30 minutes or so for the police car – there was a man and woman police officer – and they took me back to St Vincent’s. I can’t be sure but I don’t think I was put back to ECU again – if I was – it was only for a couple of days- as usual – I talked to the nurses and felt very tired with too many unanswered questions in my mind and still in shock. I was still sleeping in the TV room as my knee was killing me and it was one night trying to sleep there that a nurse called Hayley told me I could appeal as I had found out when the police picked me up again that I was ‘an involuntary patient’. By whom? I didn’t know then.
Someone had had me committed though at that time I hadn’t remembered everything I’d said in the bathroom that night my sister had turned up with the CAT team. Hayley gave me a form to fill out to appeal to a Mental Health Review Board to have my involuntary patient status overturned. I still hadn’t realised about my sister. It was just unthinkable that she could have done all this to me. It didn’t cross my mind. When I filled out the form my hand was shaking too – I just was in such shock and horror at what was being done to me. At the time it made no sense to me as I tried to find some reasons for it all. When I went back to St Vincent’s with the police and this couple were nice too – there were no more handcuffs or hostility from them – and I just went back as what could I do? – I at least took my handbag wallet and keys which had been left in the apartment the nite I was arrested so back at St V’s I wanted a few more clothes so I rang a friend of mine and asked her to come and see me and I would give her the keys and could she get me some more clothes etc. She did that. Then there was the Federal Election on September 7 and it was EXTREMELY important to me that I vote. I was already shuddering in horror at how I’d been arrested and treated as it all felt like I was living in some totalitarian country as I’d done nothing as far as I was concerned… I needed to vote desperately to remind myself I was living in Australia and we were a democratic country. I asked the nurses and was given the run around for a few days before because it seemed there were voting booths in the main hospital but no one would take me there. On the morning of election day I asked yet again to be told I could go and vote but that I had to be escorted. My voting site was Dallas Brooks Hall which is opposite my apartment and just a 15 minute walk from St Vincent’s. I first thought of ringing my friend back who’d bought me some more clothes but she lives in Mentone, is always tired because she hardly sleeps, doesn’t like driving to the city and comes instead by train. It was a long way to ask her to come for half an hour. So in genuine belief that my sister, who lives in Toorak just a 20 minute drive away, could come and escort me to vote, I rang her first; still having no idea how instrumental she’d been in the whole horrifying experience I was living through. Well, I was shocked at her response on the phone. She said ‘ it’s always about what U want’ so I pressed the end call button and rang my friend who agreed to come up and escort me. I felt my sister didn’t even think that voting was important, let alone compulsory and once more, yes, I started realising that her words came straight out of The Circle War too. Wasn’t sure but I was thinking more and more about it all; my complaint about Dr Timothy Blashki to the Royal College of Psychiatrists and how I ended up in St V’s. I was also so upset that my sister didn’t think it was at ALL IMPORTANT that I vote. Anyway, I was still horrified that I needed to be escorted and while my friend duly turned up I was pretty pissed off with her too and told her to fuck off after we got to Dallas Brooks Hall telling her I would do back to St V’s myself which I had every intention of doing. She wouldn’t leave but after voting, delivered me back at ST V’s with her final words to me” you’re safe’ resounding horrifically in my head – what on earth was she talking about? St V’s was the last place I felt safe in and certainly was frightened at what the shrinks might do to me next. I lived in fear of being given another Modecate injection (see earlier blog- Whose Mental Madness?) The days drifted on at least now I had my wallet and credit card and found another patient who agreed to go to a nearby ATM I gave him my pin number and he took out money to buy me cigarettes. At least I knew the dates and days and the DSP was still going into my bank account. I spent most days sitting outside smoking and talking to other patients some of whom kept asking me what I was doing there. You seem alright. Yes, I said, I don’t know why I’m here either except I was aware something with the nurses was very wrong too as often there’d be laughter AT me as I walked down the corridors there. And I at least now FINALLY had been given some cream for the cuts on my fingers and when I’d gone home, realised my sister had removed all my medication from my cupboard though I still wasn’t being given the air-o mir- for my asthma. I was given a Ventolin inhaler that I couldn’t use and was fortunate I didn’t have a bad attack tho’ that was to happen later. The mental health review board hearing was in a couple of days but by this time I’d had a visit from a case manager to do what? I told her I didn’t need a case manager and believed a VERY SICK game was indeed being played with me. I had decided not to bother with the mental health review board in a couple of days on September 13. I was lying on my bed when another nurse, Lucy came to tell me about the hearing then and there and I said It’s not worth it and she said – it’s your opportunity to get out of here so I thought hopefully, she’s right and they’ll me what I’ve done to be arrested in handcuffs and made an involuntary patient as if I’m some mad woman. Furthermore, I’d also been somewhat concerned at the way the powers that be in St V’s had spelled my surname – it’s POGORELSKE – except they’d put an A at the end not an E as if I was some mad Russian woman experiencing psychiatric abuse in Russia. (Moreover, I do also remember asking the police from the CAT team that night with my sister how do you spell Pauline – they said it was with an I and while legally it’s always been that, I changed it to a Y in high school have used it ever since and started to further wonder about what I’d written about my editor at Thames TV who looked at my references and asked me how I spelt Pauline??????) Furthermore, I knew that while my father’s grave had Paulyne with a Y on it because I’d told my mother to write it that way my sister had organised by mother’s stone and altho’ I haven’t checked, I’m thinking it’s more than likely it’s Pauline with an I – though I’m certainly now too frightened to ask her.I had written this in a screed I’d written way back in 1985 as when I first went to see Dr C while I was INDEED in extreme painful agitation from the Modecate injection, he had told me that’s what they do to prisoners in Russia. That’s what it was all beginning to feel like except they were doing it to me again and MUCH MUCH WORSE!!!! Except what was MY CRIME? AND tragically for me this belief I had was indeed only confirmed by the kangaroo court of the review hearing – the shrink Otewicz talked and while I was told I could come back at her I was given NO time to do so. (A female lawyer from Legal Aid turned up before I went into the hearing telling me she would represent me I told her I didn’t need her She left) I was given no time to ask anything except I asked what the charge was against me to be told there’s NO charge so why was I handcuffed and arrested? NO reply. There were 3 people at the hearing, a shrink called John Serry who should have excused himself because he knew a cousin of mine deceased as well as knowing my sister and her husband. He didn’t I wanted to see what he’d do as I told him it was up to him. There was a thin puny woman called Di Sisley who was apparently a former Sex Discrimination Commissioner in Victoria and a lawyer whose name I can’t recall. Otewicz rambled about what I read later in her report; much of it was contradictory and didn’t add up and based on assumption about my impulsive attempt at suicide- (I still don’t know who saw me standing naked on the balcony as I made absolutely certain there was no one walking in the street at the time and I didn’t even attempt anything remotely like jumping over the balcony and suicide wasn’t anywhere in my mind or thoughts) moreover, what she did say was that I’d been referred –she used that word NOT committed but it amounts to the same thing – by guess who? My sister! That’s all I need to hear I said only to be told I would get my chance to come back at her which I didn’t. I failed in my so-called opportunity to get out of there and the lawyer did at the end mention something about a film and a book to which I said – what film? No reply. I can’t recall the context of why he said that but as I reflected afterwards it was even clearer to me that I may well have been pretty spot on about a lot of it being about my book The Circle War and what they would think are my delusions that it would make a good film and novel which actually I still do think except that to them, they’re my delusions as I’m the female character in the book full of self hatred and with suicidal/homicidal feelings. It actually all makes sense in retrospect that that’s what they thought and tragically for them, still do.
(Furthermore, as if to confirm I’m indeed the character in the book – and I add – the FEMALE character at that – that when I got my bag of clothes when I first got out of ECU my sister had brought TWO of my dressing gowns – why on earth did I need two – except that in the book I’ve written that there were two me’s…as if that WAS ME – it’s written in the first person….) and I still believe that’s what the shrinks etc and my sister still think – one me is calm, rational and apparently gets on with my sister while the other me is violent, psychotic and full of murderous feelings towards her and that’s why I need stelazine and anti-psychotic medication. (The sad and tragic truth is that I feel nothing like that and never have – not for myself and indeed not for her – the sadness for me is that I don’t actually like her and am tragically trapped in an apartment she owns and living in poverty pretty much as I do I have to kowtow to her furthermore, doctors stick together and all believe her….. I’m the deranged and disturbed poor young girl who wants to kill people…her they probably think more particularly…I’m sick and that’s in the book too.) So I’m still locked up after the hearing and it continues for two months – I’m locked up again in the secluded prison cell with being allowed out even for a smoke and that happens another two times – also, my knee is still a problem and I’m given nothing to help me – moreover, I started talking to a young male patient in his 20s who seemed very bright and intelligent and then one night while we were talking outside and smoking he went inside and returned later to sit in front of me where he just pronounced _I’m NOT an anti-Semite! What – I didn’t even think you were – what’s going on? What’s this now? More sick games? He walked away from me and said – we’re up against more than we think’ or words to that effect. I then knew it REALLY was a SICK game – perpetrated by my sister and some past shrinks too – they think I’m fuckin paranoid – he never really spoke to me again that young man and he left soon after – I managed to walk out again with a nurse watching me in the street outside – had no keys but the chairman of the body corporate let me in and said something about enjoy yourself you’re home but he was laughing a lot in what I could only consider was unwarranted. I was very sad by this time but glad I was home again. And then it all got turned upside down when I realised something was REALLY wrong in the apartment. There was a notebook I always left on my desk near the phone to write down messages and stuff and this notebook had BEEN written in and not by ME – some of the stuff was things I had been talking about to myself before my arrest- some of it came from my diaries and essays and some of it was just insane – moreover, there was a mysterious bookmark placed on the desk which I knew wasn’t mine and the bottle I’d been using for sex had gone from the fridge – what the fuck? Who’s been in here and why? I knew my sister had obviously let them in – shrinks too I assumed – anyway, I was home for a few days until the cops turned up again this tim,e throwing me in the back on a divi van without a seat belt where I was tossed around hitting my head, my bad knee was cramped and killing me and when we got back to the prison – I was breathlysed – I had a glass of red on my coffee table but I was hardly drinking – I said what are you doing as I don’t drive and I didn’t even know how to suck on it – he showed me how to and I did it and he said it doesn’t even register – so I was then back in ECU again – same routine followed for a few days – I just sat inside the seclusion unit and talked to the nurses as I could – let out again and after a couple of weeks I was having dinner at thwe table with a guy called David and he was having a meal that looked interesting and far nicer than mine and interested to know what her was eating I picked up his order sheet supposedly with his name only to get another shock – where his name was it read PAULIN DAVID – half my name without the E – I just put the paper down (that’s right, my dinner hadn’t yet arrived) went to my room, packed up my belongings again and walked out again to come home – talk about sick games – now I do really know that they read my diaries I wrote in London on blue paper – I had written about a guy called David coming up behind me in a bar – I was thinking he looked just like David Elstein – but I walked out and once more they saw me and didn’t stop me – I was home for a few days – and I was feeling I can’t even think of the right word except bereft and sad and angry all at once – I lost my appetite- couldn’t sleep without two Mogadon and wasn’t even drinking water – I was lying in bed a lot and masturbating- and I can’t recall how many days passed but the phone was fucked and I couldn’t ring out at all, my computer wasn’t working and it might have been this time home that I also discovered the writing in ther notebook etc not the other time as I’ve written – I went upstairs to the eighth floor to ask one of the other residents to ring the police – there was something SO wrong with the apartment I didn’t want to be there – she wouldn’t ring and I stayed lying on a couch on the 8th floor for an hour or so (she went out) and kept hearing the left going up and down and I thought I might have been Ken Lay from the police and my sister and her husband too – I then went back to the apartment and talking to myself ( I was really believing the apartment was bugged after what I saw written in the notebook) started saying shoot them Ken Lay – you’ve got my permission – I had also the night before had a vision of their house being bombed with my sister, her husband lying naked in their bombed out ruins with the shrink Dr C lying naked on top of them – I wasn’t hallucinating – it was just what I was thinking and hoping for – I also wrote my own headline for the newspaper the next day – Life Ever After Death – anyway, I was reminiscing about my sister and how she wouldn’t even help me when I was 17 and had to get out of my madhouse home – and I didn’t want to stay in the apartment and went instead to the Hilton – but the card they gave me wouldn’t open the door and I thought – more fuckin games – I tried a few other doors _ It was 408 – and I went to another floor and just sat in a laundry room – I thought they’re (the shrinks/my sister/the police????) have followed me here – so I just walked out of the Hilton and came home – fell asleep eventually but when I woke up the next morning I knew I hadn’t given the card back to Hilton reception because it was in my bag when I came home to the apartment – I knew I’d have to take it back but guess what? It was gone from my bag. Who came in while I was asleep? I’m not sure how many days went by but I wasn’t eating drinking water or even taking any medication – not even for my asthma and my lips started to go black and I was feeling like I was really dying – oh yes, before that, I was so convinced it was the Jewish shrinks who I’d complained about DR C and my sister and I was remembering how her husband had gone to the Melbourne Club when they banned Jews as members (you can be taken in as a guest) so I went into the city and was standing in Collins St and then sitting on a bench talking VERY loudly about the club bans Jewish members and the fuckin Jews who go there anyway – what waqs interesting to me that night was that I was expecting the police to turn up and arrest me again – but people just walked past and nobody said anything – I felt that was stage managed too – I went home – then as my lips got more and more black I knew I was really sick – I went first to the Epworth and I walked there ande went into emergency and was surprised my Master card was still accepting accounts as I knew it was well over the limit but there wasn’t even a triage nurse and I was left alone in emergency waiting room for too long and people walked thru laughing and I then walked out and went home – can’t remember if it was the same night but I think it was and I caught a taxi and went to the Alfred and also got the run around at reception there – I had told them I felt like I was dying to no avail and my lips were all black and dry – I couldn’t get a taxi back so I caught the tram back into the city and went to Kentucky to eat chicken and drink – I was so thirsty – can’t recall whether it was that same night back in the apartment but I started talking to Jeff Kennett in my bedroom or at least hoping the shrinks who were listening would call him to come and help me – I really felt like I was dying physicvally and I talked about Kennett’s violence and how I’d remembred him from an interview I’d done for SBS in ’81 when I had liked him and thought he was honest and a decent guy – I wanted him to come and take me to a REAL hospital – nothing of course happened so the next morning I thought – this is supposed to be a democracy I’ll go and see Daniel Andrews – Leader of the Opposition whose office is in Spring St next door to the European – I need help – to no avail as he was overseas – then I asked for Frank McGuire- then I gave my details to some young woman and saw Martin Pakula in the lift who I asked if he was related to Zelda – yes, he was but he had a meeting to go to and wouldn’t help me either – I went to the European and had a coffee and told Sam the waiter – just look at me – I’m really sick – I paid and told Fran inside much the same thing and then came home – it was then I thought I’d ring a locum service but my phone was still fucked and my mobile too – and I had looked for my yellow pages for a locum service to find bothyellow pages books had gone from the desk cupboard where I keep them and I knew I hadn’t thrown them out – I went next door to Mitch (oh yes, he’d come round a couple of nights previously with a gbottle of wine and laughing a lot) to ask him to ring 000 for an ambulance – he also started mucking me around so I went to see Alana and Kieran on the other side next door to ask Kieran to ring my locum service (I have a sticker on my fridge door) and I kept getting the run around – I went back into my apartment and then went back to see Kieran Lana opened the door and asked me- where’s Kieran? I walked into theiur apartment and he was there – SITTING there – she was INSANE – more MAD sick GAMES – then of course, the police and paramedics turned up and I didn’t want to go with them as what were they going to do to me now – I was frightened of them – they hung around for about an hour until I realised I had no choice but to go with them – I knew I was really dying and I decided I would just let myself die – I’ve tried to get help and no one wants to help me – they kept me in emergency again where I was watched by some women (not in the back room this time) and I was remembering my last beautiful kiss with Ron – and I was going to let myself die remembering that and I had a smile on my face as it all still seemed so beautiful even thought it was been nearly 40 years before – the other thing I just remembred is that I couldn’t pass urine properly either at home – it would just dribble out and stop and while I still felt like I wanted and needed to pass it, I’d sit on the toilet for minutes and nothing would flow – so in hospital the woman took me to the toilet and told me to kep going – she was watching me all the time and then the next thing I seem to remember is lying on the floor – they were telling me to get up and I asked them to help me get up which they wouldn’t…. I managed somehow to get up and then I had an injection again in my arm and I do remember kicking with my bare feet as I was terrified it was going to be Modecate again – and then I woke up back in ECU – I also remember as I was thinking about my past before the horrifying reality happened about various times in my life when I was a student demonstrator and wondered whether I was on an ASIO file and also about the CIA as there were incidents in my life which had been incredible and then with all the stuff I was thinking about the fuckin Jews and what I’d written in my diary and also about my blast about the Melbourne Club I started thinking about Mossad and what my sister had said about Prisoner X before all the shit happened with her – she told me he’d been a prisoner in an apartment because I said he couldn’t have committed suicide from the pix of his cell I’d seen on TV and I thought/believed the Israelis had killed him – then I started thinking oh my God, does she think I feel like a prisoner – it just became more and more horrifying to me as I had also started hearing David Elstein’s name and Jonathan Dimbleby who I thought were checking up on me and that Elstein might really now be interested in me – it didn’t sound as if I was hallucinating – I’m not sure now I might have been but there was also a guy called Ollie I’d met at a coffee shop in Smith St a few times and a lot of what he said and asked me I intuited something was also amiss with him and then after seeing him for a few times he just suddenly didn’t turn up there any more – who was he I started wondering and also found it strange that he mentioned Anne Frank to me – does he think I’m frightened and in hiding like she was? Is he mad or a shrink too- as I’d written how being in an office with a shrink was so artificial I started wondering whether he was playing a sick game with me too albeit in a more relaxed environs????? Even as I write this I wasn’t scared about ASIO or the CIA – I still don’t know but there were instances in my past which are incredible and it’s irrelevant but I did worry about Mossad as I know how sick they can be – it was past history for me ASIO and the CIA – and I’ll never know but I saw a doco recently about just how many people were on ASIO files back in the 60s/70s when I’m talking about and what I was thinking about – the other issue I was really concerned about is whether I was suffering from the untreated consequences of concussion after being whacked in ther head by an ex-boyfriend several times when I thought the last time he was going to kill me and I still to this day don’t know what happened except that I woke up with a face blackened and bruises on my arms… in the partment I was hearing a few words that I thought might be the result of concussion – and my knee was still really painful and I wanted to see a sports doctor so I rang the Epworth Sports Medical Centre to see Dr Peter Larkins who I’d seen many times on Channel 7 during the football – he wasn’t available so I made an appointment to see a Dr Elise Reid – the daughter of the Esendon club doctor Dr Bruce Reid – and when I went to see her she too started laughing at me and didn’t take anything I said seriously – I walked out of her consulting room, sat down in reception and burst into tears – the receptionists had originally told me they didn’t bulk bill so it was incredibly amazing that they then told me they would – I hadn’t been taken seriously yet again- I went home exasperated – the few things that happened on this my last return to St Vs is that I was also caught smoking in the bathroom one night and the nurse Sue confiscated my lighter – a small organge one I’d borrowed from another patient – and in the morning when she gave them back to me the lighter had a name tag sticker stuck on it saying Pauline K – it all added up as I had once written in my dairy in London when all shit was going on there in my flat too and with Thames that I felt like K in Kafka’s The Trial – I had rebought it again just about a year before my sister had me imprisoned as I couldn’t remember it except that I had felt like K because I knew something was going on at Thames but didn’t know what – but I had completely forgotten that he was supposed to have committed a crime and was a prisoner – I only started feeling like that when I couldn’t get another job after I walked out of Thames (see earlier blogs) – so when I saw the lighter with Pauline K it was like they were treating me like a priswoner who’d committed a crime – it all started to add up- horrifyingly so to me- they had indeed been in touch with someone at Thames even read that – it was written on loose blue paper that I’d tossed out when I sold my own apartment in Richmond – the other thing that happened was that I had a very serious asthma attack and pneumonia which remained untreated despite me telling the nurses I couldn’t breathe – I’d been lying in bed all day trying to stay calm, not panic remembering how my mother had talked to me when I was a kid waiting for the doctor to arrive – when no doctor came to see me in bed I got up and went to reception and asked to use their phone – firstly, I rang my GP and told Joy the receptionist I couldn’t breathe and had asthma- I don’t recall what else I said as I was really dying and she told me Richard my GP wasn’t there so I rang a guy I thought a friend Andrew Bartram and told him I was in St Vincent’s Mental Health Service and that I was dying from asthma or words to that effect – I don’t recall what else I said – I don’t remember what her said either as I couldn’t breathe- I went back to bed and sometime afterwards I don’t know how long it was a woman called Victoria came to see me – she said she was a doctor from the emergency section of the hospital and took my oxygen level which was down to 88- normal is between 95-100 and she took my temp which was 39.8 and then a nurse called Af came in to take blood and I was terrified he was going to torture me too as Kate the nurse had done before – he said they wanted to measure the oxygen in my blood and for once, he was careful, did it slowly and didn’t torture me – Victoria told me I needed anti-biotics- Doxyclin and amoxil which I knew only too well from several bouts of bronchial pneumonia during my life and I started taking the tablets- just slept most of the time still struggling to breathe but relieved that I AT LEAST wasn’t going to die of asthma – somehow I got thru the night and the next day Zara the Jewish shrink came in to see me and I said I felt a bit nauseous which I was always when I had bronchial pneumonia and bad bronchitis and asthma – she gave me an anti-nausea pill and I said I needed some chicken soup Jewish penicillin and she said with kanadler and I said no I don’t like them – she left – I was also brought a ventolin nebuliser machine thank god but they gave me two sachets – one of salbutamol which is ventolin and another with salt ? I wasn’t sure what that was for – I asked what it was – and I used it to feel sick even more – but I could breathe a bit easier tho still feeling very weak as I hadn’t been able to eat anything that day before but I got out of bed, had a shower and tried to eat some lunch but still felt pretty sick – the nurses then told me to use the nebuliser every four hours and I said I just want the salbutamol – not the salt thing – (do they think I’m bipolar?) and I stayed up and was smoking would U believe but the nedbuliser had worked a miracle as it usually does – anyway, I was still feeling somewhat nauseous as the afternoon went on and I had another anti-nausea pill before eating a little dinner, kept using the nebuliser and taking my oxygen level with the nurses and it was going up thank god – I slept that night breathing far more easily – the next day was a Wednesday and my sister was in an office with Zara the mad shrink and I was walking past the office and she saw me and came out – how are you? I touched her on the shoulder and just said very quietly I’m alright – and continued walking outside – I didn’t feel nauseous anymore and started to eat better and was using the nebuliser every four hours which gave me a really surreal feeling – I was hoping my friend Andrew who I’d rung might arrive to see me as I knew I told him where I was but he never turned up – the next three weeks drifted by with me taking anti-biotics and using the nebuliser and me smoking and meeting a new inmate called Ken- a gay guy with AIDS and we became close friends in there – until I was then told by an Indian shrink I’d seen before with Zara called Uneash that I could go home on Thursday – it was a Tuesday and I didn’t believe it would happen until it did – my sister had the keys – oh yes, she turned up again one day before the asthma attack and I didn’t want to see her and I told her loudly inside in earshot of nurses and probably shrinks to GET FUCKED! And I tossed the keys of the apartment at her feet screaming – kick me out! I can’t be sure of this but I don’t recall being put back into ECU- I walked away from her outside to have a cigarette – oh yes, before that my sister had brought my mail which she opened and I was aghast to see I owed the bank $2500 and AMEx also – the told me I had to see a financial counsellor who was useless – at no time did my sister even suggest helping me – oh yes, there were lots menthol cigarettes in the apartment when I returned the last time I walked out – I put them in the rubbish bin (menthol – I’d smoked my other sister’s menthol the night I went there in 1984 – see earlier blog) of the Thursday arrived and I had to have a meeting with her, a case manager, a social worker and Uneash – it said it all as she said I was hostile to her and Barry – I owed him an apology- (when it was HIM who’d asked me if I was bleeding????) and she said she could rent the apartment for $500 a week to help her son Mark – it was ALL about money but I kept my mouth shut as I’d already learnt with her that I couldn’t speak my mind- I had to put on an act – be so contrite when she had no idea that the real me was the person who told her to get fucked – oh yes, before the Thursday on the Tuesday afternoon after Uneash had told me I could leave on the Thursday – I was only taking 5 mg of Stelazine and was pretty good – two nurses – Brona and Hayley – turned up in my bedroom to tell me I had to have a depot injection- in my arse I think I asked – yes, they said – I knew then it was going to be Modecate but what could I do – nothing! I had the injection asked for a cogentin tablet which I think was actually valium – and I shuddered waiuting for my body to go sick again – at the meeting on the Thursday I was told I was on a Community Trreatment Order and would have to have these injections every tweo weeks at the Clarendon Clinic an out patient clinic part of St V’s…. I knew something was SO wrong – they were trying to play out what David Horgan had done to me and it made no logical sense that now I’m to leave I have to have an injecvtion when I’d been fine on the 5 mg – anyway, I had to wait more than hour for all my medications and I walked home by myself – hoping my sister might have had her cleaner clean the flat but no – it was a dusty mess with pollen shit all over the floor which if she had thought for just one second – she would realise I’m badly allergic to house dust and pollen as it triggers my asthma too – so I came home and firstly washed the sheets and some clothes and dusted a bit and I was taking half a Mogadon to sleep (I’d been taking them at St V’s) and I slept and the next day went out to have a coffee – had a shower, put on make-up, blow dried my hair and then the rot set in from the injection – I felt dizzy as I walked down the street, partly agitated and altogether out of body – it was painful and I felt like I was going to pass out and had to get home and then I had to go back to the Clarnedon Clinic and have another injection – what could I do? Nothing except I made an appointment with my GP Richard who I didn’t want to see anymore as he’d done nothing to help me get out of the concentration camp/prison – but I couldn’t find another Gp around to bulk bill me and I wanted some more Mogadon as the hospital hadn’t given me that medication when I left- I asked Richard for some anti-depressants which I thought my alleviate my agitation and acute feeling of oddness – I wasn’t sure what they’d given me – it didn’t feel as bad as the Modecate had (I’ll never ever forget that horror) but I was told at the Clarendon Clinic it was a more modern equivalent – I was once more horrified and the second time I forgot to ask for a tablet and when I got home I started taking some Artane which Dr C had prescfribed when he first put me on Stelazine – anyway, Richard would give me any anti depressants but I got the Mogadonscript and I also told him I was feeling very randy all the time and he said he’d write to the Clinic about how I was feeling about the injection etc – he wrote something and sealed it and when I got home I couldn’t believe how he’d totally understated how I’d felt – he said ‘quite odd’ when I said extremely and the sex stuff was appalling – anyway, I decided I wasn’t going to give it to them – the next appointment loomed at the Clinic and I was going to ask that I would take 10mg of Stelazine even though I knew it would also have a bad effect on me instead of another injection – I saw a different female shrink – the first one was a Dr Soosingh – Indian too – and even though I’d told her I was terrified and horrified by what was done to me she didn’t care – well, this new female A Dr Vicki Shepherd said I could stop the injections to take 10mg of Stelazine IF I dropped having another appeal to the Mental Health Review Board which was pending in another month- she threatened me- as the lawyer from Legal Aid put it who was going to represent me at the hearing – I cancelled the hearing not out of fear of having another injection but I knew it would be another kangaroo court and the lawyer hadn’t even bothered to see me – so I was on 10 mg of Stelazine and while it was making my head spin a bit the acute odd feeling and feeling of going to pass out when I walked abated – I had another appointment and was surprised to see it was a Dr Peter Bosnak who I’d seen once at ST V’s and I asked him to reduce the Stelazine to 7 mg which he’d done at St V’s…but he also asked me why I was laughing – it’s the best medicine I replied until afterwards I realised I haven’t been laughing at all – what and when and where was he referring to? In the partment the night the cops arrested me in handcuffs ? I rang hime at St V’s to ask him he was away on leave and then on his return he did ring back twice but I’d already changed my mind as I knew he’d either conveniently forget he’d said it or he’d make up some other lie – I told St V’s reception I no longer needed to speak to him – then I had to see another female shrink – called Carol Silberberg who I asked her surname and then are you Jewish – I was glad initially as I thought she just might grasp the Jewish paranoia in my family – the case manager Di Harris always had to be in attendance as well as seeing me at other times too – I was really horrified at one meeting with Di, shaking so badly I couldn’t hold a cigarette and so beside myself – I was going to bed shivering in horror at what’d been done to me – I felt like I was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder – and none of my friends so called even bothered to come and see me –I also had to see my sister who I made the mistake of telling my knee was still swollen and painful and they hadn’t treated it to which she retorted – don’t start – are you taking your tablets….adding – you were sick – I shut up realising once more I just couldn’t say anything to her about how I’d been treated but she also had told me I’d had a chest infection – I didn’t bother telling her I was dying from asthma – she also told me Andrew had rung her after my phonecall to him – and when I did come home that Thursday the phone- miraculously was working even though I hadn’t paid a bill for two months during my incarceration – she said Andrew was really concerned and that I had rung him from emergency when I knew I’d rung from reception in the so-called ward – anyway, there were a few messages on the phone and one was from him – because he hadn’t even bothered to come and see me I didn’t want to ring him back – he’s no friend of mine- I waited for a few weeks to see if he’d call in to the flat as he knows where I live or even ring again but NOTHING! My sister keeps making me see her and another time I realised she was really insane when she said – with all the new technology now, if the Nazis come there’d be nowhere to hide – I just didn’t say anything – moreover I received a letter from her son and his wife about her imminent 70th birthday (oh yes, her daughter Rebecca, also a doctor turned up to visit me early on at St V’s looking like her usual dull sloppy self and I told her I don’t want to know – she walked away – also my other niece turned up one day and temporarily was glad to see her and she went and bought me a packet of cigarettes I asked her for- then she said I love you to which I replied – what does that mean to which she replied I care – and I realised they really thought I’d been suicidal as Pam had told me over the phone which I just couldn’t believe it – she later tried to come and visit me and a nurse asked me if I wanted to see her and I said no – neither of my nephews even bothered – ) back to the biurthday letter – they were making her a surprise party and asked me if I could write a good memory of her to read out at the party as they were asking all her family and friends to do too – I thought about it for a day and replied I can’t write anything at the moment I’m too sad – it was a lie as I’m totally horrified by her and the rest of them (Oh yes, I did buy a card for her and her husband to apologise as she told me I owed him an apology when I KNOW it’s the other way around) anyway, I sent my reply and never heard from them again only to find out recently she had the party and I wasn’t even invited and Pam’s never told me about it – ??????
Glad I wasn’t even invited but they all know I’ve been writing as I’ve had a few letters published in The Age which my sister’s only mentioned one harmless safe one about eh football – anyway, back to Carol Silberberg – at home in the apartment strange things with the phone started happening – I’d be lying in bed in the morning randy and moaning abit as I played with myself and the phone would start ringing – it happened I think three times and once I even heard – really LOUD and CLEAR – YOU REALLY HAVE…. I knew I certainly wasn’t hallucinating so I told Carol Silberberg and she told me I had to increase the Stelazine back to 10mg – what they fuck is going on now here? I did increase it even though I knew she was either lying or else projecting her Jewish paranoia on to me – I also told her about the writing in the notebook she didn’t believe me that I hadn’t written it – and Di the case manager said – we don’t know which I surmised was a lie – they are trying to frighten me – think I’m paranoid here too – I even told Bosnak the bottle I’d used for sex had gone missing from the fridge and that I was frightened of my sister – I realised I had to be really careful with her about anything I said – and started realising I’d got a lot of it right before the police arrest that nite – I know they’ve read the screed I wrote about Horgan etc in 1985 after the Melbourne Clinic but I don’t know how much of all my diaries etc have been read – I’m not sure whether this apartment is bugged or not still – but I don’t care anymore – anyway, Carol Silberberg told me you’ll be happy you won’t see me anymore and I’ve seen a guy shrink – thank god now NOT Jewish – who has cut the Stelazine back to 7 mg and only a fortnight ago told me I could reduce it to 5 mg but I haven’t as I know something is still so amiss I’m too upset and have to sit tight until the CTO is over – this shrink Luke Ainsworth has lied to me and this morning I told the case manager Di who I had to see for a coffee it was like being in China –see other blog – she walked away and said I was on a CTO because they had to make sure I was taking the medication – I also rang a so-called friend a few days after my arrival home to see if she could lend me the $2500 to pay off my Mastercard over the limit balance – she agreed but her tone of voice to me was truly alarming – she talked to me as if I was a child – untrustworthy, worthless and sick too – I had already learned she had spoken to my sister the day after I’d been arrested – anyway, I don’t like her but I will pay her back and it stopped me from having to go legally bankrupt – I also arranged with the debt collecting agency to pay back the $2500 I owed American Express – most of the money spent on cigarettes – as I do now too – my only comfort – I’ve also realised how my book The Circle War is the basis for much of what’s been going on – and a diary I kept in my teens which I once wrote I long for torment and insanity – it doesn’t matter now as I know what I meant and they’ve done exactly that to me – they think I have a crime of attempted murder on my conscience- that I’m full of self-hatred, no doubt a self-hating Jew too – suicidal/homicidal – violent and psychotic as a shrink from the Melb Clinic said – see earlier blog – and I know too that at my last full-time job in 2007 when I went to see a counsellor and told her I was feeling sad- she said you feel tortured – a few months later they sacked me but I will write all the years after 1985 to 2013 on that horrifying August nite and the months after it..
AFTERWORD:
When I reflect on these past months it is now with a quiet and sad but intense sense of horror; albeit the feelings of shivering fear at the shrinks and my sister still exist within me but the intensity of those feelings have abated somewhat…. it’s just the way it is tragically not just for me but sadly too for the way mental health issues are perceived and treated in our own Australian society; albeit no differently to a totalitarian country like China as I wrote briefly in previous blog. As a woman incarcerated in what I feel is a concentration camp masquerading as a hospital, there was no level of human care, no respect and never any effort made to find out my truth or the truth of what happened to me. It is a shame this country can hang its collective head about where the abuse of my human rights, dignity and sanity scares me shitless. It always will be when I have to be SO AWARE and SO careful what I say to my sister and the shrinks as the article on Chinese repression stated intimidated to saying ‘ nice things and agreeable words.’ That’s how I am forced now to live for the rest of my life; imprisoned not because of any crime of any violence but because of angry words I once spoke and some books I wrote which are presumed to be true about me. And because I live in my sister’s apartment with just a couple of friends one of whom has also said some mad things to me. That’s his problem not mine. Moreover, I was put in this concentration camp because I do have a mental health issue – just as Hitler locked up the mentally disabled during his time as Germany’s Chancellor. I believe some people assumed I was paranoid about being Jewish – refer the comment from a fellow inmate who declared he was NOT an anti-Semite to me???? How insane are they, I can only shudder in horror. I am still and always will have to live so carefully about what I say to whom; my freedom of speech is severely curtailed and I have absolutely NO right of dissent lest I will be locked up again as OUT of CONTROL as my sister believes and endangering her life because I am deemed violent and psychotic……I am shaking as I write this; in fear of what may happen to me because she IS my sister and family reigns sacrosanct in our society. Moreover, she was a medical doctor NOT a shrink however and she is filthy rich. Of me, I was unemployed, poverty stricken and a background as I’ve detailed in previous blogs of mental health issues. As I wrote in these blogs, I was horrified at how I was treated back then; I am even more horrified now. I wasn’t living in fear then; I do now. They are sadistic and out of touch with my reality; not interested in me as a human being at all and altho’ I am not having suicidal thoughts and am happy with myself I look on my future with just sadly, more of the same – the stigma of mental illness is huge; a couple of people I thought were friends haven’t even bothered or suggested to see me; I am so tired as well; and I do contemplate what life is really about but just feel at least glad I am still alive and didn’t die from asthma. The assumptions people have made about me are truly horrifying; including some of the media who I tried to interest in a story about the mental health industry. I am regarded as paranoid, psychotic, persecuted and psychopathic! I am still on a CTO I was informed because they want to ensure I am taking my medication. There is no trust about me whatsoever and I am a child, albeit violent, who must be watched 24 hours a day.What else can I write?