Remembering the Forgotten Australians
Nov. 16th, 2009 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipThe Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said 'sorry' (MP3 file) to those who were neglected or abused as state wards. As someone who was a state ward from eight to my eighteenth birthday, it has given me opportunity to thank Mr. Rudd for his concern, and to compose a few words of my own experiences on the subject.
My own entry in wardship was due to the incarceration of my adopted mother into a mental health institute. She was the step-mother who engaged in a post-natal kidnapping mentioned in my userinfo, but that's for another story. My adopted parents split up when I was seven and she developed a case of violent paranoid-schizophrenia. There are no prizes for guessing who was the target of the violence; a seven year old boy. Every day as I returned from school would descend into beatings whereupon I would barricade myself in a room to get away from her. I had cigarettes stubbed out on me, I was stabbed with kitchen utensils, I had crockery thrown at me. Inevitably, some of this came to the attention of neighbours and one day the Department of Community Welfare took me away.
I found myself in a place called the Catherine McAuley Centre, run by the Sisters of Mercy. For some time I was in a rickety old building, in a small partitioned room. There were bunk beds for seven or eight in the room which would have been about 2.5 metres by 3 metres. There was one young boy in the room named Michael, nicknamed "Monkey" on the account that he would climb the rafters of the building and howl like said simian. He seemed unable to speak, and looked like he was four years old; later I discovered he was seven at the time. Soon after my arrival there an elderly nun came into the bathroom as I was taking a bath; she told me that the warm water had made my dick big, and if we played with it we could make it even bigger. As she ran her hands up my inner thigh and touched me, I bolted upright and glared at her, shouting "No!". A look of fear came over her face and she made for the door. I didn't see much of her after that.
For most of the following decade I was either in the Catherine McAuley Centre or back with my adopted mother if the various mental health authorities deemed her of sufficient stability of mind to look after me. This was an invariably wrong assessment, so I can only suppose she was a brilliant liar when the need suited her. Her violence did not decrease in ferocity, but it did become less effective. She was increasingly in ill-health and I was entering puberty. I found now I could simply shut a door and lean against it whenever she had a turn (which was every night) and wait for her to exhaust herself. Her delusions and hallucinations become more prevalent at this stage as well; she claimed that God visited her, she would wander into the loungeroom naked asserting that I must fuck her, because I was the man of the house now, and other such grotesque things.
Back at the Catherine McAuley Centre the old building was knocked down and alas, so was the abandoned school with its tunnels. In a reform-orientated perspective everyone was distributed to houses that had been built on the old estate, managed by a "mum & dad" pair who had decided to take upon a family of eight to ten wards. The one I ended up with had a couple of children of their own, who were a right pair of little shits. The youngest one took delight pulling the hair of the wards, climbing all over them and generally being a twit. On multiple times he managed to slip and land rather heavily on the floor with a delightful thump. Of course, the 'dad' came out and saw his little boy on the floor crying, decided to engage in some beating of those present. Evidently, 'dad' must have passed on the dickhead gene to his son. After a few beers he would often grab one of the three barely adolescent boys (myself and two others) throw us on the dining table and kiss us in a sexual fashion - and then upon releasing us call us 'poofters'.
After this delightful experience I found myself back in the formal care of my adopted mother again where I remained in from my mid-teens until, on my 17th birthday, I decided to make my own in the world. Alas, as I was still at school and my place of employment vanished, I found into bad and criminal company fairly quickly. Not 'criminal' as in anarchistic intellectual types who are rebels against the laws of the land, but lumpen-proletariat types whom I suspect would be criminals in any society, no matter how liberal or how finely crafted the welfare state was. Stealing, drinking and fighting was the interest of these types and they would apply it among their own just as regularly as among strangers. Somewhere among all this my social worker directed me to a clever scheme were I received some minor financial assistance from the state government for being my own carer. You see, you could be 'under care' if you were under eighteen. But you could be a carer if you were over sixteen. So as a seventeen year old, I could be both.
Somehow out of all this I managed to finish my year twelve and sat university entrance exams including History and Ancient History despite having not actually having taken the courses themselves. By this stage, I was also quite involved in what was a Marxist political organisation. Receiving good marks, I had offers from all four universities in the state; I chose Murdoch and thus began another chapter of my life.
I don't want to make it sound that my experiences as a state ward were all bad. There was some very enjoyable YMCA camps that I was sent to, which had a high degree of freedom. The private education that the state paid for was of a very high quality, albeit with a sectarian religious component. The carers at at the Short Term Crisis Centre (where I stayed for over six months) were kind and intelligent. In many ways becoming a state ward for me was beneficial; certainly being in the Catherine McAulley Centre was largely an improvement from 'home' life. Indeed, despite all I have written the worst aspect of my childhood was the relentless and grinding poverty. Neglected and abused? Well, yes, I know that experience. It was almost inevitable part of being raised in the wrong social class. But the experience of being a state ward could have been worse, and for many others it was. For them, Mr. Rudd, apology accepted. Don't let it happen again.
My own entry in wardship was due to the incarceration of my adopted mother into a mental health institute. She was the step-mother who engaged in a post-natal kidnapping mentioned in my userinfo, but that's for another story. My adopted parents split up when I was seven and she developed a case of violent paranoid-schizophrenia. There are no prizes for guessing who was the target of the violence; a seven year old boy. Every day as I returned from school would descend into beatings whereupon I would barricade myself in a room to get away from her. I had cigarettes stubbed out on me, I was stabbed with kitchen utensils, I had crockery thrown at me. Inevitably, some of this came to the attention of neighbours and one day the Department of Community Welfare took me away.
I found myself in a place called the Catherine McAuley Centre, run by the Sisters of Mercy. For some time I was in a rickety old building, in a small partitioned room. There were bunk beds for seven or eight in the room which would have been about 2.5 metres by 3 metres. There was one young boy in the room named Michael, nicknamed "Monkey" on the account that he would climb the rafters of the building and howl like said simian. He seemed unable to speak, and looked like he was four years old; later I discovered he was seven at the time. Soon after my arrival there an elderly nun came into the bathroom as I was taking a bath; she told me that the warm water had made my dick big, and if we played with it we could make it even bigger. As she ran her hands up my inner thigh and touched me, I bolted upright and glared at her, shouting "No!". A look of fear came over her face and she made for the door. I didn't see much of her after that.
For most of the following decade I was either in the Catherine McAuley Centre or back with my adopted mother if the various mental health authorities deemed her of sufficient stability of mind to look after me. This was an invariably wrong assessment, so I can only suppose she was a brilliant liar when the need suited her. Her violence did not decrease in ferocity, but it did become less effective. She was increasingly in ill-health and I was entering puberty. I found now I could simply shut a door and lean against it whenever she had a turn (which was every night) and wait for her to exhaust herself. Her delusions and hallucinations become more prevalent at this stage as well; she claimed that God visited her, she would wander into the loungeroom naked asserting that I must fuck her, because I was the man of the house now, and other such grotesque things.
Back at the Catherine McAuley Centre the old building was knocked down and alas, so was the abandoned school with its tunnels. In a reform-orientated perspective everyone was distributed to houses that had been built on the old estate, managed by a "mum & dad" pair who had decided to take upon a family of eight to ten wards. The one I ended up with had a couple of children of their own, who were a right pair of little shits. The youngest one took delight pulling the hair of the wards, climbing all over them and generally being a twit. On multiple times he managed to slip and land rather heavily on the floor with a delightful thump. Of course, the 'dad' came out and saw his little boy on the floor crying, decided to engage in some beating of those present. Evidently, 'dad' must have passed on the dickhead gene to his son. After a few beers he would often grab one of the three barely adolescent boys (myself and two others) throw us on the dining table and kiss us in a sexual fashion - and then upon releasing us call us 'poofters'.
After this delightful experience I found myself back in the formal care of my adopted mother again where I remained in from my mid-teens until, on my 17th birthday, I decided to make my own in the world. Alas, as I was still at school and my place of employment vanished, I found into bad and criminal company fairly quickly. Not 'criminal' as in anarchistic intellectual types who are rebels against the laws of the land, but lumpen-proletariat types whom I suspect would be criminals in any society, no matter how liberal or how finely crafted the welfare state was. Stealing, drinking and fighting was the interest of these types and they would apply it among their own just as regularly as among strangers. Somewhere among all this my social worker directed me to a clever scheme were I received some minor financial assistance from the state government for being my own carer. You see, you could be 'under care' if you were under eighteen. But you could be a carer if you were over sixteen. So as a seventeen year old, I could be both.
Somehow out of all this I managed to finish my year twelve and sat university entrance exams including History and Ancient History despite having not actually having taken the courses themselves. By this stage, I was also quite involved in what was a Marxist political organisation. Receiving good marks, I had offers from all four universities in the state; I chose Murdoch and thus began another chapter of my life.
I don't want to make it sound that my experiences as a state ward were all bad. There was some very enjoyable YMCA camps that I was sent to, which had a high degree of freedom. The private education that the state paid for was of a very high quality, albeit with a sectarian religious component. The carers at at the Short Term Crisis Centre (where I stayed for over six months) were kind and intelligent. In many ways becoming a state ward for me was beneficial; certainly being in the Catherine McAulley Centre was largely an improvement from 'home' life. Indeed, despite all I have written the worst aspect of my childhood was the relentless and grinding poverty. Neglected and abused? Well, yes, I know that experience. It was almost inevitable part of being raised in the wrong social class. But the experience of being a state ward could have been worse, and for many others it was. For them, Mr. Rudd, apology accepted. Don't let it happen again.