REQUEST FOR RECEPTION OF PATIENT INTO A PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
Please receive Sylvie Raymonde Leber for observation and treatment into the psychiatric hospital of which you are Superintendent for a period of 21 days subject to the provision of the Mental Health Act 1959.
Date: 13.4.1972
From documents obtained via F.O.I. on 13/8/2021
I’d been wandering around Melbourne for days visiting friends and crashing with them while in a strange and often delusional mental state. Ending up at Caulfield’s grand mansion, La Basa. Being there made me feel like I was in that creepy movie Rosemary’s Baby with Mia Farrow. Some of the residents thought I needed help. The handsome, gentle, blonde German guy I’d attached myself to took me on his motorbike to the Alfred Hospital. They’d consulted with my parents beforehand.
Lo and behold, the head of the psychiatry department was someone I went to high school with! He ended up certifying me, which meant I was to be hospitalised against my will. Mr Cute Guy took me to my next destination. This time it was A Ward at Larundel Mental Hospital, a classic 1940s double-story, Tudor style, red brick loony bin in Bundoora. All the certified inmates stayed in this lockup ward until they got a full diagnosis after being observed for a couple of weeks, and then, if it was considered safe, sent to an open ward.
I got shown to my bed in the women’s dorm. Luckily mine was next to Lynn, who eventually became my buddy. The residents were mostly friendly and welcoming. After a couple of days, while sitting around chatting in the lounge area, one of the residents said, “What are you doing here? You’re not crazy.” The others nodded their heads in agreement.
It was 1972. I was in my early twenties. I’d suffered a mental breakdown after being raped and left for dead following an attempt to strangle me near Southport, Queensland. It happened while hitchhiking back home to Melbourne after my first trip overseas to Papua New Guinea.
I’d had three brief hospitalizations before Larundel. All voluntary. The first was in Brisbane after my attacker had been caught and I’d attended the committal hearing to determine if he should be tried. Admittedly it was probably not a good idea to have imbibed some LSD a few days earlier and then have to face the perpetrator in the courtroom. I knew I wasn’t well. I’d hallucinated one night that a giant Bunyip slowly approached me from behind and touched me. I was also terrified of men in cars who looked at me.
I’d been staying at the Commune in Brisbane after visiting Queensland Uni, hoping to be offered a bed somewhere. One of the Commune gang, who happened to be a GP, suggested I go to the local general hospital that had a women’s psych ward. Playing into the ’70s stereotype of how a mentally ill person looks and behaves, I dressed in a harlequin costume and prattled on about how I was a magician who used different colours to work my magic. It worked.
The ward was peaceful and safe and there were no men. I even found an older woman mentor who had beautiful, long, grey hair and who exuded calmness and sensitivity, albeit resting in bed all day. Conversations with her were relaxing.
I’d told my father over the phone that I was staying in Brisbane because I’d been robbed and had to stick around for the trial. I didn’t tell him the whole story as I’d always avoided telling my folks about my problems since they’d suffered so much during the Holocaust in WWII. Unfortunately, the hospital contacted them to tell them where I was and Dad came to take me back to Melbourne. He’d talked to my school friend’s dad, who happened to be a psychiatrist, who recommended I be taken to Parkville Psych Unit.
After a couple of one-on-one sessions, my psychiatrist there said she couldn’t deal with me because I was too ‘way out’ for her. I’d worked out that Parkville was just a place for rich people’s neurotic kids. So next I went to nearby Royal Park which was more like a typical psych hospital with large wards and staff in uniforms. After a couple of weeks of nothing therapeutic happening there and being bored, I left. And that’s when the fugue started.
Larundel’s Ward A inmates were made to work for no money doing boring, repetitive jobs. In the sunny, carpeted communal living room filled with armchairs and couches, we’d sit in a circle filling up cellophane bags with bottle tops. After several days of this boring shit, I grabbed the large cardboard box filled with the loose bottle tops and, exasperated, I threw it up in the air yelling “I hate this!” It landed upside down with all the tops scattering across the room.
Suddenly I was grabbed by a bunch of male nurses and dragged down the hallway. The next bit is unbelievable. They took me to a nearby lockup cell, removed all my outer clothes, leaving me in my bra and underpants, then held me down on the ground and forcibly injected me with a strong dose of the sedative Largactil. The punishment certainly didn’t fit the crime. Interestingly, I was to commit a more serious act of vandalism in the next ward — graffitiing over another inmate’s painting hanging on the wall — and there were no punitive repercussions.
Lynn came to visit me in the cell and we chatted through the metal barred opening. Smoking was allowed back then, so I asked her to bring me a box of matches which she did straight away. Later that night when all was quiet, I took off my cotton bra and tore it into thin shreds which I then tied into a long string. The plan was to gradually put the rope through the bars after having lit it, making a pile on the floor outside and continuing to throw lit matches till it created a decent fire, setting off the alarms. My plan didn’t work. I couldn’t get the flames to burn for long enough. They just fizzled out.
Ward A was hell. They gave me electric shock treatments against my will. It was done on both sides of the brain which is known to cause both short-term and long-term memory loss. High doses of Largactil were administered daily which usually made me feel tired and woozy.
A couple of years earlier I’d spent time in another mental hospital in outer Melbourne but not as an inmate. I was a social work student at Melbourne Uni in the late ’60s. A few of us had a placement at Sunbury Mental Hospital. This place reminded me of the loony bins in the films One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Marat/Sade. The different wards included one for the criminally insane, and one for older women who weren’t crazy but who’d been put there many years ago by their families for not conforming to how women were expected to behave. Because there was no rehab available for them, these women were so institutionalised that they couldn’t return to life in the community.
I was horrified by how the inmates were treated. For example, instead of bathing the patients in private bathrooms, they would be taken outside and washed down with fire hoses. Padded cells were also used. The social worker supervising us told me at the end of my placement that I had done well but I was too friendly with the inmates, which was unprofessional.
There was one occasion where I was treated with respect in A Ward. A psych and a senior nurse approached me with serious faces and asked me to follow them. Eventually we entered a large unused space filled with beds and other stored equipment. Near a wall, there was a teenage girl with short brown hair lying on her belly covered in white sheets on a high bed. I’d been told on the way that she didn’t move or talk. The psychiatric term was that she was catatonic and because I was a friendly, empathetic extrovert, they thought I might be able to get her to communicate and move her body. We got on just fine using eye contact and smiles.
After a couple of weeks, realising I had to behave to get out of the lockup ward, I was moved to Fawkner House. It was for people diagnosed with personality disorders. They were a mix of smart, eccentric people who were often out of control. There was lots of game playing, bullying and power struggles. I wanted to get out of there. I never imagined I’d meet a policeman in there, but he was very likeable and easygoing. He understood that it had been his tough job that had caused him to end up there.
People were in this hospital for all sorts of reasons. There was the Israeli bloke who was using Larundel to hide from a crim gang he owed money to, the woman who openly told me that she had killed her baby and done time in jail, the quiet fellow who revealed he’d been a flasher. And there was a gay bloke, Gerald, that I’d met a few times before who was the boyfriend of my lovely friend Chris, a fashion industry icon, who sadly later died of AIDS.
I even had a short romance with David, a handsome, gentle fellow. It felt good being with him. I met his boyfriend, James, when he came to visit but sadly, I learned that David’s conservative parents were very against their relationship. Eventually his treating psych told me I wasn’t allowed to have anything to do with him, leaving me feeling sad and angry. Years later I bumped into James at a music event at the Sydney Myer Music Bowl and learned that David had committed suicide. I was speechless.
One day I became the show-and-tell at a psychiatrist’s presentation to fellow staff members. It was a bit like the olden days, when an anatomical dissection was done by a doctor on a dead body in front of other medical practitioners. This time I was the one to be dissected. The psych in charge of my ward had me in a large room in front of his seated audience. To my surprise, straight in front of me was the big brother of a school friend who’d also been a group leader in my Jewish lefty youth group. I knew him by his nickname: Chook. I pointed and said, “I know him! Hello Chook.” Everyone cracked up laughing. He was a bit embarrassed but smiled nevertheless.
My youth group friends visited me a couple of times. We had lots of fun sitting around cracking jokes. On one occasion they brought me a present to cheer me up: a dildo! My dad also visited me. We would have deep and meaningful conversations about life. I recall him being philosophical about how humans were innately alone and that was why we needed other people. My mother never came to see me. I’ve often wondered if the trauma of what had happened to me and my subsequent mental state was too much for her to deal with.
I only connected with a couple of staff members in the three months that I was hospitalised. There was Ilia, an Eastern European psych nurse, who often chatted with me and seemed to care. I distinctly recall him saying “Don’t forgive him” about my attacker which had a powerful effect on my attitude toward that violent bastard. The other one was the petite Scottish woman, Elizabeth, who worked as a cleaner. She was always chatty and kind to me whenever we saw each other.
One of my inmate friends, Susanne, had a brother, Chris, who was a muso. His band came to play in the large hall. It was such a thrill to hear some live music even though it was not packed like at a regular gig. These days, Chris’ roots music band plays every Thursday night at a pub near my place. Their music fills me with joy. Sadly, after many hospitalisations, Susanne took her life.
While at Larundel, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, drug-induced psychosis, personality disorder, and manic depression (now called bipolar disorder) but never with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the ’70s, soldiers returning from war were the only people diagnosed with this and it was simplistically called ‘shell shock’.
Eventually I was moved to a third ward, Fawkner North, run by Dr. Daniel Kahans. He was Jewish, chubby, funny and creative and has been credited with being the first doctor to introduce music therapy and psychodrama to Australia. In later years I found out he played cello and was a playwright. I liked him immediately and loved his group psychodrama sessions where we took turns acting out significant scenarios from our lives.
Excerpt from my diary while I was in Larundel in 1972:
“Dr Kahans doesn’t like RD Laing. Why? RD Laing is very intense. Just presented taped interviews of girls, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters etc. biased towards girls not very much conversation with the rest of the family pointed out weaknesses in family couldn’t point out weaknesses in girls. Why did those girls end up in mental homes? – wanted other people to look after them. I trusted the people I was with completely and I got a rude shock in A Ward – locked up in a jail. Mental hospital for what reason? One and a half weeks. Dr Shannon said the problem was drugs! That’s only one of them. Too expensive. I consider that I function OK on marijuana. I can be quite an actress. George Whaley in The Blacks plus others thought I was pretty good but I couldn’t let myself go especially in the scene with Nick. Too conscious of the audience. Cut them off. No blot them out of your mind. Concentrate on one thing at a time.
Acting out your own personal drama that’s Dr Kahans. He also said ‘don’t back down’. Sometimes, I feel like backing down. Then people can influence me. Do I want to be vulnerable with people?”
Finally, I was getting the therapy I needed and my mental health improved. I’d been there for over three months. Even though I wasn’t in the lockup ward anymore, I wasn’t able to leave as I was still certified. Eventually I became a voluntary patient and soon after asked Daniel if I could leave. He said yes but strongly advised that I regularly see a psych.
Larundel officially closed in 1999 following a government policy to close down psych hospitals and establish community outreach mental health programs. Its empty buildings became famous as a place for graffiti artists and vandals, and even became a tourist attraction with nighttime ghost-hunting tours. In recent times, it’s become a huge housing development… of course.
In the last 20 or so years, I’ve seen psychologists every two or three years on average for a few sessions. The tricky part is finding one that is suitable.
When my daughter was old enough to cope, I told her about what happened to me back in my early 20s, without the gory details. She said, “How come you’re so sane?” I wasn’t always that way.
Fortunately, there are conversations happening now around the destigmatisation of mental illness along with acknowledgment of the surprisingly high rates of it when measured over a lifetime, especially amongst young people. Trauma is finally being acknowledged as the cause in the majority of cases. It’s great that there are many mental health support and advocacy organisations now. Something that didn’t exist in the early ’70s.
These days I continue to have great adventures. I pursue my interests in painting, writing and storytelling. I listen to and play music and continue to be involved in progressive social causes. I’m a regular traveller, with more than 25 countries under my belt. I want others who have PTSD to know that, yes, recovery is tough going, but you can rebuild trust in the world and your future. And, hey, you can’t let the bastards win by ruining your life.
“Trauma is unseen. The close relationship between trauma and mental illness and the need for trauma-informed mental health treatment, care and support are starting to be recognised, but there is much work still to be done. The system needs to provide more holistic approaches for consumers and must be responsive to trauma and the potential for consumers to be retraumatised. A failing system can itself cause trauma.”
Findings of 2021 Victorian Mental Health Royal Commission (VMHRC)
