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Some people have been asking about why I’ve been away from here for a while. I wasn’t sure if I was going to speak about why, but I’ve realised some things are better exposed to the light.
For a while I’ve been having weird calls and odd things happening. I figured it was the usual scams and ignored it. But then one night last month I got a phone call very late at night and the number wasn’t withheld. I recognised the area code. I didn’t answer.
It went to voicemail and they left an odd silent voicemail with just breathing audible. Not a pocket dial, it was less than a minute and from a landline.
The landline that called me is from the new site of the hospital I was a patient in as a child. The one where they abused me.
This hospital only treats children. It’s hundreds of miles from where I live. They never had my mobile number when I was a patient there. I was there in the early 90s and we didn’t have mobiles. I’ve never called there. Yet they rang me after midnight to make a silent call.
It put some of the other stuff into a context. I’ve had a takeaway delivered of meat which I hadn’t ordered. I’ve been vegetarian for 30years. The hospital used to force feed me meat despite this.
I’m lucky. People witnessed the delivery. Other people have the evidence of the phone call. I have a lot of professional credibility and people around me have witnessed these things and believe me and look out for me. I’m talking about this because not everyone is so lucky.
Whenever I speak about abuse and intimidation from predators who use healthcare as a cover for people doubt me, think I must be mistaken, or mad, or bitter, or anything other than the reality that a minority of people, including people who work in healthcare, do terrible things.
That’s why I’ve decided to talk about it. Because I have credibility and evidence and people around me have seen it and believe me.
I’m talking because when I was a child and needed someone to believe me no-one did.
Listen to children in institutional care and in hospital.
I’m talking because when I was a child and needed someone to believe me no-one did.
Listen to children in institutional care and in hospital.
It’s easy to label abuse that happened to children in the past in healthcare settings as historic and see it as a thing of the past. I have met so much resistance and failure to acknowledge this dark past by mental health care professions who want to move on.
But the reasons why we are not aware of abuse happening right now are exactly the same as the reasons people weren’t aware of and didn’t stop abuse happening in the 1990s when I was a child in that hospital. Framing it as a historic issue makes it a contemporary one.
I want mental health care professionals who follow me to know that there is no way I could mention this happening to me in a mental health care context now. That’s because I would be labelled as traumatised and seen as an unreliable reporter. It would mean overshadowing and harm.
That’s because in my experience it isn’t safe to speak about trauma in many mental health spaces as a patient. I have tried. It resulted in exclusion, suspicion and blame. It led to failure to identify or meet my healthcare needs as all anyone could see was a trauma history.
Again I’m lucky because I have the support I need from people who care about me. I’m lucky because I have evidence and I’m believed. But not everyone has that.
Before anyone tells me not to scare patients from disclosing trauma. Please can I suggest that your energy is better directed at making it safe for them to do so.
