Some rough memories dredged up by this.
Yes, I am a Lake survivor, too.
‘The following has been written (and copy righted) by Annie Helm, a Lake Alice survivor, a MH advocate and activist and a friend. Creative expression is one way survivors of psychiatric harm share their stories and is an important part of our recovery kaupapa. This is shared with permission.
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Written upon hearing of the death of Dr Selwyn Leeks
Dr Selwyn Leeks !!
You have finally given up this life!
never having found the courage
to face the victims of your farce
of experimental psychiatry.
The howls of pain
still haunt the land
of the infamous
adolescent unit.
The rape of innocence
condoned on the contained,
with wiring of electrodes
that shocked the genitalia
of the young
into submission.
Alongside tortuous inescapable
sodomy and rape
and the trading
of sexual favours
of the units hierarchies
for smokes.
Worst yet was the threat
of being taken to the block
The hideous block!
down in the gully,
where murderers
and the criminally insane
were kept behind
the high wire fence.
Really really bad children
were fed into the block
to fend for themselves
amidst insanity.
Come on …
Did this REALLY HAPPEN ?
YES IT DID.
I know I was in
Lake Alice
Just after the unit
was closed down
and Pugmire
was the Medical Superintendent.
Children from the unit
were in Villa 6
or
Villa “Sex”
as the unit manager
called it.
The place
where I went through
a crucible of a rebirth
burnt in
isolation and cruelty
to glean some understanding
of brutality and indifference
and experience occasional
little drops of mercy.
The fire in my belly
was born there
and remains
to this day.
The seclusion cell
a holy place
of touching sacred fire.
Now after all these years
with the Gallen report (2001)
The Confidential Forum (2007)
The Listening and Assistance Forum (2015)
And now the Royal Commission
Into Abuse in State Care
And finally the honest admittance
of bungled processes
all along the way
The biggest bastard
designer of LAs
atrocities
Is dead.
I find it hard to say
as Rumi has
“Out beyond ideas of
wrongdoing
and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there. “
The Royal Australian and New Zealand
College of Psychiatrists
(RANZCP)
gave Leeks a job
when he moved to Australia
and successfully hid him away
from litigious processes.
This is a day of great Shame
upon that college.
I have written about the complexity
of apology discourse
Apology without restitution
are easy words from a politician’s lips.
The Crown has been masterly
in avoiding meaningful
compensation in the past.
I have a friend who says
“No one wants to remember
the holocaust.”
Lake Alice deserves
its own designed place
where a national monument
could be designed
and offer a place of
tranquillity and reflection
for both the staff effected
and the inmates subjected
to much barbarism
could say
This! This! Happened
in Aotearoa !!
and we dedicate this place
to those in unmarked graves
and the children and others whose lives
were irrevocably damaged,
and pledge
that it will
always be part of
our collective consciousness.
So today the 26th of January 2022
Dr Selwyn Leeks is dead.
A fickle irony that his own brain
was too neurological fucked
with dementia to stand trial.
He certainly wasn’t at the time
of the bungled Gallen Inquiry.
Now that he’s dead
will the ledger be squared?
Hundreds of eyes look
upon his soul.
“Will mercy season
justice ?”
Guilty as Charged !
We will not hear
in any court of Law
in the land.
Then again
The Real Reckoning
is not ours to know.
©Anne Helm 26/01/2022.
‘Written with much respect to all my fellow survivors of Lake Alice, those who did not make old bones at all, those who committed suicide, and others who have similar stories who wear the survivor scars like tattoos upon their skin, and intergenerationally have struggled with their demons for years. And for all survivors of institutional abuse in, out of sight out of mind psychopaedic hospitals and mental institutions throughout our land. Persist with courage, and with kindness.
Persist, Persist Persist for in doing so we have triumphed!’
Thank you, Annie.
dykiegirl 