Helena Hutchison
Helena lives on the Kapiti coast with her partner and four children (aged 11 to 27). Her partner has a five-year-old who also spends some time with them.
Helena experienced several episodes of major depression in her 20s for which she was hospitalised. Around 15 years ago she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Helena also experiences cerebral palsy.
Over the years Helena has experienced what she describes as discrimination from staff working at Child Youth and Family (CYF).
When her youngest daughter was born, Helena experienced a period of depression and suicidal feelings. Seeking treatment for this led to the removal of her three month old baby and two elder daughters by CYF.
Helena was hospitalised and not allowed to see her baby. Her request for a breastpump was refused. Particularly distressing was that her exclusively breastfed baby, refused a bottle and was subsequently force-fed by the foster parents.
Her baby was returned to her six weeks later only after she agreed to move into supported accommodation, but her two elder daughters did not return to her fulltime care for two years. Over the following years her children were repeatedly removed from her care.
“If I had cancer would they have taken my children away from me?” Helena asks, “Services should have been looking at how they can support our family to stay together not pull us apart”.
Years spent in supported accommodation
Helena then spent two to three years in supported accommodation with her children, however this service struggled to provide enough support to clients with families so when the service closed she received little support to find new housing.
This meant Helena ended up in accommodation which was in poor condition and over priced exacerbating her family’s hardship.
A few years later she moved into a house that was part of a housing scheme for people who used mental health services. The house they moved to already had a reputation of being the ‘house of crazies’.
Helena’s children were teased at school during the years they lived there. Last year this service was also closed and once again they had to move on.
“Services don’t understand the cyclic nature of recovery”, says Helena, “I felt people were scrutinising everything I did and pathologising it.
"Maybe there were some times where I did need help and was struggling as a parent but these were temporary. They didn’t want to know about recovery. They acted as if having a mental illness was some kind of moral failing or character flaw. Either you were good or bad”.
Important to be open about mental illness
Helena believes it is important to be open about mental illness, “but it’s not very safe. I think a lot of women don’t go and get help because they’re scared that their kids will get taken away.”
“People discriminate because of fear”, Helena says, “as a society we don’t deal with emotions and distress very well. Mental illness is seen as being emotional rather than an illness”.
Helena thinks things are now changing for the better and at least discrimination is becoming less overt, however policies and practices discriminate. Helena had mental health issues and issues of childhood abuse and she felt shunted between services. Mental health services referred her to ACC but then ACC would refer her back to mental health.
“I think as a woman with children and with mental health issues, you are very vulnerable”, says Helena, “most services are geared towards single people. If you need respite, you are not allowed to take your children with you”.
Stay connected and persevere when supporting someone
For people who want to help support someone experiencing some form of mental illness, Helena says, “Stay connected. Persevere. Check in even if it’s just a phone call, a letter or an email. Isolation can be the worst thing about mental illness”.
Helena recommends treating a person experiencing mental health issues as you would like to be treated. Also she says to remember that practical help for someone who is having a bad week can really make the difference.
“Treat each person as an individual and if you’re not sure what to do, ask them”.
In her own recovery, Helena finds being kind to herself and surrounding herself with good people is what keeps her well.
“Having faith in myself that I can get through really bad things and come out the other side is important”, Helena says.
“Reality checking – challenging other people’s perceptions of me, reading lots, getting to know other people who have had similar experiences, using whatever – maybe trying a thousand things to find my own top ten”.
(first published in Issue 37, June 2009, Like Minds Like Mine newsletter)
