Sharyn Collis
Name: Sharyn Collis
Age when entered care: 15
Age now: 64
Hometown: Napier
Time in care: 1973-1974
Type of care facility: Psychiatric hospital – Lake Alice.
Ethnicity: European
Whānau background: Two older sisters and two younger brothers. Sharyn was the only child to go to Lake Alice.
Currently: Sharyn has six children and is now a great-grandmother.
Sharyn Collis
My name is Sharyn. I’m a survivor of Lake Alice and a great grandmother. What I went through at Lake Alice didn’t just affect me – it ran right through my whole family.
I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother. She physically abused me, although she didn’t hit my siblings. The abuse got worse from when I was 12. I was punished for normal teenage things – swearing, smoking and coming home late. Mum used to punish me by hitting me with her hand, mainly her fist, and on occasion with the hearth brush. This was normal to me – I didn’t know any different.
When I was 14, Mum sent me to Napier to live with some friends. I was taken off the street with two other girls by the Mongrel Mob, and we were each gang raped by them. I reported it to the police but nothing happened and they weren’t charged. In fact, they said I was a willing participant.
Back home, I told Mum about the rape but she didn’t believe me. Her attitude was that it didn’t happen and I was lying, or that I deserved it.
After the rape I became disruptive, but that was typical of a rape victim, I guess. I got suspended from school twice, first for swearing and the second time for assault – I punched the headmistress. I accept that this happened, but I don’t actually remember hitting her, because after the rape I used to have blackouts.
My GP sent me for counselling sessions with Dr Leeks for the rape and the fact I wasn’t coping after it. I don’t really know why but I found Dr Leeks a bit freaky – I didn’t really like him or trust him. He gave me the creeps. These were mostly one-sided sessions, with Dr Leeks saying I would end up at Lake Alice if I didn’t behave.
One day a police car arrived at home and I asked Mum what they were doing. She had arranged a police escort to get me to Lake Alice and purposely hadn’t told me. She pulled a suitcase out from under the bed and I flipped out. I was really angry. I remember bolting for the front door but I couldn’t get it open. I blacked out, and when I came to, I was at Lake Alice.
I was at Lake Alice for a few weeks before I got any ‘treatment’. Some nurses came and got me and took me to a room. There was a tray with a needle on it. Dr Leeks told me since I wouldn’t talk in counselling that he had something to make me talk. I started screaming and they had to restrain me. They tied me down with leather straps. The nurses left and Dr Leeks locked the door. He put the needle in and that’s the last I remember.
When I woke up he was standing at the end of the bed, my top was pulled up over my breasts and my jeans and pants were down to the top of my thighs. Dr Leeks was the only one in the room. My arm was still strapped down and one of my legs was strapped down. I started swearing at him, “What the fuck are you doing?” I don’t know if he intentionally wanted me to know what he was doing or whether it was a mistake in dosage that made me wake up. The needle was still in my arm, and he pushed the needle and I went back to sleep.
When I finally came to, I was alone in the room. I was sore and sticky between my legs. This time my clothes were back on. I knew what he had done – he had raped me. I felt like I was drunk, ready to pass out. I felt confused, angry, humiliated and embarrassed.
The same day I wrote a letter to a friend and told her what Dr Leeks had done. My writing was all over the place, like a drunk person, but you could understand it. She showed me the letter when I got out. I told the staff nurse what Dr Leeks had done, and she told me to stop lying – he was a doctor. The sexual abuse continued, and I kept complaining about him but eventually I gave up – there was no point. I learned to shut up and not say anything in order to survive.
I had modified and unmodified ‘ECT’ – electric shocks – at Lake Alice, and I was given the contraceptive pill daily even though I wasn’t sexually active by choice. We were forced to take it and our mouths were checked to make sure we had swallowed it.
The fact that nobody believed me – about Dr Leeks or about the gang rape – made me feel like I was dead. No-one seemed to want us. We were put there and no-one would listen to us. If I wasn’t crazy before I went there, I felt like I was when I came out. My behaviour afterwards was a lot worse – drink and drug problems, suicide attempts. These problems don’t go away. I can’t get Dr Leeks’ face out of my nightmares.
I had six children, three miscarriages and one abortion. I wasn’t a good mother to my children – I was distant and unaware of how to raise them. I think I had kids to compensate for what happened to me at Lake Alice. I do have the biggest heart, and I don’t think I would have treated my kids the way I did if I had never gone to Lake Alice – it completely destroyed my family and affected my relationship with my children.
I’m a great grandmother now. I love my grandkids and I think they love me too, but it’s been a hard road. They are a really positive part of my life and I am so grateful to have them.
My childhood was difficult and miserable – it certainly wasn’t carefree. I was born a baby but immediately became an adult. My mother had major memory problems, was nearly always ‘out to it’ and couldn’t care for us children properly. She was very distant, unemotional and cold, and I was aware of that as far back as I can remember. I’ve blotted out a lot of memories because it was too painful to keep remembering, but the biggest feeling I had was having to take responsibility for my younger siblings – I was always aware there was no-one to support me in my times of need.
Mum was always forgetful, and the prescription drugs she took seemed to make her more vacant. Sometimes that was dangerous – I recall once, a cousin of mine pushed a heater against the couch and it melted. It could have burned the house down, but Mum hadn’t noticed it. When I was 10 years old I had a deeper realisation that Mum was far from alright.
She took us to the shops for ice cream and lollies, and as soon as we got back home she suggested we go to the shop to buy ice cream and lollies. I told her we had just been, but she had no memory of it.
Because of the way my mother was, I didn’t have a childhood like other kids did. I was a good kid – I never got up to mischief, I just spent my time caring for my mother and my younger siblings. I’d make sure they were clothed, washed and fed and had what they needed for school and other activities. I had to protect my siblings from Mum’s forgetfulness, because she was always forgetting important stuff in their lives and was unaware of dangerous situations.
My parents were always separating and getting back together, so we constantly moved around and we didn’t have a consistent home. That meant it was hard to develop friendships and have steady schooling.
Having to parent my younger siblings took a serious toll on my education – I was tired in class and would fall asleep, especially at secondary school. I was often absent, not because I was wagging but because I was looking after my younger siblings. Schools didn’t understand this, though.
I was first sexually abused as a five-year-old and it went on for at least a year. But I couldn’t tell my parents. Eventually, I told my auntie and the police were brought in, but the abuser was never brought to justice – the police said they didn’t have enough evidence. I was abused by some other boys when I was 11.
By the age of 15 I was homeless after Mum and I had an argument and she told me to fuck off. Dad wouldn’t take me in. Being alone in the world and fending for myself at 15 was incredibly traumatic and stressful. I suffer from PTSD, major depression and anxiety. I don’t know how to spell or read or write using proper grammar because I’ve had so little schooling.
I have six children myself. In my own parenting I have tried very hard to parent my children in a way that I wanted to be parented as a child and learn not to repeat the mistakes my mother made. I am proud of my children and what I have achieved with them.
As an adult I have carried extreme hurt and anger that I was not protected from sexual abuse and that no-one protected my family from family violence. And that I didn’t have a childhood. I felt everyone was against me – my parents, the police, ACC – I never had a voice anywhere.
The trauma has been brought about because of having a mother who was struggling her whole childhood, who then allowed awful things to happen to me. I believe she was struggling because of the terrible experiences of drugs, electric shocks and abuse at Lake Alice.
By the late 1970s, the Government knew something terrible had happened at Lake Alice. All children born to a parent who had been in Lake Alice should have been followed up on and support given. I was a child bringing up children because my mother could not properly parent. All the trauma my mother went through got transmitted to me in ways that made my childhood hell.
Many years ago Mum apologised to me for not being a proper mum and not protecting me from the sexual abuse. Our relationship now is the best it has ever been. She’s moved back in with me and we’re getting on very well, and she supports me in caring for my kids.
After I left home, Mum sent me a letter to apologise. It said, “I will come back into your lives but it will be a long, long time away. When I find myself and heal inside and when I am a strong person I might be able to repair the damage I have caused you kids”. Slowly, we are healing.