Abuse affected survivors’ behaviour, mental health, physical health, personal relationships, education, employment and finances. It showed up in aggression, anger, alcohol and drug use, suicidal thoughts and attempts, poor education, poor job prospects, little financial security, more physical injuries and criminal behaviour.

The vast majority said the abuse had harmed their behaviour and mental health. Many said it had affected their relationships, education and financial situation, and also led them to become perpetrators of abuse themselves. Most said they continued to feel the consequences of their abuse.

Survivors’ behaviour and mental health

Forty-four survivors said the abuse had affected their behaviour and mental health, and for most in very serious ways. These included post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder. Many, having not sought or been offered formal mental health help, described mental and emotional distress, rather than any specific diagnosis.

Survivors described their struggle to function normally in everyday life. Many had a range of mental health difficulties arising from their abuse:

“I can’t go out and about really. I suffer chronic depression and chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue comes both from the brain injury and the PTSD. It’s just there and it doesn’t go away … I have lots of anxiety about lots of things.”

RHONDA, EUROPEAN, 63

PTSD, anxiety and depression

PTSD was common, and some survivors, suffering daily flashbacks, were spared little relief from it. Feelings of anxiety, anger, agitation or general distress often accompanied the flashbacks. Daily life was hard.

Others described how a particular sight or sound triggered the trauma of their abuse. For a few, it was hearing or reading about abuse of children in the news. This brought back memories of their own experiences, as well as feelings of empathy and sadness for the children mentioned in  the news:

“There’s not a day goes by, I can’t pick a paper, I can’t pick a newspaper up anywhere or watch TV, somewhere down the line there’s a sexual abuse somewhere, someone getting pulled up for sexual abuse. That just comes straight back. My thought just goes straight back, there it is.”

NICHOLAS, EUROPEAN, 60

“Lots of things happened and I wanted to block [them]. I’ve been blocking them for years, not wanting to  deal with them, not wanting to know, you know, but it resurfaces every time I hear things with CYFS or children being abused. It hurts because I know what that little kid feels like and what confusion they’re going through.”

JOHN, MĀORI-EUROPEAN, 52

A few survivors talked about fears their own children would be taken away from them.

Depression, self-harm and suicide

Depression was common. Some survivors did not use the word depression, but they described its elements – low general mood, poor sense of self, little interest in day-to-day activities, a sense of hopelessness and difficulties sleeping.

Some survivors had attempted suicide or had suicidal thoughts. A few expressed a sense of being ready to die. Some experienced self-loathing and wanted an end to these feelings. Others wanted an end to the trauma they felt. It was not uncommon for survivors to describe repeated suicide attempts throughout their life, including during the period in the lives when they were being abused:

“I remember at night, just hiding in the closet, sitting on top of my drawers trying to get a belt or something and try and strangle myself ’cos I was just so bad. No one knew. I just didn’t want to be there and didn’t want to be alive any more.”

STEPHANIE, EUROPEAN, 32g

One woman who suffered physical and psychological abuse in a psychiatric institution described how she felt she had brought shame and disappointment on her family:

“I couldn’t see any point in living like this and I felt like I was disappointing my parents … just shaming the family and ending up in psychiatric hospital. In fact, one time, Dad went almost white overnight. He’d heard that I’d ended up in life support, or something. I’d tried to kill myself.”

ANNE, EUROPEAN, 66

Some survivors harmed themselves, often by cutting themselves. A few said self- harming behaviour helped relieve the stress caused by the abuse and expressed their hate for themselves and their hatred for existence.

Sleeping difficulties

Survivors described the lifelong impact of abuse on their sleep. When they were younger, it showed itself in frequent bed- wetting and difficulty sleeping. Later in life, there were also regular dreams and nightmares to contend with:

“It doesn’t stop, it goes on and on and on. Yeah, nightmares. Because, you know, people dream of different things, but in reality if the things are real, you see, that’s where all the upset comes from … I remember the first time banging my head on concrete, on the walls.”

MARK, EUROPEAN, 71

Other survivors suffered from insomnia, making it hard to function properly in daily life. A few survivors said they used drugs to help them.

Anger and violence

Anger was a very frequent emotion for survivors. It arose when they thought about their abuse and their abusers, who were themselves sometimes angry individuals. Some also felt anger towards “the system” for the way it had treated them:

“The system wasn’t designed to do what it did, but it did turn out that way … it made all those kids grow up to be mean kids and wild kids and anti- authority kids … so if they’d done it right and probably put them into a school to educate them, not punish. You just chucked me in here to punish me, mate. Yeah, you haven’t taught me anything, you taught – I hate your guts.”

SHANNON, MĀORI, 59

Some survivors described their anger as a survival mechanism. One put it this way:

“If you didn’t toughen up, you may as well go and kill yourself, so I toughened up.”

NICHOLAS, EUROPEAN, 60

Some perceived anger as an emotional accumulation from abuse and said expressing anger was a way to release this stockpiled energy. They found flashbacks and any rekindled memories of their abuse very difficult to deal with. Expressions of anger were a coping mechanism.

A few survivors said their anger was often disproportionate to the triggering event. They were aware of their overreaction, but their anger was often difficult to control or felt beyond their power to control, and it sometimes reached levels that led them to act violently towards others:

“The other prisoners that I’ve done it to, it was only a little minor argument, just arguing or something … when I did it, I wasn’t thinking of what they did or what they said, I was thinking of what happened. I just let it out. I took my anger out on that person at the time and everyone here who were my friends.”

IOSEFA, PACIFIC, 31

Some described their concern at how angry they would get. Several who had been involved in violent criminal activity worried about where their anger might one day lead them:

“I’m scared that one day, if I don’t deal with this issue, someone’s gonna end up dead because of it. I’m not gonna mean to do it, I’m gonna snap, because when I get angry, I go into a stage where I don’t realise what I’m doing until after it’s happened.”

CRAIG, MĀORI-PACIFIC, 43

One survivor said he was aware of his anger problem and avoided large social gatherings in case he overreacted to something someone said.

Substance abuse

Most survivors said they used alcohol and/or drugs, including prescription medications, as a way to cope with the memories of their abuse or hide from themselves. For some, taking alcohol and drugs gave them a sense of ease and made it easier to interact with people. Some began at a young age because they took alcohol and drugs to block out the abuse as it was happening. Sometimes their perpetrators introduced them to alcohol and drugs to make it easier to abuse them:

“I’ve led myself all into drug habits because it was my way of escaping from it.”

CRAIG, MĀORI-PACIFIC, 43

Alcohol and drugs offered survivors only limited relief. For many, it led to anti-social behaviour, including criminal activity, physical injuries and/or more mental health problems. Survivors often mentioned drug use and anger in the same breath.

Interactions with people

Some survivors found it difficult to socialise with people and interact with society generally because of low self-worth, concerns about other people’s perceptions of them, and concerns about their own self- control.

One survivor described his worry about people judging him because of his past. Another, who was completing a prison term, expressed similar concerns. He said he was worried about people judging him for having been in prison. He acknowledged that telling people about his abuse would help explain his actions, but he was too scared to reveal this fact to anyone. A few said they tended to lead isolated lives or push people away so no one would learn about their past. As one survivor explained:

“I’ll tell you what, there is, I think that the stay in the boys’ home, how do I say it? Definitely affects your ability to make close friendships for some.”

SHANNON, MĀORI, 59

Others described how their abuse and their route through the care system had made it difficult for them to function in society, and how, in several cases, this had led to their associating with gangs or becoming gang members. One described how being uprooted from family members and friends and placed in a boys’ home made it difficult for him to reintegrate with society afterwards. He suggested the care system fostered gang connections or a gang culture, or at least a disconnection from society. Some of those in gangs said they felt they had things in common with gang members because of their shared experience, and that they also felt protected by becoming a gang member:

" ‘Oh, hey, there’s my bro’  from jail, you know, he got no family either, so we’re mates.’ I thought that the government at the time, they actually turned you into a gang member … the day they put you in there when you’re a young kid, you meet other young kids in the same sort of situation and you grew up to – you went to jail and then you became a gang member. Because by the time you went out of there, society … [it] don’t acknowledge you as a good person, I suppose.”

SHANNON, MĀORI, 59

Cultural disconnection and self-identify

Māori and Pacific survivors commonly talked about a loss of connection to their cultural identity that, for some, manifested in uncertainty about their self-identity, that is, how they perceived themselves in society. The section on the nature of abuse has already shown how Māori and Pacific survivors were more likely to become disconnected from their cultural identity and/or suffer abuse because of their ethnicity.

One survivor, a Māori woman, talked about how she was told while in State care that information about her name and birth parents was incorrect. She said she lost her connection with her birth parents and ancestry, which was important to her whakapapa and identity, as a result of being in care. She said she found it hard to know the truth about who she really was. Yet another described how he lost all sense of who he was, so profound was the impact of the abuse:

“I have never been myself ever since and … never will, thanks to those years.”

MARK, EUROPEAN, 71

One survivor said the abuse inflicted on him in a faith-based institution caused him to lose his faith:

“They robbed me of my faith, the Catholic Church. They really did … That’s what I believe in. I honestly hope and pray that there’s some spiritual thing after we die.”

TIMOTHY, EUROPEAN, 65

Personal relationships

About half of survivors said their personal relationships suffered as a result of their abuse. It soured relationships with their family of origin and their own family. It made it difficult for them to be trusting and intimate with their spouse and others, and it affected their ability to build relationships in general. As one survivor noted:

“Overall, they probably robbed me of my childhood and robbed me of any form of education, of being able to socialise. I mean, even when I first found a girlfriend, I was absolutely terrified.”

BRIAN, EUROPEAN, 68

Some found raising children complicated by their determination to ensure there was no repetition of what they had experienced. Others, however, were unable to prevent the cycle of abuse repeating itself. They had failed to control their anger around their children and had shown little affection or love towards them. A few survivors said their children had themselves been put in care:

“Three of my children have been in State care as well. I had to work very hard to get them back, just to give you a bit of a picture as well. They’re the next generation and they could probably be here in a year’s time, to tell their story because they’ve also been mistreated.”

ALICIA, MĀORI, 37

Some said they had found it difficult to show love and affection to their children because of the way they had been raised in care:

“No hugs, nothing. And I think I’ve passed that on to my kids.”

SHANNON, MĀORI, 59

Survivors struggled generally to build healthy relationships with family members. For many, their placement in care had broken a connection that they struggled to mend. The influence of alcohol and drugs damaged these relationships, as did survivors’ powerful feelings of anger. For some, their feelings of hurt, anger and shame prevented them from being able to interact in a healthy way with others and build strong relationships. One survivor, whose siblings were all placed in different homes, said he pushed people away afterwards:

“I would blame everyone because I believed everyone could see what a dirty, ugly person I was. I did not want people to know my secret, so I started pushing people and family away.  Because of what happened, I became self-destructive and started isolating myself from others, which led me to doing crime and harder drugs, as well as being a very angry person towards everyone and anyone.”

CRAIG, MĀORI-PACIFIC, 43

Survivors talked a lot about how hard they found it to trust people and let them get close after the individuals who were meant to care for them betrayed their trust. Some said they were suspicious of people and what they might want from them. This had affected their ability to hold down jobs, maintain long-term relationships, including with spouses, and generally interact with people socially.

Sexual behaviour

A few survivors talked about the effects of sexual abuse on their sexual behaviour, including more generally their ability to trust and sustain a relationship with a partner. For one, it led to prostitution:

“I myself have been a prostitute in [place] because … sex was nothing to me, nothing at all. It did not mean anything and I could do that with my eyes closed and, um, I felt like I was winning because I was getting money off these strange men where – where that man – that man used to take that off me and I got nothing.”

SANDRA, MĀORI, 45

Another survivor said he couldn’t take part in certain sexual activities with his partner because of the way he had been abused. Yet another said the abuse had made him determined not to perpetuate the cycle of sexual abuse.

Education, work and finances

Some survivors said they were deprived of an education while in care and they now felt ill-equipped for life. In some institutions, they were not offered education. Instead, survivors were made to do jobs and help with the running of the place. For those given the chance to attend lessons, their schooling education was a challenge amidst the turmoil of their abuse:

“I had trouble with numeracy and literacy. Like I said, why would I want to learn, you know, I was trying to survive.”

JOHN, MĀORI-EUROPEAN, 52

Survivors said they struggled to get and hold on to jobs, even unskilled, poorly paying jobs, because the abuse had so profoundly affected them. Some survivors also talked about the financial consequences of being out of work, in low-paying work, or in prison. One survivor talked about how his education and career would have taken an entirely different trajectory but for the abuse. Others made similar points, talking about how mental health and behavioural problems and alcohol and drug abuse had harmed their educational and employment opportunities. As one survivor reflected:

“I often wondered how life would have been, would have turned out, if I hadn’t have grown up in a dysfunctional family with drugs, gangs, violence, crime, poverty, sexual abuse and ill-treatment in the State care and in my own family and then go on to relive that same childhood. Who knows? Maybe I would have had a better chance at life, wasted time and years in the system. I could have been somewhere else, somewhere better, somewhere different ... Life’s changed and ruined, never to be the same again.”

JULIA, MĀORI, 28

Involvement in crime

Some survivors said they had been in prison, often more than once. Some felt their abuse had set them on a course for prison. They said their anger had manifested in the physical abuse of others, including, in some instances, their partners. Some had had their children taken from them because of their criminal history or behaviour. Survivors involved in gangs got caught up in criminal activity, which often involved violence, including fights with other gangs:

“It got pretty dicey in the two years, there was fights with other gangs here in [place], biker gangs and, um, oh, you know, we would run you over if you got in our way – we’d take you out.”

SHANNON, MĀORI, 59

One survivor said he was involved in kidnapping and raping young girls. He had grown up in a gang culture and had seen women tied up and raped at parties. He said his abuse contributed to his criminal behaviour. Several other survivors intimated they had abused others but gave no details. One survivor spoke about the ultimate cost of his criminal activities:

“My criminal convictions – they cost me a future, they cost me … I couldn’t apply for any decent jobs, like government jobs and things like that. I couldn’t even go into the army, they wouldn’t even accept me … because I had too many assault charges.”

NICHOLAS, EUROPEAN, 60

Physical health

Many survivors said abuse had taken a toll on their health. For some it was short-term, for others, long-term, including chronic medical conditions. Survivors reported incontinence, migraines, cardiovascular problems, diabetes, malnourishment, sexually transmitted diseases, chronic pain, impaired brain functioning and memory loss:

“My memory’s so shocking, but the other thing is I – now – I get chronic headaches and definitely this is a side-effect of the ECT. I mean, I never got – I’ve been through the pains clinic and all of that, for those, but it’s definitely, was dreadful. I get chronic headaches that might last nine days, eight or nine days.”

ANNE, EUROPEAN, 66

Many suffered direct physical injuries from their abuse, including wounds, bruises, head injuries and internal injuries from sexual abuse:

“I had so much migraines. They found me with pressure on my brain and when I went for the x-ray, I remember the doctors came back and going, ‘Have you been involved in a car accident?’ I go, ‘No’. He said, ‘Your brain looks like you’ve been in a car accident’. [crying] I’m going, ‘It’s okay, it’s just all the violence I had to suffer growing up’.”

IHAIA, MĀORI-PACIFIC, 49

Some survivors, usually those who had been in psychiatric institutions, talked about the physical symptoms that persisted after being on medications while in care to “manage” their behaviour. One spoke of being highly medicated and as a result was unable to function physically for months.