Norma's Story

Ex-resident of a Licensed Boarding House in the Marrickville Area, Norma was born in Crown Street Hospital. Her and her six brothers grew up in Hurlstone Park and Earlwood. Norma can remember as far back as when she was a little baby lying on the back seat of her parent’s car and her brother putting his head through the window and saying hello to her.

When Norma was around 4 or 5 years old her father and mother separated. Norma visited her father regularly but lived with her mother until she was 18 years old. Norma loved school, particularly her primary years, where she particularly enjoyed art and craft lessons. She attended high school until she was 15 years and then went out to work. She had a variety of positions over the following three years, including working in delicatessens, offices, factories and bakeries.

Norma was around 18 years old, she was admitted to Parramatta Psychiatric Hospital. She was to stay there for 27 years.

“I was staying at my father’s house, and I was out in the back yard and then I collapsed. I didn’t know what happened, but when I woke up I was in Parramatta Psychiatric Hospital…I didn’t like it there. I was given ECT twenty seven times in one year, they said they couldn’t give me anymore. I wanted to go home for good and I just stayed in that hospital for no reason”.

Norma feels quite unresolved about the circumstances of her being at the hospital. Even though she tried writing to her parents to find out what happened, no one has ever explained to her the reason she was admitted and why she spent so long in the hospital. She rarely had visitors while she was in hospital and it was only in her early 30s that she managed to locate her mother and write to her asking her to visit, Norma’s memory of hospital life was that it was a lot of work and very traumatic. “It was no good. I had to work in the pantry and the laundry doing everyone’s dirty washing. I worked all the time and it wasn’t easy. It was terrible. I hated the buildings, they were all dormitories”.

In her forties and after spending twenty seven years in the hospital, Norma was discharged. She was first sent to a boarding house in Summer Hill and from there, moved around to several different boarding houses in the inner west, including one in Stanmore and Livingstone Road, Petersham.

Moving to the boarding house in Summer Hill was not much better for Norma than being in hospital. The conditions in the house were inadequate and the manager physically abused her on several of occasions.

Conditions in the nursing home where Norma is now are much better. It is the first time in her life that she has had a room of her own.

“The manager here is nice to me, he doesn’t pick on me at all”. While Norma was living in licensed boarding houses in the Marrickville area she had regular contact with staff at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre and was involved in many of their activities.

She received vouchers for the Petersham RSL and enjoyed her visits there to have a meal and a coffee. She also has fond memories of her regular shopping expeditions with staff. A particularly special outing for Norma was the visit to the beauty salon for a manicure and a chin wax. It was the first time in her life that she had ever a beauty treatment. The Newtown Neighbourhood Centre staff also took her and others on holidays to Woy Woy, on the Central Coast. Norma had never been on a holiday before. They went to the beach, to the movies and spent time relaxing and eating.

Norma was never married. There was a friend of her brother that wanted to marry her, but this never eventuated. Norma would have liked to have had a family of her own and adopt children, but her situation prevented this. While in Parramatta Psychiatric hospital, Norma remembers the nurses saying to her that she “didn’t have enough brains to have a baby” Norma was glad to leave the boarding house in Livingstone St, Petersham in mid 2002 and moved to her new home in a nursing home in Leichhardt. She is still in the process of settling in and making new friends.