Page 1927 - Week 07 - Thursday, 13 August 2020
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I would also like to bring to people’s attention recommendation 46. It calls for the ACT government to investigate a simple drug offence notice for young drug users, similar to the SCON that exists for cannabis. This is a good idea and I am very happy that the committee has recommended it. We heard too many stories of young people suffering from the co-occurring experience of drug abuse and mental health problems. These people need medical help, not a journey through the criminal justice system. Decriminalisation for young drug users will help these people seek medical help. Further, it will help the families of the young people, as far too often the family are too scared to call for help in moments of crisis, because they know their child has used illicit substances and they do not want to be responsible for sending them through the criminal justice system.
Finally, wrapping it all up, we heard harrowing stories of young people waiting too long for access to all mental health services. We need more mental health professionals and we need them now. It should not take two years to see a psychologist—not here, not anywhere.
MRS KIKKERT (Ginninderra) (10.50): I rise today to thank everyone who contributed to the youth mental health inquiry—first of all our remarkable secretary, Sarah McFadden, who worked tirelessly in preparing and finalising this report for today. I would like to thank my colleagues, Mr Michael Pettersson and Ms Elizabeth Lee. Finally, I want to thank everyone who made a submission and appeared in our inquiry. Their input has been extremely valuable.
While hearing some of the stories of the witnesses who appeared in our inquiry, I could relate so much to what they had experienced. As a young girl suffering from so much violence, I plunged into a deep depression into my teenage years and well into my 20s. The depression crippled me from smiling, from lifting my head up. I walked around with my head held down, ashamed, fearful, humiliated and lonely. My life was so unbearable that I did not think I would reach the age of 25. There was no need to go on. I suffered in silence for days, for weeks, for years—so many silenced, long years.
When I became a young mother at 20 years old, I fell into postnatal depression. It was difficult to care for myself, let alone another little human being. The shame, fear and loneliness continued. What I wish I had known as a youth is that everybody gets sad at some point in their life. The happiness you see in others is not permanently on their faces or in their hearts. They too face sadness in life. Therefore it must be okay to feel sadness too. As a primary student and as a teenager I thought that being sad and depressed was a sign of weakness. When I saw kids at school happy, cheerful and playful, I thought there was something wrong with me because I could not feel the way they felt.
I tell my younger self and everyone else that it is not shameful to be depressed. It is not shameful that you are going through a hard time and that you do not know how you are feeling. It is not shameful to be sad. It is not shameful to show others what your heart is feeling. It is not shameful to feel that you are the only one going through this dark period because everyone else seems so happy. The truth is that millions of
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