Following decades of hospitalisations for up to a year at a time, and unsuccessful stints in and out of group homes, doctors told Mrs Vueness that her daughter required the care from a mental health facility, far too distant for her to regularly visit.
‘I told them they might as well shoot me. It was the worst thing they could do to me,' she said recently over the phone, from her home south of Sydney.
That was in mid-2017 and determined to stop her daughter from living in a mental health facility on a fulltime basis, Mrs Vueness requested that part of Poppy’s income to help pay for someone to check in on her daily, to ensure medicine was taken so her condition remained stable.
‘My biggest fear is that she would walk out and be on the streets, and never come back.
'I would have done the medicines myself, but they wouldn't let me,' Mrs Vueness says.
Fast forward to 2021 and Poppy is happily ensconced in her own apartment, just 10 minutes from her mother, and there’s been only one hospital stay in the past four years. And that was for a physical, rather than mental, health condition.
Now the National Disability Insurance Scheme covers the cost of monitoring Poppy taking up to 12 tablets every night. Her rent is subsidised by the regional housing trust, leaving some funds free for a little bit of discretionary spending.
Poppy decides how to spend the small allowance in her bank passbook, and with the help of her client service officer Lucy Holt, essential items are saved for.
Clothes shopping is a favourite pastime.
‘I like a coffee and lunch out too, like other people. Yes, sometimes I dress up, sometimes I go casual,’ says Poppy from her apartment, via her phone.
Keeping things in clean and in order around the home is also a priority. The assistance she has to do this, Poppy says, makes it 'better and calmer than a messy place.'
Poppy became an Estate Management customer in 2006 and Lucy and her team has managed her finances since 2017.
‘Poppy calls quite often; she is always lovely to talk to.