A 16-year-old girl who once tried to hang herself in her own wardrobe is now kept locked inside a barren wood-lined bedroom at night to stop her from hurting herself and the rest of her family.

Emma, the single mother of a young family living in rural South Australia, says she was left with no choice after her oldest child Stephanie attempted to commit suicide 12 times in two years.

Stephanie, who was sexually abused as a young child, started harming herself in high-school - cutting her arm, leg, stomach, and eventually neck, Today Tonight Adelaide and Perth reported.

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Stephanie, 16, is kept locked inside her own bedroom at night because her mother fears for her safety

The teenager, who was sexually abused as a child, has tried to kill herself 12 times in the last two years

But over the past two years her mental condition worsened, escalating as she began to hurt herself and others and started turning everyday objects into dangerous 'weapons.'

'We have turned her room into what we class as a safe room,' explained Emma.

This is what I call a prison ... because it is. I'm being locked in like I'm in a prison

'The door gets locked every night because we don't feel safe. I don't feel that she's safe if she's not (locked in).'

For Emma, who lives in an isolated town with the nearest psychiatric services over two hours away, the drastic solution is her only option to keep her treasured daughter safe.

'I don't want to do it, i feel horrible for doing it, I feel like I'm not doing my job as a mum, because I shouldn't have to do it,' Emma sobs.

'Am I going to get there (into the bedroom) and she's not going to still be with us?'

'Is this the time i'm going to have to say goodbye?'

After sexual abuse in early childhood, she started cutting herself (pictured) in high-school

Her distraught mother Emma says she worries that she might open up the bedroom to find her dead daughter

Dramatic steps have been taken to transform the girly bedroom (which once had pink curtains and bedsheets)

Softly-spoken Stephanie describes her bedroom as a 'prison.'

'This is what I call a prison ... because it is. I'm being locked in like I'm in a prison,' she tells reporter David Richardson as he steps inside.

Dramatic steps have been taken to transform the girly room, once adorned in pink and purple curtains and littered with soft toys, into a sterile box lined with plywood and stripped of character.

Posters reading: 'Do not enter' and 'mental illness is not a choice but recovery' are stuck up on the wall; the only eerie signs that a teenager actually lives inside the lifeless room.

'I understand why but sometimes it hurts,' says a remarkably self-aware Stephanie.

Emma has dreams of a brighter future for her daughter, but says Stephanie will need incredibly expensive 'daily therapy to get to the bottom of it.'

'This is what I call a prison ... because it is': Stephanie (pictured with reporter) says she 'understands' why her mother has made the drastic decision but 'sometimes it hurts'