"It was the most inhumane system of care that you could possibly imagine," she said. "I’m still angry." On its second day of hearings, the Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System heard evidence from people with lived experience, and from academics, on the stigma associated with mental illnesses. Ms Meagher, 72, whose most persistent diagnosis has been paranoid schizophrenia, is now a mental health consumer advocate who speaks for those who cannot do so themselves. She rejects the notion of "stigma", saying people with mental illness instead suffer discrimination. "If you turned up with chest pains – let's hope we don't – to a hospital today, they will at least do some exploratory tests and some investigations," she said.

"I can bet your socks that if all of us turned up at the nearest emergency department, saying, 'My thought processes are not able to be contained right now and I know, if I leave this much longer, I'm going to go into a full psychotic episode,' I know what's going to happen to me. 'Go home and have a cup of tea, you'll be alright.' Well, guess what? We're not, and that's what happens. "We are frequently, more often than not, rejected for service because we are not sick enough for service. How dare they." Ms Meagher said too many facilities relied on medicating inpatients, rather than treating the "whole person". Addressing the commissioners, she said: "I’m begging you not for another report; I beg you for a change that’s going to move people from behaviour modification to having a life." Teresa, a 37-year-old senior manager and mother of a young son, told the commissioners she had begun hurting herself and considering suicide when she was 12 years old.

Teresa told the royal commission her "voice just wasn’t heard" in the mental healthcare system. Credit:Simon Schluter Prescribed with antidepressants when she was 15, two days later she swallowed the entire packet and was taken to hospital. There, she said, she was treated as a problem rather than a young person in crisis. Staff told her she had been "silly", and strangers asked her to describe why she had tried to end her life, while she was sitting on a hospital bed separated from other inpatients by nothing more than a fabric curtain. "You’re not treated as a human, as a person. You're treated as a someone whose behaviour has to be managed; has to be controlled," she said.

Loading "My voice just wasn’t heard." Last year, Teresa – who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder – became terrified she was going to harm herself or her infant son. She sought help from her GP and was referred to the crisis assessment team. This time, when she was admitted to hospital, she felt heard and supported. For years, Teresa had tried to hide her condition from her colleagues, family and friends. When she became sick as a young mother she let people think she had postnatal depression – a more relatable condition than borderline personality disorder. But now, she said, she was ready to share her story.

Asked what she would say to others going through similar experiences, Teresa had a simple message: "You matter, and your voice matters." The royal commission continues hearings this week. If you or someone you know needs help, contact Lifeline on 131114 or beyondblue on 1300 224 636.