The 52-year-old describes herself as a mother first, an academic who taught at university and the last person her friends would have picked to fall apart.

“I was a fully functional person who happened to be knocked over by mental illness,” she said ahead of a visit to the North East to discuss issues raised in her second book, Girl Over the Edge.

Her moving memoir explores a five-year journey that includes six lengthy hospital stays, multiple trips to the emergency department, interactions with health professionals and, eventually, the ability to overcome the denial, shame and stigma she feels about her mental illness.

"I think hearing people's lived experiences with mental health is a good thing,” Hodges says.

“I'm just telling them how it is and readers of the book have told me they have learnt so much from it.

"If you break your leg, then people see the cast and ask how you are going, and sign the cast.

“No one asks how's your broken mind?”

On Friday Hodges spoke at Wodonga Library and will be at Wangaratta Library from 10.30am today.

She will broaden the discussion to resilience and emotional wellbeing when she addresses Wodonga Middle Years College year 9 students on Monday.

Through her latest book, Hodges says her aim is always to get the reader to re-evaluate their values and beliefs about mental illness.

Hodges became unwell at 45 after a traumatic event she experienced in her teens re-surfaced as post-traumatic stress disorder.

 It “bubbled over” into depression; she started behaving erratically, wasn’t sleeping, felt physically sick and just generally “out of whack”.

She resisted an initial diagnosis, which saw her spiral into a worse state (later she was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder).

The family disruption to her three sons and then husband was devastating.

She credits “hitting the jackpot” of health professionals with saving her life.

“There are so many people I meet on my talks who say they can’t find good psychiatric services,” Hodges says.

“And I know people are more vulnerable in areas where they don't have access to services, where there are longer wait times and the stigma is greater.”

She describes the public versus private mental health systems as like apples and oranges.

“You have different clientele,” Hodges explains.

“In the public system, the aim is to get you on your feet and back out the door.

“Many of these patients are seriously unwell and may be even too sick to go into a private facility.”

During several chapters of Girl Over the Edge, Hodges takes the reader with her during a stay on a public ward.

“You will see how unwell I am, my interactions with health professionals and my experience of other patients,” Hodges says.

“There are plenty of colourful characters in a mental health ward.”

Timely intervention is crucial to stop the further slide into unwellness, according to Hodges.

“The first step is to go GP shopping – find someone with their head around mental illness who will help you get the right help,” she says.

“You don’t want a doctor who just hands out medication.

“Treating mental illness is multi-layered: it needs a correct diagnosis; medication to fix the part of your brain that’s not working; you need to address environmental issues like financial pressures or domestic violence; and you need psychological support.” 

Hodges admits mental illness “crippled my life” but she now has strategies in place to manage it.

“It won’t go away,” she says frankly.

“I tolerate my illness – I don’t really accept it.”

A new service that puts specialist mental health help at the fingertips of rural and remote Australians has been launched this month.

Telepsychiatry service Call to Mind aims to make quality care accessible in regions where there are significantly higher rates of mental health issues and a shortage of professionals to alleviate the country’s growing crisis.

The recent Senate inquiry into the accessibility and quality of mental health care in rural and remote areas has highlighted the critical need for innovative solutions to tackle the higher rate of suicide in these regions.

And in a 2018 statement, the Australian Medical Association pointed to the pivotal role e-health and telemedicine could play in addressing the lack of support and funding for mental health care.

Psychiatrist Ben Chia and (advanced psychiatry trainee) Dave Carmody saw an opportunity to utilise technology to address the barriers to accessing quality mental health help in rural and remote areas.

They recently launched Call to Mind, a comprehensive telepsychiatry service that sees a team of specialist psychiatrists available for consultations via a secure video-conferencing platform.

“Some people are using telehealth already, and industry bodies have recognised its potential but no one has made these services streamlined and simple for all involved – the public, for GPs and for psychiatrists,” Dr Carmody said.

“We wanted to create a supportive platform that meant doctors could focus their time and energy on providing care to those who need it most.”

The idea is a consultation can be provided anywhere and any time in a place that suits individual needs.

Importantly the service offers bulk-billing for those in eligible areas, a fundamental factor in enacting real change within these under-serviced communities, according to Dr Carmody.

“The organisation hopes this is the first step in breaking down the barriers of availability, accessibility and stigma associated with mental health,” he said.

The service is now accepting referrals from GPs and has started consultations.

To find out more or to book a consultation go to the website.

You won’t find Annette Baker on stage at the Albury-Wodonga winter solstice event she has championed for the past six years.

You’ll generally find her behind the scenes in the shadows worrying about the weather, watching out for the speakers, the musicians and all those who gather in QEII Square to shine a light on suicide and mental illness.

She’s been nominated for awards, hailed a hero and reluctantly re-lived – and re-told – her family’s story of losing their daughter and sister Mary to suicide.

Together with her husband Stuart and sons Jack and Henri, Annette has soldiered on in the face of unimaginable grief.

Those who know her well also know she refuses to be silenced by shame or stigma … or, indeed, the awkward silence of others.

Nearly every day she finds herself lending an ear – and a huge, broken heart – to the stories of other families whose lives have been torn apart by a system ill-equipped to help them.

Annette doesn’t want to be the face of that grief.

Yet she knows she must.

It’s why she and Stuart accepted roles on the board of lobby group Australians For Mental Health, which is demanding reform at the next federal election.

The campaign needs to put a face to the pain affecting four million Australians.

It will take people power to turn the tide … brave foot soldiers like Annette Baker.