Annette and Stuart Baker have lost count of the number of times they have told the story of Mary's death.
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Each time, each place, each occasion they exhume the emotionally catastrophic story, it is with the hope the retelling of it may bring profound changes to the way mental health services are delivered in this country.
Their broken hearts lay bare the broken pieces of a system that ultimately failed their daughter.
Of how at just 15 years of age - three years after becoming unwell with a tooth abscess - the bright and talented Mary took her own life.
The Bakers have been relentless in the eight years since they lost their daughter on March 15, 2011.
The pair, who started the Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice, are also founding members of lobby group Australians For Mental Health (AFMH) alongside renowned mental health advocate Professor Patrick McGorry.
It is in this capacity Annette and Stuart have again recounted Mary's story as part of a formal submission to the Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System.
AFMH's 18-page submission includes six in-depth case studies - real-life accounts of individuals and families' desperate efforts to access help for loved ones.
The cracks of the system appear as gaping, cavernous hell-holes of inadequate, inaccessible and inconsistent care with almost incomprehensible inertia in the face of human suffering.
Overwhelmingly these stories show how care is often received far too late when mental health has deteriorated to crisis point ... or death.
Nowhere have the Bakers felt as compelled to expose the graphic truth of Mary's story than through this royal commission.
It is the only way we can make a difference," Stuart says.
Included in the Bakers' submission are heart-breaking and not previously disclosed details surrounding Mary's death.
"The details are more graphic than we have discussed publicly - it talks about method for example," Stuart admits.
"We needed to convey the full horror and impact of what happened - a royal commission wants to know the true and complete story."
Mary's is the only case study in which real names are used.
"Yes," concedes Stuart, "there is still a stigma attached to mental health.
"For us it's been healing and it's galvanised our desire to help fix this system and make it better for the millions of Australians suffering with mental ill health."
Jindera's Greg and Leeny Mason have also bravely told their story to the commission after a gruelling five-year battle to get help for their 30-year-old son.
They describe how they witnessed a bright and incredibly capable young man descend into the grip of an illness most people fear and do not understand.
He entered the Navy and worked on helicopters, graduating dux of his class.
Based at Nowra, they started to fear their son's health was deteriorating.
"Because he was living away from home, we weren't sure what was happening," Leeny says.
Their son was hospitalised three times and received a medical discharge from the Navy in 2017.
There were vague diagnoses such as depression with psychotic features and paranoid psychosis.
Their son returned home and fought his illness every way he knew how.
"He didn't want to accept it," Greg says.
"He would take himself off his medication - we later learned half the people with schizophrenia do not believe they are unwell."
He would periodically withdraw from his parents, believing they may be part of a conspiracy against him, and take off to the bush or Melbourne in a bid to flee the voices that assailed him.
"As parents it was exceptionally difficult," Greg says.
"He did a lot of stuff to try and find solace - his big aim was to go on the road as he thought that was how he might find peace."
But there was no peace against the "harrassment in his brain" and the Masons' son deteriorated to a critical point at the start of 2019.
He was volatile and police had to be called to the family home.
Twice he fled on foot in the middle of summer; the first time he spent two days walking in 40-degree temperatures.
Eventually Greg received a call from his son and drove to pick him up.
"He was badly sunburnt; blistered across his shoulders and could hardly walk," Greg says.
The second time he walked on foot, via Lake Hume, to Wodonga where he rented a motel room.
Realising their son was desperately unwell, the worried parents begged police and mental health services to assist them to help him.
Instead they were treated like criminals as their pleas - backed by an eight-page medical history - went unheeded.
It was only after turning in desperation to Professor McGorry - who made a few swift calls higher up the food chain - that action was taken.
Their son was taken to Nolan House where a psychiatrist diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia.
With anti-psychotic drugs, their son's paranoia reduced and he is mainly able to live at home in a bungalow.
Leeny riles against laws that hamper parents or family accessing timely help for loved ones.
She says it is almost impossible to escalate intervention required because of restrictive policies around individual capacity and autonomy.
We needed to convey the full horror and impact of what happened ...
- Stuart Baker
Leeny says it was "a miracle" getting their son to hospital but at the same time it infuriates her that it took personal intervention by the indefatigable Professor McGorry to save their son.
"Unless you're near death or about to kill someone you don't get in," Greg says.
The human toll is immense - for both the person afflicted and their distraught loved ones, Leeny explains.
It's these and countless other stories emerging from the royal commission that drive the efforts of grassroots campaigners like AFMH.
None of the horror stories emerging daily from the inquiry surprise those at the coal-face - the Bakers, the Masons or indeed most of those trying to navigate a fatally flawed system.
Among AFMH's recommendations to the commission is the need for fundamental, systemic reform to the way mental health services are delivered in Victoria.
Further, emphasis must be placed upon preventing mental illness as opposed to stepping in at time of diagnosis.
"The current approach is analogous to treating heart disease following cardiac arrest," it states.
Stuart Baker applauds all the people sharing their stories - in whatever capacity they are able - hoping to make a difference.
"It's not brave, it's necessary," he says simply.
"I believe out of this Royal Commission will be a way forward."
- If you needs help, call Lifeline: 13 11 14.