It was Christmas Eve, 1969 when Janet Meagher had what was then labelled a nervous breakdown.
She took a set of car keys from the Catholic convent she lived in at Randwick, drove to Sydney Airport and crashed into a terminal.
She has been living with schizophrenia since.
The Engadine resident’s incredible journey living with a mental illness has helped her become one of Australia’s brightest advocates for improving mental health care and awareness.
On Monday, she received the 2017 Australian Mental Health Prize following decades of advocacy work.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt presented her with the prestigious award alongside joint winner Allan Fels, from Melbourne, at UNSW.
Ms Meagher’s dark past has helped shape her into a strong advocate.
She said looking back she was probably trying to escape when she crashed into the airport in 1969, following a childhood marred by emotional and physical abuse by her mother.
She said her mental health deteriorated after that event and she was eventually admitted to the now closed Gladesville Mental Hospital for the best part of a decade.
Incredibly, following numerous suicide attempts and at times dreadful treatment at the hospital – including allegations of sexual abuse – she transitioned out of the hospital and back into society.
She said she was one of the lucky ones managing to transition out of the institution.
“They had said you’ll never get out of here, you’re just too dangerous to be around. And I was,” she said.
“I was doing dreadful things – suicide [attempts] – and luckily I was as mad as what I was because I really did not have the capacity to plan properly.”
She said, in no way meaning to take suicide attempts lightly, she once jumped out of a window at Balmain Hospital. “I jumped out of the window and landed probably three or four storeys down in the biggest laundry trolley you have ever seen, full of the most putrid laundry you have ever seen.”
She said she eventually shut herself off from the world and went into a state of catatonia.
“Catatonia is when you just go into yourself and don’t move voluntarily. You don’t offer any form of communication – no eye contact or physical contact … you just switch off. It’s like being dead and alive at the same time.”
She said a trainee psychiatrist, Pat Killalea, was the one who got through to her. She would sit with Ms Meagher for 30 minutes each day for many months and simply talk about life.
“She decided that I was going to be her project – this lump that just sat in the corner and never moved all day,” Ms Meagher said with a chuckle.
“And she got on to talking to me about my history and values and how I had contributed a lot to society when I was working [as a teacher and in the Catholic convent].
“And I was thinking you bastard, you are just trying to con me, you know.
“And one day many months in she said maybe you are what they say. Maybe you are just a lazy good for nothing, and maybe you have no values, and maybe I’ve got it all wrong, and maybe I’m wasting my time, and maybe I shouldn’t come back tomorrow. And I said, ‘oh please come back’. And that was the first thing I had said for who knows how long.”
She said that triggered her desire to start working towards controlling her anger and the voices inside her head.
“Pat got to seeing the human being inside and I think she is the one who primarily was responsible for me finding value in my life, and value in trying to overcome what life had thrown at me,” she said.
“It’s really her that should be getting this award.”
The transition out of the mental hospital was a long one, but in the end a successful one.
After moving out of the hospital Ms Meagher worked as a librarian – with a great deal of understanding from her employer – and even married her late husband and had a child.
The 70 year old has since become an advocate for improved mental health care and awareness in Australia and is still passionate about closing down institutions to treat the mentally ill. Over the past three decades, she has sat on “countless” committees and boards.
“I have tried to make sure policies have been written that do not allow for abuse and don’t allow for unfair treatment, and which have allowed for more humane services. So from the inside out I have been able to see what needed to change and have worked at it ever since.”
In terms of mental health awareness, she said she would love to see more people see the person first rather than the illness.
“I think what helps people with mental illness best is that people around them care what is going on in their life. And you can do that without spending money – just by lending a hand.”
As for living with schizophrenia, she said it was a daily challenge but one that she was used to.
“I still have crazy thoughts but you have to switch them off. This is happening all the time. I think of it as my little radio and I just ignore the radio.
“When I’m relatively well and getting enough sleep that is really easy to keep in the background. But if I’m getting unwell that gets harder and harder to manage,” she said.
“I have voices that tell me terrible things about people. And I have to find a way to push that aside and focus – and that is such a hard skill to learn. And that is why a lot of people with schizophrenia don’t get well.”
