A single mother was forced to lock her daughter in a wooden shed with nothing but a mattress every night for two years to stop her from self-harming.
Emma Parry was desperate to keep her daughter alive during a two-year battle where the teenager tried to take her own life more than 12 times.
As a 16-year-old, Stephanie was a risk to herself and her family.
Ms Parry saw no option but to physically separate her daughter each night by locking her away in a shed with nothing other than a mattress and a blanket.
The only psychiatric services available for the girl were more than two hours away from their isolated home in rural New South Wales.
Stephanie compared her living situation to that of a prisoner as she gave a tour of the near empty room she called home
Stephanie compared her living situation to that of a prisoner as she gave a tour of the near empty room she called home.
‘This is what I call a prison… because it is. I’m being locked in like I’m in a prison,’ she previously told Today Tonight.
It wasn’t until she was admitted into a care facility when a nurse sat her down to give her a ‘wake up call’ about what her future looked like that she found the strength to turn her life around.
‘I wasn’t doing well and he told me ”if you don’t choose to get better now, you’ll either end up killing yourself, killing someone else you care about or ending up in jail. Those are your options”,’ she said.
Three years on, Stephanie is now appreciative of the lengths her mother went to keep her safe.
‘It feels good not being locked away in a room anymore for my safety and others,’ she said.
‘I went from being in that tiny room having nothing to having a whole place, it makes me feel really good.’
Three years on, Stephanie is now appreciative of the lengths her mother went to keep her safe
Stephanie first started self-harming after she was sexually assaulted as a 12-year-old.
Her mother had no idea she’d been abused, but said at the time her daughter changed from a bubbly child to someone she hardly recognised.
Stephanie took multiple attempts on her own life, including trying to hang herself in her bedroom wardrobe and overdosing on pills.
In a harrowing voice-recording, Ms Parry had to talk her eldest daughter into putting down a kitchen knife.
After that incident, she was admitted to the short-stay unit at Sydney’s John Hunter Hospital, where she initially continued trying to harm herself.
The now 19-year-old has come full circle in the three years since her mum first publicly shared her story. She moved out of home with her partner and believes her transformation gives hope to other survivors of sexual abuse
Stephanie started self harming after she was sexually assaulted. She made at least 12 attempts on her life
‘Stephanie was trying to remove her neckbrace and trying to harm herself by trying to break her own fingers and biting her knuckles extremely hard and becoming combative and threatening,’ a friend of the family said at the time.
‘Today she has smashed her wrist and hand against a concrete wall numerous times and has required an x-ray which they are just waiting on the report to find out if there is any fractures/breaks.’
The now 19-year-old has come full circle in the three years since her mum first publicly shared her story.
She moved out of home with her partner and believes her transformation gives hope to other survivors of sexual abuse.
‘People look up to me as a role model now and think, if she can do it I can do it and I think that’s what makes me continue.’
Her mother agreed, saying ‘the impossible had happened.’
‘Had we had kept going with what we were doing I don’t think we would have her today.’
She was admitted to the short-stay unit at Sydney’s John Hunter Hospital, where she initially continued trying to harm herself
Her distraught mother Emma felt like a failure but said the drastic measures were all she could do to keep her daughter alive