She said the abuse she endured in multiple homes ruined her life and affected the lives of her five children, but she considers herself a survivor compared to the girls she was in care with.

Many of them, who she calls her sisters, went on to suicide.

When she was nine, Ms Carty was struggling to keep up at school, so she began refusing to attend.

This led to her being removed from her mother and placed into institutions run by the NSW government, where she received no education and endured sexual, physical and psychological abuse until she was released at 15.

Ms Carty, who resides in Warrnambool, is due to present her story at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on July 13.

In recent years, painting, meditation and her Buddhist faith have helped her cope and heal, but her anger has also grown, in part with the help of counselling.

“When I first started on the journey of appearing at the royal commission, I was a blubbering mess who couldn’t string two words together without cracking up,” Ms Carty said. “I went from a blubbering person to someone who is just plain angry.”

She described the abuse as “unexplainable”, and said her days were filled working on her hands and knees, doing laundry and ironing and scrubbing walls and floors with toothbrushes.

Her scars come from incidents such as being kicked in the back while scrubbing a floor and having a hot iron placed against her hands for not working fast enough.

She described being locked in a space called the ‘clink’.

“I’ll never forget it, laying on my back in a cell with a pot in the corner and then just a mattress,” Ms Carty said. “I was laying on the ground slamming my feet against this iron door, just the same as a jail cell, for hours and hours.

“I was 10 years old. They're the things children should never have to experience.”

When she got out at 15, Ms Carty tried to go to high school, but could not face it. Since she was a little girl, she had her heart set on becoming a scientist like her idol, Julius Sumner Miller, but she said being deprived of an education made her dream impossible.

“When I had children, I hadn’t had a childhood, so I was trying to have a childhood and be a parent and I was mixed up trying to block everything out with drugs and alcohol. Nothing was working.”

Despite her struggles, Ms Carty put herself through TAFE and university, and later ended up in a violent relationship. She had five children through her life.

In 1992 she entered rehab and has been sober and clean since.

When Ms Carty recounts her story at a private session in Sydney in a fortnight, she will add her voice to those of more than 5000 others who have already shared what happened to them.

She is nervous, but she feels ready.

“That’s all I’ve got, I’ve just got anger now,” Ms Carty said.

“My whole personality has changed. Before, I couldn’t say a word – my self esteem was down there.

“Now it’s just turned to anger at the plain injustice."

Ms Carty is part of the Care Leavers Australasia Network (CLAN), which held its first meeting for south-west members on Wednesday June 21. She wants to push for other people abused in care to get the recognition they deserve.

The group, started in 2000, supports and advocates for people who grew up in orphanages, children’s homes, foster care and other institutions.

Founder Leonie Sheedy resides in Geelong, where she was in care. She described the first meeting, held in NSW, that attracted more than 300 care leavers from across the country, some as old as 93.

“People came from Cairns, Wollongong, Melbourne,” she said. “They couldn’t believe that we were speaking about this subject. People were crying “

CLAN now has close to 1000 members, and has had strong involvement in the royal commission.

Ms Sheedy is pushing for people who experienced physical and psychological abuse to be recognised and have the possibility of redress under a national scheme – not just those who were sexually abused.

She said an 89-year-old member of the group recently died, and something needed to be done before care leavers die.

“Physical and psychological abuse is not being acknowledged, and for many care leavers, they will tell you that physical and psychological abuse and lack of family and culture can be far more or just as damaging as sexual abuse as a child,” Ms Sheedy said.

South-west CLAN members Muriel and Ted, not their real names, were married for 50 years before they found out they both spent time in institutional care as children and experienced abuse.

They made the discovery when Ted visited his wife in intensive care in Tamworth a couple of years ago, and when faced with the sight of a boys home he was sent to at 14, he collapsed on two occasions.

The home was notorious for harsh punishments meted out to teenage boys, including enforced silence. It closed in 1989 following a spate of suicides, and a 2011 media investigation found more than 30 men who spent time there as teenagers went on to commit murders.

Ted was placed there from another institution as punishment for close to five months, but he said it “may as well have been years”.

Ted, now 79, told his wife what he had been through. Their adult children still don’t know.

“They push you into such a position where you either find them and kill them or you live with the shame on your own head,” he said. “You carry it inside your head and you don’t want to go telling everybody else.”

Ted is happy to talk to strangers about what happened now.

“That stuff is screwed up inside you and the psychological part of it is probably the worst part because it ties you up, and you can never ever reach your potential in life if you've been through it,” he said.

“Never. I don’t know anyone I’ve met who has been through what I’ve been through and reached their full potential. It squashes people.”

The couple wanted to remain anonymous because they are going through legal action over their time in care.

Wannon MP Dan Tehan confirmed he planned to meet with the group to hear their concerns.

“My Warrnambool office is currently in the process of scheduling a meeting with representatives from the Care Leavers Australasia Network in the south-west,” Mr Tehan said.

Confidential domestic violence counselling is available on 1800 737 732 and CLAN can be contacted for support on 1800 008 774.