Mental illness continues to be a topic of high interest following recent tragedies on Oahu. Wednesday, health experts shared progress being made as part of the state's 11-million dollar five-year commitment to transform mental health services. A guest speaker provided a powerful testimony of hope.

An accused triple murderer stabs a corrections officer in the eye with a pen.
A man is suspected of throwing a toddler over a pedestrian overpass to his death.
A Mililani man kills his wife and son before hanging himself.
A millionaire is found dead below the Pali Lookout. His wife says he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
And a daughter accused of strangling her mother to death is found unfit to stand trial and is admitted to the Hawaii State Hospital. Five recent cases involving mental illness.

"Nobody asked the question what happened to you," said Tonier Cain of Maryland who knows all about unasked questions. Her turmoil started when she was 9.

"I was often molested, hurt, touched," said Cain. "Because I didn't know how to cope with that -- I started drinking at age 9."

At 19, she was introduced to crack and a life of homelessness.

"Eighty-three arrests -- 66 convictions they told me I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail or I was going to die in the streets," said Cain. "When I would leave the jail system or the mental health facilities -- see you when you come back."

For 19 years she was over-medicated, secluded and restrained and no one inspired hope. She lost four children to the welfare system.

"Everybody keep telling me that I was schizophrenic, bi-polar, manic depressant anybody would give me a label but no treatment," said Cain.

That changed when she enrolled in a community based trauma, mental health and substance abuse program.

"I had to go back to age 9, remember the men all the times I was touched, all the times I was hurt -- the multiple gang rapes the multiple beatings -- my mother neglect and abandonment issues I had to work on that and heal from that," she said.

Today she is an advocate of mental health, training state agencies and health providers on childhood trauma. She is also the mother of a beautiful daughter.

"It was work but it was easier than leaving that program -- losing my daughter and walking on a street corner to prostitute for five dollars just to get a hit of crack or end up back in the jail system it was so much easier than that," she said.

According mental health program directors, the majority of children and adults in inpatient psychiatric treatment settings have experienced trauma, including neglect, physical, sexual and mental abuse.