My Mental Health Story

Hello! This post will be detailing my mental health story from the moment my problems cropped up to now. It's going to be a long one so let's get going.

Trigger warning: suicide, self harm, hospitals, medication, depression, anxiety, BPD, eating disorders- all spoken about throughout the post.

I was always a shy anxious child. At school, I never had many friends, I preferred to play indoors by myself (unfortunately not allowed unless it was raining), and I was considered a "weird" child. I know now most of this was down to undiagnosed autism but at the time everything just thought I was quiet. School, generally, was okay. I did well in exams and enjoyed learning. I was however, bullied quite badly from year 1 (age 5) until I left sixth form aged almost 18. This obviously took a toll on my self esteem and was definitely a contributing factor in m future mental health hell.

In year 9 (aged 13), I began to really really hate school. Every morning I would wake up feeling sick and my heart would be racing just at the thought of getting ready. It eventually got to the point where I couldn't go in at all and ended up having 3 weeks off, which is obviously not ideal. I was very good at explaining how I felt about school and so when I told my mum I felt sick for 3 weeks she took me to the doctor and I was sent for blood tests to make sure I wasn't physically ill. It wasn't until those results came back mostly fine that my doctor suggested I probably have Generalised Anxiety Disorder and my symptoms were actually anxiety attacks. I was referred to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) and had my first experience with the mess that is the NHS Mental Health Services.

During my first appointment I was assessed for Anxiety and Depression and told I have both. My mum was asked lots of questions about how she felt about my behaviour and moods and I was mostly ignored until my mum was asked to leave the room so I could answer some more private questions. These questions included questions about my eating, body image, self harm, and suicidal ideation. I said that I was self harming but hadn't considered suicide and this was mer with "well if you don't stop by our next appointment, I'm going to tell your mother". I'll tell you now, threats are not the way to get a depressed 13 year old to stop self harming. At the next appointment, I hadn't stopped and my mum was told and she was surprisingly supportive (not of me self harming but she didn't shout at me or anything) which I don't think the CAMHS worker was expecting. I asked to have my next appointment alone since I didn't feel like I would ever make progress if my mum was the only person being asked questions. At my next, and final appointment, I found it fairly difficult to talk and answer the questions (that'll be the autism again) and was told "if you aren't going to speak to me then theres no point in you coming, I wont make another appointment, theres no point in actually starting therapy". As you can tell, this woman was lovely. And that was my first rejection from an NHS mental health service.

A year after this I was in my GCSE science class and we had to do an experiment to figure out how much energy we produced when exercising. For this experiment we had to weigh ourselves and write it down on a chart with the weights of everyone else in our groups. I ended up being the heaviest in my group, still very much a "healthy weight" by BMI standards but still the heaviest of 4 people. This, along with comments from my family about my eating habits and weight whilst growing up, and constantly seeing my mother diet as a child, triggered something inside me and I only ate oranges for the next 2 weeks until I'd lost 10kg (22lbs). I've spent most my life since then with an eating disorder of varying severity.

Fast forward a few years (aged 16) and my mental health is still terrible, anxiety is completely ruling my life and I've just started at a new sixth-form, overall, not good. So bad that I ended up stressed out and banging my head against the wall for a few hours, this left me with quite the concussion and so back to the doctors I go. They refer me back to CAMHS, but I'm given an appointment with the same woman I had before and so I just didn't bother going. Then it all gets too much and a little while after that I end up trying to kill myself. I spoke to childline and ended up getting frustrated and hanging up and so they called the emergency services and the police came to my house and took me to hospital. At hospital, I was given a mental health assessment where I specifically told the doctor that I would try to kill myself if they sent me home and then they sent me home. I was given an emergency appointment with CAMHS for the next day. At that appointment I was seen by an older man who told me I was "too pretty to have depression" and I told him to fuck off and stormed out. I never saw anyone at CAMHS again (thank god).

Then I was generally okay for a few years. I say okay. I mean, my eating disorder got worse, my depression started ruining my entire life, I was constantly thinking about suicide but like I didn't feel the need to go to the doctor about it. I also don't really want to talk about what caused my PTSD but that event happened in these few years too.

When I was 18, I got a really really bad job, it increased my anxiety so much. I also got a really really good boyfriend, I was still anxious about this relationship though. I lasted at that job for 3 months before being fired on the day I was planning to quit. My relationship has lasted a lot longer and is still going so if you see me reference my boyfriend from here on, its the same person. In 2017, my mental health took a huge dip. I think it was a mix of suddenly having nothing to do (no school or job), being in a new relationship, and being officially diagnosed with autism. I was crying constantly, threatening to kill myself all the time, and just generally horrible to be around, even for myself. I especially struggled when it was time to leave after visiting my boyfriend, or when he'd leave after visiting me. One night after a particularly horrible PTSD flashback I decided with my boyfriend that maybe it was time for me to go back to the doctor and ask for medication this time.

I went to see my GP who I'd built up quite a nice relationship with due to the amount of physical health problems I was dealing with at the time and told her what was going on. She put me on citalopram, an SSRI antidepressant, and told me to seek out talking therapy, a self-referral service in my area.

I was seen by the talking therapy service fairly quickly but at the assessment appointment I was deemed too complicated for them to deal with and referred to the Assessment and Brief Treatment Team (A&BT). While on the waiting list to see them I went back to my GP to tell her that the side effects of citalopram weren't working for me and I was put on Sertraline instead. I then got seen by A&BT in about august 2017 and thought I would finally be able to get some help- spoiler alert- I was wrong.

The doctor at A&BT, who I'll be calling Dr A, decided the best course of action after assessing me would be to refer me to an eating disorder clinic, they had a fairly long waiting list so he'd keep seeing me in the meantime but once I got an appointment there, they'd take over my care. I had an appointment every month with Dr A where he'd increase my medication when I said it wasn't working until I really kicked up a fuss and then he changed it to fluoxetine, which worked for a while but then stopped. When I told him it stopped working, he once again tried to increase my dose to something I knew was much higher than I should have been taking. I took that dose for one day (the first day of my new job unfortunately) and became so ill I could barely move, missed the first day of work and never took fluoxetine again. When I went back to him the next month, I explained what happened and I'd also done some research into why antidepressants may not be working for me. I asked him if it was possible that I have Borderline Personality Disorder or Bipolar since I felt the symptoms fit and I'd seen a lot of people who have those disorders say they'd struggled with just antidepressants. I was told that there was no way I have either of those because he "would have noticed it straight away". At this point I'd been given an appointment at the ED clinic and so Dr A decided that he wouldn't see me next month and would see me in 6 months time to see how I was getting on.

At my ED clinic appointment, I was seen by a lovely woman who went through my mental health history and asked lots of questions about my relationship with food. It was decided after that appointment that I was not suitable for the service since my mental health problems were too complex and I wouldn't benefit from such targeted therapy and treatment. What should have happened after this is Dr A would read the letter saying I hadn't been accepted by the service and then offer me an appointment to work out the next step. What actually happened was I heard nothing for 6 months.

So 6 months (July 2018) later I go to my follow up appointment with Dr A and I'm informed by the receptionist that Dr A has "left the service" and I'd be seeing a new doctor, who I will be calling Dr B. Given my history with doctors I wasn't feeling hopeful. I went into the appointment prepared to argue with him about my symptoms but to my surprise he was really nice. After about 5 minutes of me describing my mental health history he asked if I'd ever heard of BPD and then went through the symptoms with me and confirmed that I probably have that. He explained that that was probably the cause of my eating disorder too and why the clinic felt I wouldn't benefit from their services. He then very quickly became a disappointment. He asked about why I had been diagnosed with PTSD and I explained the situation. He told me he couldn't see how that was traumatic and so despite me having severe PTSD symptoms, that diagnosis was officially taken away form me, a decision I have chosen to ignore. He then referred me to a psychologist so I could start getting therapy for my BPD and arranged an appointment with me for the next month.

Things were looking up for the next month or so. I thought I'd finally be able to get help. I was going to university in a different city in September so I asked for my care to be transferred to the services there. Unfortunately, my doctors decided to instead discharge me, not a useful decision. I found out when I asked my new GP about whether I was on the waiting list to be seen and she said she knew nothing about that. I was back to square one. I asked to be referred to a mental health service, hoping that since I already had been seen by one and had been referred to a psychologist, they'd just re-refer me to someone closer and my care would continue. I was wrong. I had to wait almost 6 months for an initial appointment after being told it would be 3 months at most. Every time I mentioned that it seemed to be taking a while I got moaned at by the GP and called a liar with them saying I'd probably missed the letter with my appointment.

The stress of starting university really got to me. I stopped eating again, I was feeling suicidal, and I was self harming more than I ever had. I tried to get help everywhere I could while I was waiting for the NHS. I went to see my university's mental health service but they told me there was nothing they could do and sent me away. I had a mental health mentor provided by DSA (Disabled Students Allowance) but she was obsessed with my weight and knowing intimate details about my mental health and personal life, something I later found out she wasn't allowed to ask about.

In January 2019, I started spiralling massively. I had coursework due that I was really struggling with, the university kept threatening to kick me out and almost all my support had been taken away from me. At the end of January, I attempted suicide. I was taken to hospital by my best friends and sent the night being assessed to see how much of a risk I was. I was eventually told that they couldn't see a reason I would try to take my life and that I was "confrontational" and so they couldn't do anything. I would just have to wait a month to be seen by the NHS out-patient service.

Realising I'd hit rock bottom, I started actively looking for help again. I went back to my university mental health service but this time instead of helping me, they called a serious meeting with my faculty to decide if I could stay at the university at all. Obviously, this didn't help my mental health. I eventually managed to get an appointment with a counsellor. She was very nice but not very helpful, and again told me there wasn't anything the university could do for me and I would have to talk to my GP. I decided to just wait for my appointment with out-patient since that seemed the quickest, least draining way to get help.

At that appointment, I went through my history, was told that my diagnosis was correct and that there was no NHS service in the area that could help me. I also had my medication increased after specifically asking for it to stay the same. I was told to looking into wellbeing classes and to refer myself to a service that works with people with BPD. The wellbeing classes all cost money and so they were out of the question as a poor student. The form for the BPD service confused me a lot and I'm still unable to get any help with filling it in and get told to "just answer the questions" so it looks like that won't be happening either.

For a while after that I just tried to get by. I wasn't "happy" but I was surviving and that was good enough. In May 2019, things started to go downhill again. I had a breakdown and it felt like the world was crashing down around me. I had to try to get through my last two assessments since asking for extenuating circumstances could potentially get me kicked out (something the university had tried to do 8 times that year already). Luckily, I had a huge support system and they all rallied around me and I got all my work done and on time. Once the academic year was over I was less stressed but definitely still very depressed. I wanted to avoid hitting rock bottom again so I went to my GP. At that appointment my GP seemed confused as to why I was there, took me off all my medications and told me to just go and see the university support again (something you cant do outside of term-time and so this was useless). A week later, I went to see the specialist metal health nurse at my GP surgery instead hoping to get some actual help but I was once again told to ask for help from the university and told I had tried too many different things and they didn't want to do anything else for me.

That brings us up to now, for the last few months I've had absolutely no support or medication, I've relied completely on what I can do for myself. It's been difficult and draining but I'm determined to recover. Even though I have been doing okay, possible the best I've been for quite a while, I know I still need therapy and medication to help with my mental health.

So, that was my mental health story. It was a long one so if you've made it to the end- well done. I hope that gives you some insight into my life. There's definitely bits I've skimmed over and possibly forgotten completely but I will be doing in depth posts about certain aspects of my mental health and history with it so look out for those.