real life mental health?

Lii YourLost · 05-12-2009, 03:13 AM

i hope this is in the right place :)

basically im doing a project to show 'important people in the youth sector' to highlight the lack of mental health facilities in the area,
for the presentation i need 'real life stories' kind of thind to make a impact.

i was just wondering could anyone/would anyone be willing to share their story?

like just kind of e.g i was diagnosed with thing when i was age and this is how it effected my life the doctors did this the doctors where idiots because etc ~:p yano that kind of thing

on any mental health illness / issue

i would love you forever and ever and EVER!!!!!

thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu !!

x

shadow-light · 05-12-2009, 03:20 AM

what sort of age range are you looking for? and is it bad experiances or good experiances or both?

I could possiby write outt something, but would have to wait till tomorrow :P

Lii YourLost · 05-12-2009, 03:23 AM

its mainly for young people (as in under 25) but to be honest the age doesnt matter :)
just mainly how they helped you or how they didnt :)
or anything really just how your mental health has affected things and hos helped or not :)
tomorrow is brilliant :p x

x

Stellata · 05-12-2009, 08:22 AM

I'm 39, but when I was younger noone paid attention to mental health issues, and things got basically ignored until they got so much worse, which, now I'm in treatment, means a lot harder work to overcome, because things got so deeply embedded due to the lack of support etc when I was younger.
Not sure if that's any help?

ghosts in the machine · 05-12-2009, 09:03 AM

When I was 17, my CAMHS support worker suggested I smoked marjuana instead of cutting. That was a weird moment.

offlineforever · 05-12-2009, 12:11 PM

i could give you the whole story... it might take a while to write out because i have both the help and the unhelpfullness of the medical profession if you want... pm me to let me know

DannieGirl · 05-12-2009, 01:00 PM

i was in camhs for 5 years, i got referred for sh, it got brought up about 3/4 times in those years and they just kept putting me on meds...only anti-depressants...diagnosed me with major depression and social anxiety..
the psychiatrists changed every 6 months, so nothing ever got very far, the psychologists changed often...no on there was permanent.

Teddy.Lupin · 05-12-2009, 02:15 PM

I can give you my story, it's long, awkward, and may take some time, and i can only communicate at weekends cause I'm only at leave from adolescent inpatient facilities at the weekend.

shadow-light · 05-12-2009, 02:36 PM

I don't remember much before the age of 16... I know that my eating habbits were bad and my mum had kept forcing me to doctors saying I had an ED, though she thought I was eating "too much" despite being very underweight

. and I know that I haad been to see the school counsellor a few times, but can't remember what came of that

When I was 16 I got put in hospital for about 2 weeks, I can’t remember how long exactly... I had attempted suicide while pregnant and lost the child. While I was there I got told a load of rubbish about how at 16 I could not possibly have any real reason to try to kill myself.

About 4 months later I was hospitalised again, and diagnosed with anorexia. They kept me there until I was an “acceptable” weight then released me and I never heard from them again

When I was 17, I went to a doctor and told them I was loosing time and hearing whispering, that there were "children" in my head and that I would find writting and art around my home that was not by me. They told me to stop drinking :/ despite the fact that at this point in life I had never drunk alcohol

When I was 18 I ended up in hospital after a stupid act of trying to make myself "clean"... basically I dunk some cleaning products and burnt my esothagus... I had to see an on call psych again, this time she came to the conclusion that "voices told me to do it", which they didn't! I just wanted to be clean...

When I was 19 I went to see a councillor who told me I was beyond her skill and to go to a doctor. So I went to a doctor saying that i thought I had an anxiety disorder only to be told it was “stress” and “homesickness”, even though I had moved away from “home” 3 years before

So I went back to the counsellor. I told her a lot, about nightmares, flashbacks, “loosing” full days, etc. But she was always more interested in my financial situation than my actually problems

I went to another doctor, this one told me that I was just stressed and prescribed me sme sleeping tablets

which I then ODed on... The on call psych in the hospital basically called me a melodramatic attention seaker...

I went to another doctor, this one told me to “stop living in the past” and that what I went though was “not that bad, at least no one died”

By this time my boyfriend and I had pretty much figured out about the DID, we just didn't have a name for it... but he had started interacting with the alters. So started to just kind of try to work through it myself... started a journal, got to "know" the alters, started being able to communicate with them inside rather than the random whispering and chatter of before now I could "hear" and speak to them.

10 months ago I went to another doctor who referred me to a psychologist. I saw her for 4 weeks before she referred me to psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy said that I was “not bad enough” and so I was removed from the waiting list...

My GP sent me to the urgent referral team at the psych hospital, who screaned me for psychosis

and she promised me a CPN

2 weeks later I was told that I was not “bad enough” for a CPN

I went back to my GP and told her a load of stuff I had not soken to her about before (i.e. the “people in my head”) and she phoned the psych hospital to ty to get me seen again

Not long after this I “lost” a few hours and ended up ODing during this time. I went to hospital and the on call psych came to see me... she told me that the abuse was all my fault, that I was never raped, that I was making a big deal out of nothing and that DID was not real so I should stop being stupid and just admit that I tried to kill myself... she said that the abuse from my ex wasn't abuse and that my parents were at worst "slightly emotionally abusive" but not enough to have "messed me up" so I should just stop making a big deal out of nothing

This resulted in several weeks of not leaving bed, crying all the time, and loosing a lot of time where I would “come back” to massive cuts and quite disturbing writing...

5 months ago I got another psychologist, after only 2 sessions with her though she took me off her service. She didn’t believe that DID exists

3 months ago I got a new psychologist. She has diagnosed me with PTSD, DID and EDnos, and suspects mild agrophobia... she took me to see a dissocosiation specialist who “brought out” the alters and stuff...

So... taken 6 years, but I finally have a diagnosis lol. But... I am being referred again after Christmas...

that's a quick overveiw. If any extra info is needed let me know

inblack · 05-12-2009, 03:50 PM

Not quite sure what you're looking for story wise, but I'll write something and you can take what you like from it if anything is useful.

I saw a counselor at 16 because I was struggling with many mental health issues including hearing things, depression, anxiety, and self harm. The first counselor I absolutely hated, she did not seem very knowledgeable. And I don't believe she did a very good job of trying to get to know me. Then again I only saw her once and never went back. I really didn't like the fact that she seemed so bad at her job.

I then went to see a psychologist who my boyfriend saw and really liked. I saw her for about a year and a half. Personality wise I liked her but I was dealing with a lot of stuff and at this age (16-17) I had issues opening up. I still do but not at all like I used to. She never really pushed anything, never laid down boundaries and everything was always "good." We basically just talked, about random stuff often that had little to do with mental health in my opinion. I also did a lot of switching back and forth between loving and hating her. My mom was getting mad because I wasn't sharing much about the "therapy" with her and my psychologist wouldn't tell her anything.

At some point I asked what she thought I might have and she said "I don't like to give labels, but if I was going to, I would say you have schizoaffective disorder." She later tried really hard to push meds on me, including making an appointment with a team that can prescribe them but something came up on her end and it got canceled and I never came back after that.

I do email her at times still to say hi and update her on my now husband and I since she knows both of us. She was never that professional. I mean I went with her to pick up her kids a couple of times from various places. She forgot about appointments a couple times. She always hugged me at the end of sessions which I found uncomfortable. And there is no way I have schizoaffective disorder (just to clarify that).

Then I didn't see anyone for years. At 22 I went through a really rough time. I didn't shower, do my laundry, or do anythign for that matter for weeks at a time. It was gross and mentally I was falling apart. My husband wanted me to get help. So I got properly assessed and was diagnosed with BPD, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder. I did DBT and have been seeing my new therapist for close to a year. He is amazing. He sets boundaries and pushes gently at me to change and not too far. He is VERY professional and genuine. And while sometimes I want to quit, I don't find myself going between loving and hating him at all. Since then anxiety has improved a lot. Depression is still there and BPD is well...I'm making changes I think.

I don't share my diagnosis with friends or family. My husband knows and people on here and thats it. So in a lot of ways it hasn't affected my life too much. Its affected in the way of I have gotten help and made small improvements over time.

I recently started medication about 3 weeks ago and I found my GP was very understanding and helpful. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am for how she was when I came in. I found the meds so far have really helped with my anger and I am having a much easier time making effective choices when I am getting upset or needing to deal with a problem. They're allowing me to more easily use coping skills I have learned in DBT. They weren't even prescribed for that, they're for depression and in that manner so far aren't working haha.

Anyway, if you need anything else you can ask :)

Lii YourLost · 06-12-2009, 12:37 AM

thank you guys :))
youve really helped :)
it makes me mad what some of these professionals did :(

xx

Buttercup. · 07-12-2009, 05:28 AM

If you need anything feel free to go through my journals, they have a lot about my diagnosis, involuntary hospitalizations, and outpatient treatment xo