#3. We have mENTAL ILLNESS !!! [Emotional dysregulation. Again. Oh my god.]

[euclydya]

sorry for the aro & aplat positivity spam sudden ly I thought about my identity too hard for a second and then got really giddy and happy . it might happen again 👍

[voxpop-magazine-blog]

Mum; please don’t blame yourself

Contrary to false beliefs, the stigma around adolescent mental health still thrives to this day. With the recent Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, mainstream teens seem to be shocked by the effects of mental illness. However, I doubt they understand the real ‘face’ of mental disorders. I don’t mean to be obnoxious, it’s just, mental health difficulties vary for everyone, and I feel like this programme only highlights the most notorious problem; depression.

Anxiety is another well-known issue, I suppose. But, do people even realise that OCD branches as an anxiety disorder? If so, I think people would stop throwing about the ‘oh my god, my OCD is so bad today’ when all they’ve done is organised their school planner. What about eating disorders? People still aspire to be ‘skinny’, thinking methods of binge eating and starvation are just casual dieting cheats. And as for schizophrenia? That seems to be a very sheltered topic, that isn’t allowed to see the light of day, as that’s just a bit too scary for us ‘children’.

Mental health issues are not pretty. They’re awful, and sickening and will more than likely affect you for the rest of your life. It’s not all taking walks in a nature forest, and pampering yourself. Self-care does work, but there’s such a darker clinical side to it all. There’s times when you’re lay on a hospital bed, on the pysc ward, waiting to have your stomach pumped because of the amount of ibuprofen you desperately swallowed to try and just shut your own head up for one goddamn minute. There’s times when you have to attend group therapy sessions for weeks on end with short tempered workers and handfuls of messed up kids, just to try and appease you parents; ‘I’m getting better Mum, honestly’ (please don’t blame yourself). And let’s not forget the moments of running out of a class room to quickly vomit and hyperventilate to the extent that you black out, all because of the ever-looming exams that ‘dictate your whole entire life’.

People still don’t understand self-harm. Some people can’t even recognise it. Of course, people still continue to view ‘cutting’ as a joke; and then find it necessary to label it to certain social groups. What about banging your head violently against furnishings, almost giving yourself minor brain damage, just to try and alleviate the endless drones and screams of the ‘characters’ you see, but others don’t? But of course, the best part is when the CAMHS pyschiatrist verbally assaults and screams at you until you’re a retching mess on the floor, just to assess whether you really do have ‘panic attacks’ or just ‘the odd anxious wobble’.

Apart from this being utter word vomit, recalling many different mental health experiences, I do want to clarify that mental health services need to be better. Whether that’s being given a bigger budget, more training, more staff, whatever; something needs to change. I will always argue that these services need to improve, due to the horrendous experiences I’ve had with them. I underwent 25 weeks of DBT, 18 weeks of CBT and saw a psychologist once a week for almost 3 years, and still, my mental health was worse than it ever had been. Following the trial of some medication (an antidepressant called Fluoxetine) I was then diagnosed with moderate clinical anxiety, second hand depression and emotional behavioural dysregulation (as well as suspected autism, which, surprise surprise, I was never definitely diagnosed with as they’d discharged me from the service before they managed to get some ‘paper work’ about my assessment through).

By all means, I support the NHS, I couldn’t imagine the UK without free healthcare; it’s the best thing we have. However, it is not right that budgets are being cut on their mental health services when they need drastic improvement. Cut down the CAMHS waiting list to start. I’d love to have something improve following the release of this article, but I can’t imagine it doing so unfortunately. Again, us young people are left struggling without the support we need.

Hello! I’m Molly and this is my first ever published piece, which was included in the summer edition of the local Unmasked Zine, a sub-project of Flux magazine. I enjoy writing immensely and aspire to be a YA fiction author, hence the creation of ‘Voxpop’ along with my friend Colleen. We’ve recruited all of our friends who have an interest in writing and art and have created this little blog to upload to (we’re hoping it will be daily uploads but we’ll see how that goes) You’ll meet the rest of the team soon.

Hope you enjoy!

- Molly