I’m really happy that I made the step that I did because the first step really is the hardest part. Waiting to go in into the doctors to say, can I have a referral, or therapy or, or even going to your first therapy session, you’re stood outside you know, you know you stand and chain smoking you know, you might just stand there and like be a nervous wreck beforehand, but as soon as you get in you sit down, the first words that come out of your mouth are just tumbling, it’s so easy and after that it’s you’re not falling anymore, you’ve stopped yourself. And you can climb back up and stand up and say well, I’ve got through this and it’s a nice feeling once you’ve made the first step. Cos you realise that you can change, that you’re not alone, that there are people out there who do genuinely wanna help you. it’s definitely the hardest step though, the first.

But you know it only gets, it gets harder but it gets easier again you know, you have your moments when like, you’ve talked about things in the past and they’ll hurt, and then afterwards you’ll feel so much, so much lighter you could like, you know you feel like you could float off into space, it’s nice. it’s good, it’s good to make that first step and everybody should do it, if you’ve got a problem definitely just not sit alone.

And I was just very, very hopeful about it all, and I thought

What if I, what if I have a panic attack there and then? You know I’ve got no medication or anything like that

And you know I spoke to this lady then and they were so helpful and a lot of people would just think, oh they’ll just say they’ll just, I hate this horrible, you know this teenage view that sometimes going to a GP isn’t helpful, they’ll just give you medication, turn you into a zombie, orBut there are non-medication ways of doing it, and it is so useful going to the GP and of course if you get in within their schedule and everything like that, but you know it’s, I just remember that just feeling of just feeling so good coming out of there and walking down the hall and just thinking, This is the start of a new life really

She [GP] was great. She reassured me, she gave me a cuddle, she let me cry, she was just fantastic with me. I mean there aren’t many GPs out there that would hug you when you walk in to their office and hug you when you walk out. And she’s been like that with me for the past few years. And, you know, that’s fantastic. Most GPs want you in and out, you know, write out a prescription off you go. She’s not like that.

I am, I’m very, and I think you know again, it’s Karma, it’s fate. I was meant to have her as my GP and I’m fortunate enough to have her as my GP, and I could say, and I have said to her, if she wasn’t my GP I probably really wouldn’t be here now. And so for me she was my support. And still distant from it because I know she’s a GP and she’s there to do a job, but she was my support looking back.

Sian’ Some things do help. Some things don’t help. it’s about getting used to them really. it’s about getting, sometimes you do get that special person in the authorities that will make it happen for you.

Mandy’ Or go that extra mile to make sure that you’re safe.

Sian’ And when that’s there you do feel safer, and you feel a lot better for it.

Mandy’ Yeah I know that someone is going to take the time to you know bend the rules and
Sian’ Yeah definitely.

Mandy’ And break them occasionally just to make sure that you know, you’re safe. That they actually do care, rather than it’s not just a job, and
Sian’ Not just for a job.

Mandy’ Not just a 9 to 5. You know that they’ll work with you and not talk at you, that you know, it’s respect I think, respecting that you’re a person and not an illness.

Sian’ Yeah.

Mandy’ Cos what we find is a few people I think that they see past that, and that’s all that anybody ever wants is to be treated as a person and not a number or an illness.

I think the best form of help is telling you there’s help there, them telling me I can go to them, rather than them telling me, Oh we want you to do this now or We want you to take this medication. You’re going to be in hospital at this time Because now like I’ve got, before the care plan which has been made up for me, but now they include me in making like a care plan like they’ll say, What do you want to do if you feel depressed? Do you want us to take you to the hospital? Do you want to talk to your, is there a specific person you want to talk to, not just a professional? Do you want to talk to a stranger? Do you want to talk to someone you know And sort of just including the person in the care that they’re receiving, is the best thing, rather than just telling them.

I kind of have a a thing about doctors and hospitals and everything, cos obviously lost my family members, died in a short space of time, in the same hospital as well, I developed a hospital phobia, so I wasn’t too keen on the idea of going to the doctors anyway. It was quite a hard thing to work myself up to do, because I have panic disorder as well, being around people, it’s very difficult. So sitting in a doctor’s waiting room full of people is difficult, and then to be told that it’s just my hormones, really helpful, it’s so good for your self esteem to be told that kind of thing [small laughter].

I refused to go a couple of times, cos I just didn’t want to, I didn’t, I was kind of on a different point where I just didn’t care. And I just really did not care. I didn’t particularly want to go in and listen to what they had to say because as far as I’m concerned, counsellors, psychiatrists, doctors whatever, when I’m in a very, in one of my cynical moods, the only thought I have is that they’re paid to sit there and pretend to care. So I’m a bit cynical about speaking to doctors and speaking to the counsellors and that kind of thing.

Why do you think that is?

I think if I can be so bold that a lot of it has to do with the media because there’s such negative press about everyone, all the time, and about how evil and how conniving people are, it’s quite difficult to then see people in a positive light., from the ways that my friends were reacted to, and the way that I was reacted to, initially it’s then quite hard to try and work up the courage to give people a second chance.

And I usually tend to, I’m not one of these people whose like, Okay, you’ve, you’ve hurt me once I’m never, I’m never gonna trust you again I’m too nice [laughs]. I try to trust people again but, I find that quite difficult with medical professionals. I’m not quite sure why.

So I went to see that consultant person the same day, and she said, she went in without me, it was my parents and her again, and so I was left in the waiting room. And that felt really awful cos I just didn’t know what was gonna happen. And they said you need to go to hospital and so I went to the general hospital and they said we just need to keep an eye on you, your parents don’t feel they can cope with you anymore. They can’t, they can’t manage your behaviour. And I thought, my behaviour? I’m not doing anything. I’m not doing anything at all, how can I be badly behaved? You know I’m just being quiet and just trying to deal with what’s going on in my head.

And they left me there, and I was just like really like scared, I was just like, well they don’t want me anymore or whatever. And I was next to a three-year-old that had some sort of terrible illness, it was, I think I heard it was cancer or something, and she was just screaming just the whole time. And she’d just scream and scream and scream. And then and it was really a clinical setting and stuff.

It was horrific, my Dad just came with me to try and, ‘cos I was just a, a complete mess. My Dad came in you know, with me and he tried to assist me in describing what my symptoms were, and I was just hysterical in this in this doctor’s room, just, it gets to the stage where I was just was just going, you know mental in this, not mental, just really, really emotional in this room, ‘cos I’d reached the end, complete despair, that’s it, and so the doctor was just really great, he was very professional obviously, he’s the fact is I trusted this guy because he’s been my family doctor for 20 years and he’s in his sixties. Well late 50’s, 60’s, and he knew a lot, one of his passions was mental health, so it was very lucky and he was like, you know I trusted this guy and he said, Look I understand a lot, this is very common, and it does, it does end, you know. There is a treatment, whether it’s counselling or prescription medication whatever, so. I did trust him. But it took a few times to trust him.

And when I came back from the GP saying, cos that’s the way it works in this country and my understanding, if you want to see a psychiatrist you have to get a referral, there is a first line, a first hurdle that you have to get over in order to get help from somebody. And I understand you know you’ve got a national health service, it’s a very expensive thing, you need to make sure that the right people get the right care, but it’s difficult to expect a GP to know all of the things they need to know to be able to diagnose something.

And if the guy in the US says that very few people would give me the diagnosis he’s given me, and that’s of psychiatrists, I can’t really expect a GP to be able toand I realise, you know that’s his training, he’s got all sorts, you know he has to deal with the other, you know, a broken knee and you know the common cold and you know, and you can’t expect that, but the, it makes it hard. And I think and everyone I’ve spoken to has said that the way he, the way he dealt with me wasn’t a very good way of doing it.

And so it’s learning to trust my own instincts about who I am and how I’m gonna respond to things, that’s really important. And if a doctor tells me something and I disagree with it, trusting myself to disagree. And ideally if I do disagree to ask them about it, and to have a doctor that can say, Well this is why I think you should do this. And to treat me like an equal partner in, or an equal player in the endeavour of making my life better.

And that’s one thing that I sometimes haven’t gotten from doctors and usually when I do then I [laughs], I stop, or I don’t do any of the things that they’ve suggested, I might still see them but like, it’s just like, Okay well, if you aren’t gonna give me the info I’m not gonna put whatever this chemical is in my body, ‘cos I don’t know what it’s going to do to me, and you haven’t proven to me that it’s going to actually make things any better. And I know that some medication can make things worse.

And they then decided to refer me up to the hospital. Went up there saw a doctor, who examined me; I had my stick at that point. Told me that she couldn’t find anything wrong with my reflexes, my muscle strength, anything like that, and when she found out I had depression, she decided it was all in my head. That was really difficult, that was the closest I had felt to suicide in years hearing that because I felt like she was actually telling me I was insane.

She took my stick away from me because she said I didn’t need it and told me I had to walk without it. That was humiliating. Because I walk awfully without my stick and I walk around inside without it because it’s just my family or my close friends that will see and that’s okay, but I was in a children’s hospital, and she made me walk around without my stick.

She then, and I was saying to her I have had the depression for ages, I have had this for such a long time I have had the headaches side of it, I have had the psychosomatic side of depression, I have had the headaches, I have had the nausea, I’ve also had the feeling of I don’t want to get out of bed and face the world today, but this isn’t, I can’t, I don’t want to get up and face the world today this is, I cannot get out of bed today it’s completely different, and she wouldn’t listen. So then I saw the psychiatrist, the psychologist and the social worker, got discharged.

I went for a meeting in [place name] with another psychiatrist who changed my medication, and then I ended up at [hospital name], the week after that and they doubled my dosage of antidepressants. And it was only there that one of the psychiatrists actually started to take me seriously. Because this was a bunch of mental health specialists that couldn’t understand why I was there really. Cos I mean it was obvious that I’ve got depression and everything, but this was different. And, oh, it drove me mad, it was horrible and I sat there and I would cry myself to sleep each night thinking, Shit what if I’m wrong, what if this is, is actually all in my head

I was supposed to be on the, the government thing of the Care Programme Approach, CPA, which is supposed to be done when you’re, when you move over to that. I’ve actually never had one, I’ve got one, but it was never signed because it was never agreeable because they wouldn’t change it. The way that I was spoken to I was treated like a child. Appointment dates were arranged around them and not me. I had messages continually left on my home phone, The dates I’m free are when again they were aware of my physical health and it leaves me back to you can’t have both, you just can’t have both because they do not take into consideration that because of my seizures are regular I can’t, each day’s different. I could be fine today; I could be really rubbish tomorrow. I was rubbish last night, I’m okay this morning. So, things are so unpredictable you just don’t know.

And that’s also the same how depression works. You know it’s a complete cycle, which they don’t, they didn’t understand that. And it was making me more and more stressed and more and more depressed and more and more anxiety, you know my anxiety was going through the roof.

And I asked to change case workers, cos I checked with my social worker if I’m entitled to do that and she said, Of course you are She said, Any, any professional, you’re allowed to change GP, you’re allowed to change consultant, you’re allowed to change hospitals, you can change anything She said in her line of work, she said that you know, it all ranges, you know if you don’t get on with your social worker you can change. It doesn’t you know, it works like that, that’s how it is.

They refused it. They would not let me move. And they, we, I had it in writing, I asked in writing three times, I asked nicely twice, I even sweet talked to them on the phone, nope, it was refused. I then had it in letter, letter form refusal, in a really nasty kind of way, and that was the last straw. That was it. But I can’t deal with it anymore. If I can’t work with my case worker how am I gonna recover, I can’t, they had the cheek to turn round to me and say, Well why don’t you talk to us Well how can I talk to you if I can’t talk to the person I’m supposed to be working with.

It doesn’t, it makes no sense to me at all. And the issue was a big care meeting was called, over my care because I kicked off, I literally kicked off.

I think I was about 15 and I went and I said I’ve been feeling really low and I think it’s depression. And he sort of, I can’t say he laughed in my face but he sort of chuckled and said, Oh you’re too young to be depressed Just like completely ignored what I said, brushed it off and then just said Come back if you still feel like it So that’s all that happened, I was in there for two seconds and I was out.

And did you go on your own?

Yeah, I didn’t tell my parents that I was going.

Was that your own GP that you’d seen for other things?

Yeah.

Do you think it was a big step for you to take to go to the GP in the first place?

Yes. I think I was getting quite desperate and I was wanting help so I went.

So you didn’t get any advice even, or information?

No [laughs].

Or anywhere you could sort of come back to after a while or anything like that?

No.

So well how did you feel after that incident, about it?

I think I went home and cried. but I, I sort of left it and just sort of struggled on.

There was a nurse at the psychiatric unit and I, they were supposed to be going out on a walk and we’d gone out on one the week before, and they’d told me there wasn’t much walking, but I was actually stuck in bed for the next three days. So obviously when they said we’re going on another walk, I refused to go, which I thought was actually perfectly logical because I didn’t particularly want to be stuck in bed for the next few days. They tried to persuade me to go, and watch other people walking around. I was like, Yes, because I love watching other people doing what I can’t do I got quite upset, understandably I think. I ended up staying. They sent me to sit in the lounge. I was crying by this point, and the nurse they sent in to see me was, is, rather cruel anyway.

No-one liked her. And it wasn’t just because she’d make the anorexics finish their food, or she told the depressives they had to laugh sometimes, it was because she was genuinely nasty. She told someone with an eating disorder they should just roll into the lounge. And she sat down opposite me flicking through paper work and said to me, So what is actually physically wrong with you Erika I went, Well they think it’s Chronic Fatigue She was like, Well is it in tune with your mood She was like flicking through a magazine at this point while she was asking me these really personal questions. And I said, No it’s not psychosomatic, if that’s what you mean She said Did those words leave my mouth Okay then When I’m in a mood where I feel quite low, but not completely down, I can usually cheer myself up, but I’d prefer to be left alone because then I can just think quietly and think about the stupid little things, and make myself feel okay. But she said to me, You know if you don’t talk to me you’re not gonna get better And not being funny but when I’m in this kind of mood I’d rather just be left along please She got up and slammed this magazine back down on the table, and said, Well when you feel like actually doing something about your health, you can walk and come and find me can’t you just to give an example, and that’s not right. I don’t think that’s fair that someone who is being, cos that’s just malicious, that someone whos gonna react like that should actually be allowed to interact with teenagers who have got serious problems. Because we’re, we’re at a tier 4 status, so we’re like supposed to be the most crazy of the crazy lot. And yet she’s allowed to, I don’t think that’s right. She’s actually left now. We’ve put in a couple of official complaints.

But then he played this stupid game, he went right, me and your Mum are going to leave for a minute, he went, I want you to move one thing in my office. And obviously he’s got a bookshelf full of books. He went, Move one thing, it can be a book or anything, just swap its place for something else. He went, Now come back here, and it’s my office and I’ll tell you if I know what you’ve moved.

And he was trying to work it out for about twenty minutes. He went, Right, now you leave the office, and me and your Mum are going to move something, and then you’re gonna come back in, and you can tell me whether, you know what I’ve moved. I went back in, and I just had my eyes fixed on this little, like scruffy mouse, teddy thing, and I looked up and it had gone. And I could feel them looking at me ‘cos I was staring at where it should be, but I looked round, and I was like, I don’t know what you’ve moved. He went, Why did you look up there? And I was like, ‘Cos I was trying to read what that book there was called. He was like, Oh do you want to read it? I was like, No, I thought I did, but I don’t. He was like, So you don’t know what I’ve moved? I was like, No. He went, Do you want me to explain to you why I was doing it? And I went, Yeah. He went, I’m just trying to prove a point, that you’re not listening to what I’m saying. I was like, Yes I am. He went, so how come in my own office, I didn’t know what you moved, he went, and to this point I still don’t know what you moved,

He went, but you knew what I moved the minute you walked back in the room. I went, What are you on about, I don’t know what you moved?

He went, You know I moved little Teddy Kirstie, ‘cos we noticed the minute you walked in and looked right at it. He went, And I moved that ‘cos I just saw you staring at that all the way through, and it was the one thing you’d notice I’d moved.

I was like, Okay did we come here to play games or deal with the problem?

They do help you. Everybody helps you out. And I just think sometimes, Oh you’re stressing me out, you know what mean it, and you’re doing my head in, but they’re not, they’re just trying to help me. And you just think, Oh leave me alone. But they’re just trying to help you. Every single one of them, the support workers, I have many arguments with the support workers, they’re just trying to help me out, and when you realise, do you know what I mean? They’re only doing their job.

Alright. They, they, I think they understand what I mean. ‘Cos sometimes I don’t even understand myself. But they do, do you know what I mean? When I’m on about something I don’t even know what I’m on about. I can’t explain it, but they do my bit, know what I mean, and the, they’re doing the right things to help me, do you know what I mean.

Unfortunately the mental health system in this area, and maybe other areas as well, the place that I was under work on a-three-month-locum system, so you will see them for three months, they go, get another one for three months, they go. So by the time you’d built up a trust you’d built the bond they’ve gone. And I feel that that has been detrimental to my recovery, because I have seen, I have lost count in how many psychiatrists, psychologists I have seen, in, since I was 14.

And not also in the locum side of things, and whether it’s against ageism, sexism I don’t care, but it’s easier for a woman to talk to another woman than it is for a woman to talk to a man sometimes.