For me, mental health awareness day is all day, every day

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By Katie Connor

Mental health awareness day is all day, every day, for me and many other people fighting through another day. Yesterday, tomorrow, birthdays, Christmas, next year, they are all mental health days!

1 in 4 in the UK

1 in 4 people in the UK are hit with mental health problems in their lifetimes. And these 25% of Brits are not the stereotypes that you see in the media. We are not “psychos”, “insane”, “crazy”, “weird” or ANY of the many derogatory labels that are set to define us.

Some people say they “don’t understand”, or to “get on with it, your life isn’t even bad”.
I’ll tell you… having a impulsive personality disorder is a challenge. Battling with my mind every day, wanting to die and give up, and yet trying to survive, succeed to live a decent life.

In an instant my moods/emotions can go from one extreme to another. Low to high, high to low. I can never have a stable mood. I overthink what people think of me, or I don’t care. Feeling unloveable, worthless, or on top of the world, like nothing can bring me down. And I find it challenging to control my behaviours.

Worst years of my life – school

During the worst years of my life – school, I lost all my friends. I lost my grades, and most of all I lost myself. I loved to sing, that came to a stop. In order to cope with all the intense feelings at such a young age, my self-harm habit started. I had school children, who didn’t understand, laughing and saying “go cut yourself”. I stopped going to school. Why did people want to be around a “freak”? I was in and out of hospital due to overdoses and self-harm to my arms. My mum and dad didn’t know what to do but take me somewhere they felt I was safer. But I didn’t feel safe anywhere.

After assessment after assessment, I always got turned away, always got told “there are not enough beds for you to get admitted”. I was at a dead end, loss of hope. Children’s mental health services wouldn’t give me an assessment for ADHD at my mum’s request, as they didn’t feel it was necessary. If specialists had given up on me, then what was I fighting for???

I experienced bad friendships, bad relationships. People think it’s okay to abandon you at your lowest. Knock you down when you’re already weak. I was saving people, but who was saving me???

Things started to piece together

I got transferred to the adult mental health services at the age of 18. Within a month I had the diagnosis of impulsive personality disorder. I started treatment, and my psychiatrist was the one that suggested an ADHD assessment during my time with him. I was put on the ADHD waiting list and got an assessment a year later, which was a couple of weeks ago. Finally getting a diagnosis felt like a huge weight off my shoulders. I could finally put a name to something I had struggled with most of my life. Of course it didn’t help with any of the symptoms, like intense emotions. But it helped me to understand how my brain worked and why I would feel these things.

My personality disorder will never go; it’s always going to be there. But I will learn new ways to cope with it, and take on new challenges. I am learning to appreciate the people around me who are supporting and loving me. The things my mum has gone through can’t be unseen or unheard. She may not always understand, but she always supports and loves me – my hero x

A world where mental health awareness day is all day, every day

One day I hope to live in a world where we don’t have to have a mental health awareness day. Where we don’t need to be “raising awareness”, because everyone in the world will be aware and supporting others. I hope mental health, one day, is better supported and isn’t treated differently from someone’s disability, someone’s race or someone’s sexuality.

It’s okay to talk, it’s okay to not be okay.

Katie x