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0 By Anonymous
My mental health, from the start. I want to explain how childhood traumas can cause mental health issues.
I was born on the 5th August 1999 on a Thursday, which makes me 19 years old.
As a child, I grew up in a corrupt home with my mum, my older sister and my older brother. My mum was a single mother, as my older brother and sister’s father had passed away due to a car accident. 8 years later, my mother met my father. They then had me, on the 5th August 1999. Heart conditions run in my father’s side of the family. My nan lost her life to a heart attack, and shortly after I was born, my dad passed away from a heart attack too.
My mother was on heavy drugs and struggled with her mental health. We lived in a flat and she was drinking and taking drugs heavily and couldn’t handle us children along with the lifestyle she chose to pursue. My brother and sister were taken to live with their nan and I lived with my auntie and uncle. Eventually, after my mother battled with Depression, Addiction and OCD herself, she was on the mend and able to see us again. I started visiting home regularly until I almost moved back in. Although my heart always remained with my aunt and uncle, as they provided me with love, which I couldn’t receive from my own mother and father for obvious reasons.
By the time I was 7, I had lost everyone
My mother met my other brother’s father, who ended up taking me on as his own. I called him dad, as well as my uncle. However, he used to domestically abuse her, which I never used to see. I’d only hear the whimpers and screams. Until once, when I was at my home and he was physically abusing her in my front room, and my sister reacted and hit him. I was just a child. Before the age of 7, I had mentally lost my mum to mental health and substance misuse, my dad to an illness, and my siblings.
My 18 year old brother suffers with ADHD and Aspergers. He always had contact with his grandma and grandad due to the vulnerability of my mother. Eventually, he would see them more than us and moved into their home. At this point, I had then lost my little brother. During this, I also had another two baby brothers. They are only one year apart in age. As a child, I was praying that my mother would correct herself and I could live the life any other child would dream of, but I wished too hard.
She Ran Away
My two younger brothers’ father was younger than my mum. He was almost, mentally, like a child. Still involved with drugs, I remember him sniffing cocaine from the kitchen table, always drinking and having his friends around my home. I was just sent up to my bedroom so they could do as they please. This is where I was made angry and screamed, “I hate you”, and punched and kicked holes in my doors. They would always fight and always shout. I then witnessed domestic violence in the second relationship… and they both lasted years. It wasn’t as though we only went through it for a few months.
After years of the same trauma, I think she had had enough. She ran away and no one knew where she went to, who she was with, nor what she was doing or taking. Eventually, we found her. She was at the house of another man. A man who she found comfort in, peace and love. A man who has never touched her 10 years on. But by this point, I was broken as a child, and my mind was scarred. I had lost my siblings, my mother, and my father. In a few years, I had experienced more abuse than any child would receive in their whole lifetime.
Fighting to be Heard
I struggled at school. Particularly because I would see my brother every day, but we didn’t speak, as it was almost like we didn’t know each other. I just used to cry. I’m not sure where the mental health started. I just remember crying every time I was stressed or worried. Almost like anxiety. I would get crippling pains in my chest, my head would run marathons and my heart would beat so fast. Particularly when I started exams and sitting in exam halls. Every time I sat in silence with a large crowd of people, my mind went blank, my heart started racing and, I realised, I was suffering from panic attacks.
Eventually, I was removed and sat in a room on my own. Thankfully, I was able to complete my exams. In school, I went to the doctors after continuous breakdowns and low moods. I then disclosed that I thought I was “depressed”. My doctor asked me what I thought it was to be depressed and I replied, “To be sad and want to die”. He then told me I wasn’t depressed as my whole emotions hadn’t developed yet at such a young age, and I felt humiliated. I had to fight and then was referred to CAMHS, which I did not attend, as it was the same time as my exams and I felt anxious about going due to how awful the appointment was.
Suffering In Silence
I suffered, again, in silence. All throughout sixth form, until university. I now live in a home which is full of shouting and screaming. I cried to my doctor and told her I was “suicidal” and thought I was “depressed” for the second time. She told me, “I’m not just going to prescribe you anti-depressants, you need to see a psychiatrist first”. I agreed to let myself suffer for some more time. I said, “It’s urgent, I’ve been suffering for years on my own and it’s getting too much”. She said she would make a referral to the mental health team. As I was 18, it would be an adult service. She also said, “Unless you have your suicide note ready, ready to jump off a bridge, I don’t need to ring them right this second, I’ll send a letter in the post”.
At this point, the problem was, I was craving suicide, I didn’t want to be here. I could say I had no intent to commit, but what’s to say I wouldn’t have a bad day and accidentally do it.
My Diagnosis
I had self-harmed since school. It was pointed out in the PE changing rooms by other girls. It’s now 2018, I have been self-harming, physically cutting myself for four years. I had my referral to the CMHT and had a two hour long appointment from start to finish with my psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with Depression, Anxiety and Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, also known as BPD.
My now 12 year old brother has also just been diagnosed with BPD as well as ADHD. I can’t let this poor soul go through this alone. I’ve attempted to commit suicide twice, both from overdoses. I was taken to hospital with one, which led me to be put on a drip for over 20 hours to flush my organs through.
I Think About Suicide Every Day
I’m 19 now and I think about suicide every day. I self-harm regularly, I’m on medication, I attend group therapy for my BPD, I have a psychiatrist, a CMHT and a care coordinator. My aunt and uncle’s relationship fell apart, and I feel like I’m reliving my childhood. The relationship which I admired and told everyone about, how amazing these two people are, is now gone. I lost her, and her children who I love like my own brothers and sisters.
She and I had a physical fight. We were both angry, so I understand why it happened, although “You do not hurt someone who you love, you do not hurt someone who you love” was running through my head at the time. I was comparing the situation to my childhood. I think about how we used to be, all the time, and it kills me. I’m deeply sorry. I didn’t mean for it all to happen. I had lost my dad, my mum, my siblings and now them.
My heart aches, it’s broken. I am suffering mentally, physically and emotionally. She’s training to be a counsellor and told me there was nothing wrong with me. She said my mental health is “put on” and I “cut myself up for attention” and “it’s because your boyfriend doesn’t want you”. The betrayal from your own family hurts more than a physical fight. Ever since, I cry, I am suicidal and want it all to end.
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I Don’t Know How To Love
Realistically, I’m scared to die. However, I also want to die so I don’t have to put up with how I feel. I’ve never had a relationship because I don’t know how to love. I feel like I’ve lacked the love myself so I wouldn’t even know how to give it out which is the sad part. And when someone is my world, they are my whole world and it’s crippling. The thought of abandonment mentally kills me, and you would go to extreme lengths to stop people from leaving your life, both relationships and friendships.
People ask me what I get from self-harm because the problems are still there after I cut. The problem is when you don’t feel like you are alive, you feel empty and alone. When you harm yourself, it feels normal, you bleed, you feel physical sensations, and I understand I am living.
However, self-harm isn’t always about physically harming yourself. It’s also getting into toxic relationships where you are used. Used for sex, where they don’t care about your feelings or how much you are suffering, but you have to put that in the back of your mind because you can make yourself feel loved. Loved from the affection from other people, even if it’s for 10 minutes, you feel appreciated. Spending money until you’re in debt, because it makes you feel good. Endless shopping sprees, overeating or starving yourself. I still feel as though people are lacking the knowledge to understand what it’s like to live inside the body of someone with a mental illness.
A Culture of Fear
Your mind screams at you. How you shouldn’t have done that, how you are worthless, how you are fat, how you are a failure and how suicide is the only way to escape from these thoughts, the suffering and the voices. I put my head in my hands and let this take over until I believe it as the truth. It has now manipulated my mindset. This person in my head, who I haven’t met, who isn’t living, tells me how I should treat myself and how I should live my life.
The voices and the person in my head have made me physically and mentally despise myself. How can this have so much influence over how I feel? Maybe it’s because the stigma surrounding it means that there’s already an existing prejudice about the illness, which creates a culture of fear, for both the sufferer and their loved ones.
Don’t Suffer In Silence
I’m now 19 years old. The abnormal life I lived, due to witnessing abuse as a child and neglect from love, has meant I have a deep fear of the washing machine and the hoover as well as shouting. When I hear loud noises like this I sit on my bed, with my fingers in my ears, trying to block it all out, almost like I have flashbacks to my childhood.
Don’t suffer in silence, mental health is a silent killer. They say time heals, but the mind never forgets. Stop the stigma and spread the love. The mental battle continues, be kind always.
UNITED STATES
UNITED KINGDOM
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