08/05/2009 and I’m diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety, it is my 19th birthday, but it doesn’t begin here, my 16th birthday and I have my first CAMHS appointment which I didn’t want to go to so I shrugged my shoulders and left angry at my teachers for referring me behind my back. But earlier still are the signs of depression, anxiety and other differences, self harm and wishing I was dead. The bullying at school was severe, the emotional abuse at home was hell and the abuse on the streets constant. I was also trying to navigate a world that felt alien to me, a world where I didn’t belong, everyone else got it but not me.
My self harm becomes severe and very regular and I start attempting suicide
Its the 08/05/2013, my 23rd birthday and I’m sectioned (not for the first time) and I’m on 1-1, 24 hour observations, I want to die. I would spend nearly 4 months sectioned, 10 weeks of it on 1-1, 24 hour obs, there was a staff member with me everywhere (yes the bathroom too) by now I had a rather longer list of mental illnesses:
Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (AKA BPD) ,Complex-PTSD, major depressive episodes, psychotic episodes, anxiety including social anxiety and OCD
I was seen as a list of diagnoses and not a person, professionals see BPD/EUPD on my records and automatically label me as: manipulative, attention seeking. And it shows in their behaviour.
Although at least now I am no longer living as the gender medical professionals labelled me at birth due to my body, I am at last taking testosterone and my body is changing, but I was still binding my chest daily, I was rightfully on the male ward, but terrified of someone finding out. I was already getting homophobic abuse.
It’s the 12/08/2016 and I’m writing this. I’m still severely mentally unwell. I no longer need to bind my chest though as I at last had chest surgery. I have Tourette’s syndrome, although only diagnosed at the end of 2014, I’ve had tics since about 7, but they are very severe now. My motor tics affect my mobility so much I’m now a full time wheelchair user. No I’ve not given in, I have more freedom now, am in less pain, don’t get stuck because I can’t walk and have to crawl. I wouldn’t be without my wheelchair now. And yesterday I was officially diagnosed as autistic, which answers so many questions of my childhood and feeling like an alien in a place I don’t understand, surrounded by people I don’t understand.
A snapshot of my complicated life as an autistic, wheelchair user with tourettes and severe mental illnesses.
I’m doing what I can with my life, doing a part time history degree with the Open University. I spend time with my fiancé and I geek out about the Tudor period of history and build air fix and Lego models.