mental health Q&A (potential TW)

toffuna101

ask me anything to do with mental health. ill try my best to reply. i first got this idea when i was scrolling through youtube when i was staying up until 1:30am today. i got some sleep dont worry. some common questions (along with some answers):

question: does it ever get better?
answer: i dont really like to be cliche, and this can depend from person to person, but generally it does get better. whether that be in days, weeks, months or even years. my dad once told me that someone can have problems in their early life, in the middle of their life and at the end of their life. and for me personally it just happened to be in my early life. now of course you could get really unlucky and the universe just fucks up your life for the majority of it, but there should be positive bits in between. i dont know, im not really an expert so take my response as a grain of salt.

question: what mental health diagnoses do you have?
answer: good question. psychosis and depression. i asked my psychiatrist if i could have a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. i didnt specify what type but itll very likely be depression type since i have no bipolar symptoms. and he said that in camhs he doesnt really diagnose under 18s with a proper diagnosis since their brains are still developing. but nevertheless he said that he would look into it for me in my file. if i do get the diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder ill tell you all. its just that at the moment my current diagnoses seem very general. psychosis is an umbrella term for other psychotic disorders.

question: have you ever been sectioned?
answer: yes, under a section 2 and a section 3. its extremely hard to be sectioned in this country. more on that in the next question.

question: i want to get sectioned. how do i get sectioned?
answer: so you want to be sectioned. trust me, you dont. in my experience of being in a psychiatric hospital it was positive, however ive heard mostly negative things about psychiatric hospitals. people getting overly restrained, people being mistreated, all sorts of things. i was just lucky to be placed in the same county as where i live as people get moved across the country because of the lack of mental health beds. this means that they could be on the other side of england. furthermore unless if youre really ill and you cant be managed in the community you wont get a bed at a psychiatric hospital. in my personal experience i was really ill. and even then they were debating on giving me a mental health bed at a psychiatric hospital. i was actually going to be treated in the community but when they realised how unwell i was they decided to transfer me from a general hospital ward to a psychiatric hospital. thinking back on it now they definitely needed to stabilise my meds. so yeah you dont want to be sectioned. youre better off being treated in the community where you can live your life.

question: what are some healthy coping skills that youve picked up over the years?
answer: listening to music, watching films or youtube videos, reading, researching about things.

credits to diary of lydia.

Amy22

@toffuna101 Thanks for being super open about your experience dealing with mental health and I think it's great you did a Q&A session, because for a lot of people they may find it helpful to hear from a personal experience. I found your story interesting actually and it sounds like you have been through quite a lot . And this might sound cheesy but I think its very brave of you to share your experinces with us all. I totally echo what you said about mental health getting better because it can vary from person to person. After my dad was in hospital with his hip infection it changed the way me and my mum thought of things. I now try to take each day as it comes and I try not to worry about the week ahead or what will happen in a few months time.