Hi everyone,
I should probably introduce myself quickly, my name is Kat and i am one of YoungMind’s VIK members, currently living in the East of England, struggling with long term mental health problems and constantly campaigning for better services for young people.
We’ve just had the morning session and can i just say it has been amazing. Lots of faces old and new and some really mind blowing thoughts and ideas being bounced around, the atmosphere here is incredible. Everyone is so pro-active and so passionate about the things we’re speaking about here today and it’s wonderful to be surrounded by so many like minded people.
I also wanted to note down a few of the things that have come up today that have really stood out for me personally:
*Young people in mental health services feel like they’re just “ticks in a box” which is so dehumanising!
*We are not listened to. Doctors and services often seem to have their own agenda..they already know what they’re going to diagnose us with or what medication they want us on and we don’t have a say in what happens to us-definitely not “No decision about us without us”!
*We’ve been told that because we have a mental health problem we shouldn’t aspire to achieving anything because we’ll never manage..sometimes it feels like they make the glass ceiling so low that we hit our head every time we try and even stand up and it’s not fair. We can and do accomplish amazing things and no one should ever tell you that you can’t.
*Communication is vital and right now a lot of the time it just isn’t happening. Services aren’t talking to young people and the services aren’t talking to each other either and everyone is losing out because of this.
*Young people are often not given appropriate treatment, we’re stuck on medication without psychological therapies or we’re given leaflets and told to come back in “an emergency”..but when we do we’re told we’re too ill
*Just because we’re young we’re not idiots or incapable of understanding what is going on, listen to us and treat us with some trust and respect-you will be rewarded. For treatment to really work you need a working two way relationship.
And of course so, so much more has been said but i will leave it at that for now!
Kat