My Diagnoses

(Content warning: mention of lowest weight, self-harm, trauma, suicide)

I guess I should start off this mental-health focused blog by telling you about my mental health. Specifically, my diagnoses. On this blog, I will be sharing my experience of multiple mental illnesses, my opinions on controversial topics, and help for friends and family whose loved ones have any sort of mental illness themselves.

When I was 14, I was diagnosed with severe Anorexia Nervosa (restricting subtype). I probably had the illness for around six months prior to this. I was always slightly underweight as a child and a young teenager but just before my fourteenth birthday, my weight plummeted down to 40kg (6.2 stone/88lbs). I was tall for my age too and this put my BMI at a dangerous 14.2. This was after I had gained at least 3kg after being scared into ‘recovery’. I estimate my lowest BMI to be around 13-14. I was in the 1^st/2^nd BMI percentile in weight for others of my age. To put this into perspective, a healthy BMI is 18-25 and to be considered a healthy weight, and in percentiles, you should be above the 5^th and less than the 85^th. According to others, I looked emaciated.

On a daily basis, I was asked (by complete strangers!) if I was ‘anorexic’, to which I stammered and hurriedly walked away in response. At my worst, I used to skip breakfast, using the excuse that I didn’t have time to eat it. Then, at lunch, I gave away my food to my concerned friends or, if they refused to take it, I’d simply throw it away. When I got home from school, I’d switch on the Wii and play Just Dance obsessively for hours on end. The game started out as just a bit of fun but I quickly became enraptured in the thrill of burning calories and I rode that exercise and hunger high. At dinner, I would eat as little as possible and I’d eat in my room and away from prying eyes. If I was feeling particularly nervous about eating, I’d hide away food in cupboards, bathroom bins or even out a window and into a bush. In the evening, I remember browsing pro-ana sites, staring at ‘thinspiration’ and googling how long it takes to starve to death.

I don’t remember being suicidal or even depressed but I must have been unhappy to be searching how to die at the age of fourteen. In addition to this, I had started self-harming. I don’t know why I started. All I remember was that one day, I took a pair of nail scissors and I ran the sharp point over my arm again and again until it bled. This I kept to myself for a very long time. My parents already knew about my anorexia and I didn’t want them to find out about this. I wanted it to be mine. My own secret. However, they discovered it eventually (while we were on holiday in America; I was on the beach and not careful enough to hide my cuts) and immediately brought me to see the child psychiatrist who diagnosed me with moderate major depression.

At the same time as this, I had begun to experience crippling anxiety and, around once a week, a full-blown panic attack. This would be over social situations, going out into town, buying something from the shops. The mere thought of having to interact with a stranger terrified me. During my panic attacks, I would be convinced that I was having a heart attack, dying, or in some other serious danger. Despite my blindness to my anorexia and depression, I immediately suspected some sort of anxiety disorder. I googled and searched online for symptoms and sub-types and found social anxiety disorder. I mentioned it to my therapist during one of my sessions who told my psychiatrist and there I received my diagnosis of generalised (not social) anxiety.

A few years later, after my initial stint in the mental health services, I was discharged. However, not long after I left, I began to hear voices. Small whispers that would say my name over and over again. I also started to think very oddly about situations. I thought that there were cameras in the trees hidden at my school and that the government was watching me through the webcam of my laptop. Eventually, it progressed to hidden cameras in my room and mind control through the wifi. I told this to my psychiatrist during a medication review and she promptly referred me to the Early Intervention for Psychosis team whose doctor diagnosed me with experiencing a psychotic episode. It’s interesting to note here that I still haven’t been formally diagnosed with any psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia or schizoaffective. I have no idea why.

Fast-forward several years later. I’m eighteen years old and my anxiety is gone and my psychosis in remission. I still have depression and anorexia nervosa. I had accepted my lot with that and I thought that would be that. No more nasty surprises. Or so I thought. During my first month of university, I had my first ever flashback. I never had one before but I knew instantly that was what it was. I thought that the trauma that had happened to me was happening all over again, I thought I was back in London, back with the childminder. When it was over, I was very much shaken up which lasted for several days. I told my care co-ordinator and eventually a doctor. She didn’t formally diagnose me as that was the first time in meeting her but she suggested that I had some form of post-traumatic stress.

This made sense to me as I was also searching the internet for something else. Borderline Personality Disorder (or BPD). For a while, I had suspected that I had a personality disorder. It was only after meeting someone else with BPD that everything fell into place. My issues with abandonment, overattachment, impulsiveness, sensitivity to rejection or criticism. People who suffer from borderline also report high rates of sexual abuse, eating disorders, and self-harm. I discussed the possibility of having BPD with my mum who dismissed my questioning, saying ‘I’m not severe enough, like your aunt, to have BPD’. Two suicide attempts later and she agreed with me. We both brought it up with my care co-ordinator who said it was ‘highly likely’ and would be ‘unsurprising’ if I had borderline personality disorder. That was last week. Now I have an appointment with the psychiatrist coming up and we’re all going to bring it up with them. Whether I get diagnosed or not, we shall see.