How has mental illness affected your life?

How mental illness has affected my life ?

I feel like I have missed out on a 'normal' adolescence.
I can't seem to have a lasting relationship with anyone.
I feel isolated and lonely a lot of the time, like noone understands.
I feel trapped, like I can't enjoy myself, go certain places, make friends, be happy..
It has affected my academic achievements.
Day to Day tasks that are trivial become a struggle.

Basically, mental illness have affected most areas of my life.
In adolescence, It was just seen as hormones, normal aspects of being a teenager. I think when you hit post-18 and you still feel the same, you realise that you suffered throughout adolescence, its just hard to distinguish what is normal teenage behaviour and what is mental illness.
Even back then I knew that being unhappy all the time just wasn't right..

I think mental health services are in a bad state in this country really. The first choice is always medication and you often have to wait a while for talking therapies, you should be able to choose what treatment you want to follow and not have to wait weeks/months for talking therapies. Waiting for a therapy doesn't help someone whos in daily distress. Doctors don't have a consistent view of things, they each suggest their own favourite antidepressant, some don't seem to understand the chemical theories of mental illness, some don't even seem to understand mental illness at all....

My sympathy lies with everyone here who has posted, as one way or another we all have been affected in some part of our life, be it health, relationships, eating, general mood, self-image etc. Someday, we will be able to conquer our own troubles and lead a better life.

I agree with those saying they have been failed by the nhs. I believe that they need to have more stringent targets with mental health. There is no time to waste with mental illnesses, waiting lists should be less than a month.

I was actually pretty impressed with the NHS mental health services. I was originally seeing my GP several times a week no problem, then he referred me to a psychiatrist who I saw the next week. I left uni after seeing that psychiatrist so everything was transferred to another area of the country and that only took about 2 weeks too. Saw another psychiatrist for a while then got transferred again with little wait to a specialist team, who are great.

Perhaps I was just really lucky?

That sounds so scary mate, sorry to hear that. How old are you now if you dont mind me asking? How long have you been experiencing these symptoms? Hearing your symptoms I would have thought you'd have schizophrenia!

I've made about 15 attempts at writing something here. Every time, I've given up the will to continue and deleted it.

Writing a reply on a forum should not be this difficult.

I'm 23 and been experiencing the psychosis symptoms for around 2 years possibly a bit longer. Before that had depression for many years.

My brother suffered a psychotic episode around this time last year and has since been suffering from psychosis which is such a terrible thing and is really destroying my family's life. The things he does and says are just unbelievable, I wouldn't wish this on anybody; but we can't get help because the psychiatrists he sees can't discard what he is saying as not the truth. So he's not getting the help he truly deserves, and we as a family cannot get any help. People come round and say to us to stick it out and be there for him, but how can you when he tries to kill my dad or calls my mum a disabled bitch. It's heartbreaking and we just can't see a way out of it. I'm not sure about the provision available for people with depression, anxiety, bi polar etc... but for people suffering in the way my brother and family is, this country's mental health care is an absolute joke.

I'm 23 and been experiencing the psychosis symptoms for around 2 years possibly a bit longer. Before that had depression for many years. My diagnosis seems to change depending on which of my psychiatrists I see, one seems to think psychotic major depression the other schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder. I don't particularly care for the diagnosis though, will let them debate amongst themselves and come up with mumbo jumbo.

I've had depression for a long time, but lately I think I'm starting to see/hear things that I'm not sure are real. Can I ask how your psychosis symptoms started out?

I had that problem too, though my symptoms were not as severe/frequent as yours. Different psychs deciding different things, resulting in me not getting proper treatment for ages, with rather dire consequences That said, I get the impression that the line between psychotic major depression and schizo-affective disorders isn't particularly clear-cut sometimes. Sorry that you've been mucked around like that though

How has mental illness affected my life? That's very difficult to answer, not least because I've apparently been this way my whole life but nobody noticed It's changed me into someone that people don't recognise. It's controlled and endangered my life. It's made me incredibly paranoid because my mood can change with very little warning. It's trapped me in/out of rooms/buildings. It's made me hurt people and told me to kill some (fortunately I didn't!). It's left me bedridden at points and completely dependent on others for food, being able to walk, etc. It screwed up uni for me.

It's basically made me scared of living, which is rather problematic (Out of respect for certain people who put everything on the line to help me, I can't detail everything.)

It really does seem as if mental healthcare is a postcode lottery. Oxford's EIS is notorious for being appalling, apparently (and they were ), whereas my particular London borough are for the most part very efficient and helpful

You should speak to your GP or whoever you see if you think you might be hearing or seeing things that aren't real. It could just be a short term thing and in many cases for most people it is just a short term occurrence that can arise from things like stress, mood changes, etc. For a while we thought my cousin might be the same as me, but her symptoms of hearing things only last a few weeks at most and since then they've never reoccurred.

For me it started with misinterpreting social cues, I mistook genuine accidents and quirks of nature for malice and deliberate intent against me. I thought people were going out of their way annoy me, if there was someone mowing their lawn they were doing to annoy just me even though I didn't know them, if someone glanced at me in the street they were doing it because I was under surveillance and being watched. Then I started hearing stuff, people talking about me. At first I just found it annoying but then I started believing some of the stuff they were saying and become even more paranoid.

That's how it pretty much started out, not so bad at first but then gradually worse and worse.

This site might help you it's got some info on psychosis plus there are two videos on the site about developing it, living with it, and then finally treating it.

http://www.ei-team.org.uk/
First video: http://www.ei-team.org.uk/video/?src=ei_team_vid.flv
Second video: http://www.ei-team.org.uk/video/reconnect.php

How did you deal with your trichotillomania? Although not diagnosed by a doctor (as it's not really necessary, the symptoms are pretty obvious) I pull the hairs out of my arms, eyebrows and the back of my head near my neck. Any tips would be great!