[lyssie]

Hey all!

How are you? I'm just conjuring up this post to talk about mental illness really.

I was initially diagnosed with severe obsessive compulsive disorder when I was 16 and severe depression so was put straight onto an antidepressant. Things got increasingly worse with distress and I was put onto a 1st gen antipsychotic. I was admitted to the child and adolescent, private young persons unit in Sevenoaks for 4 months.

Since then I've been a prolific self harmer :'(

I've come away this time from ACU with the diagnosis of (its a long one!) emotionally unstable borderline personality disorder.

I'm now on different antidepressant and antipsychotic (venlafaxine plus aripiprazole, which is thankfully a 2nd gen antipsychotic!).

I'm very swingy, they're wondering if I have a rare type of bi-polar disorder due to going from mania to suicidally depressed within all but a few days (generally its weeks, not days!).

Wondering if anyone else suffers from mental illness. Plus I think I may perhaps be speaking for most/all of us when I say that with the pain - the depressive cycle doesn't help. It's like: pain doesn't help the depression and the depression doesn't help the pain (which I find with trying to physically relax and spasticity etc.).

I hope that has made sense? (Please excuse me if I ramble at times - 'ramble' is a middle name of mine!) :P

Lyssie