Fuck It.

This is potentially the hardest post for me to write, yet I feel it needs to be said.

People need to become more aware that mental illness is really quite common, and that it isn't something to be shunned or ignored.

My issues are ones shared by so many others, and they need to be addressed. This blog isn't going to do that, but hey, it's a pin head of a start.

And, well, if you think of me differently because of this post, that's on you. This is me. I make no apologies for who I'm meant to be.

Over the last few years a lot of shit has happened, and I'm still trying to come to terms with a lot of it.

I guess the only place to start is at the beginning, which is hard when it's not clearly defined, so bear with me if this doesn't make complete sense.

By the start of grade 12, my mother had separated from my step father, Phil, and was filing for divorce. This was hard for a lot of reasons, the least of which that it was a rather messy break up, and he'd been my only father figure since I was 2; but nevertheless, I managed to juggle emotionally supporting my mother, living in a small house with far too many people, part time work and my school work.

At the very end of grade 12, I, rather unthinkingly, wrote my reflectional speech about what it had been like to have had an eating disorder for the past year a half. (Needless to say, I was encouraged to present this at lunchtime with only the teacher and a friend present).

Obviously, that started a chain reaction of events like a firecracker. Ms Carlin went to Mr Pokarier and Ms Itsikson, who in turn called in the district guidance counsellor, Barbara something-or-other. She sent me to a doctor to get a check up, helped me to break the news to my mother and referred me to the Child and Youth Mental Health Service (CYMHS). I went there once and met my to-be counsellor, who told me to find a different doctor and sent me to Logan Hospital for a complete physical examination. (As confused as I was yet?). So I went, and met with a doctor who actually turned out to be a psychiatrist, who did the examination, found nothing physically wrong with me other than my weight, and interviewed me.

That was when I got my first diagnosis: Anorexia nervosa.

She decided it would be best to admit me to the adolescent mental health ward in the hospital. She wanted to do it all that afternoon, but I begged off until Monday afternoon, to give me time to do my last few pieces of assessment, determined that my grades should not be determined by approximations and past results.

Monday comes, I am absolutely sick to my stomach with nerves, and go to Ms Itsikson to ask for leniency for the assessment, which she grants immediately, almost relievedly.

I say goodbye to the few friends who knew, went home to pack my bag, and returned to the hospital where I was taken to the ward.

Anyway, one week later, they've gotten 2kg on me, enough to allow me out for the formal. So mum and my sister turn up, but both have incredibly red eyes. I eye them warily, glance at my case manager who quickly ensures that I have my supplements and ushers us out the door. I get into the car, no one is telling me what's going on and why they're both crying, and then my mum's mobile rings. My sister answers and then says to my mum, 'It's the police. They want to know what to do with the car'. I stare at them, completely bewildered and concerned. So my mum looks at me in the rear view mirror of the car, and says to me: 'Fleur, Phil's dead'.

Cue utter shock.

He had killed himself the night before; carbon monoxide poisoning.

Turns out my case manager knew before I did.

A few panic attacks and a bit of crying later, I'm back in hospital.

Not long after, they caught on to the fact that the previously lowered moods had significantly worsened, surprise surprise, and that my anxieties were not decreasing, and so began to medicate me.

A few months later when they realise that this is more than grief, they give me my second diagnosis: Major depression.

After 3 months, I'm significantly heavier, on prozac to help the depression and anxiety, and released, completely unprepared, back into the world.

I go home, completely fall apart, get readmitted far too many times for anyone's good until they lower the readmission weight by 15kg and I move to the Gold Coast. I go to a new doctor who proceeds to mess around with my medication until I no longer know whether I'm coming or going, but his scales seemed to like to stay around the same number for a couple of months, which turned out to be good enough for the psychiatrist who saw me twice in the whole six months, both times in the space of a week. So I was let off the involuntary treatment order and immediately ceased all therapy, having found it more detrimental than helpful.

And anyway, here I am. Just a confused kid with too many diagnoses and not enough solutions.

I get that hardly anyone is going to read this, and even fewer will even care. But that's okay. This isn't a cry for attention, and I don't want pity. I just feel that the time has come where I am strong enough to tell my story, even if only in this weak little way, to five people at most.

But it feels good to have this out there, to have owned up to myself at last.