Hello to all and I'm glad to be here😊I have a lot of lived experience and decided it may be a healthy exercise to communicate with a few peeps. So let me see, key gripes: stigmatisation - this often comes from those who wouldn't have a clue, but I manage mostly by priding myself on my courage, optimism, forthrightness and honesty; also, my efforts to maintain my health. The worst aspect of this I've discovered lately is that I lack credibility because of my diagnosis - even those in the health sector will attest to this, and it's ghastly, unfair and unjust. Recently I phoned triage because the access team doesn't exist anymore (that's how long it's been) and the staff member I spoke to who was reading from my history questioned me about an entirely different condition - is that a strategy to confuse or to complicate? I've been traumatized somewhat by stalking (cyber and real life), bullying, stigmatisation and privacy breaches - it's a long list and it's hard for me to understand why I am subjected to such bad treatment - anxiety has eroded my self-confidence and it's difficult for me to speak up when I should - when an incident occurs I have trouble articulating it because "it's a long story and I have to begin at the beginning" and I doubt I'll be believed. Because I'm so quiet and I don't bother anyone. That's the price I pay for finding inner peace and trying to stay out of trouble, with family, with neighbours, with anyone, anywhere really. Anxiety means for me deep fear, of losing control, of being harmed, and I have a chronic heart condition now to prove it. I'd like for someone to hear my story, not in a therapeutic setting but rather like being interviewed by a journalist - I'm at university and am fairly switched on - I'd like to write my own story but that would mean sacrificing time spent studying. I believe we all have very valuable stories to tell - the world needs to hear us and to learn from us. Stigmatisation is the worst aspect of having a diagnosis next to the diagnosis, and things need to happen - let's get moving on it!
