This story is presented as written. As such, views expressed below are the personal opinion of the author. Health systems are complex places to navigate for everyone working and existing within them; stories are presented to help find ways forward – and to reduce shame, not shift it.

I was really really unwell when I was referred to CAMHS. They kept refusing me because I “wasn’t ill enough” or “wasn’t psychotic”- bearing in mind they’d not done an assessment of me in person, they’d just looked at the paperwork and said they had a  full picture.

The crisis team had to step in to get me into CAMHS. I was then passed from pillar to post when I was in CAMHS, before we finally settled in with my psychologist, who essentially just said that I wasn’t ill, and that if they weren’t assessing me for autism I wouldn’t be there.

They put me down as ‘low risk of harm’ when I was being sexually abused; I was worried they’d tell my family and it’d all get out of control. They put me down as ‘low risk of suicide attempts’ when I’d tried to kill myself a number of times.

I ended up lying to get myself out of there.

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