When The Box Doesn’t Fit

Dear York,

I shouldn't have had to develop an eating disorder because no one would help my depression.

When I was referred to mental health services, they shouldn't have refused to see me (without talking to me) simply because I have chronic pain and a physical disability.

My mental health is separate to my physical health stuff. My mental health doesn't cause my physical health and my physical health doesn't cause my mental health. They affect each other, they affect how I can manage both but they are separate.

Mental health services insisted I needed to go to the pain clinic. Months of waiting for that appointment, with little mental health support, meant my depression and self harm got worse. I could no longer 'manage' my depression through self harm, so I fell back on another unhealthy coping mechanism, an eating disorder.

By the time I was seen by the pain clinic, my eating disorder had really got its claws into me and I was physically and mentally very unwell because of it.

The pain clinic said they couldn't help, that I needed to see mental health services.

Months and months later, a lot of begging and my manager writing to my GP surgery and I finally, finally got somewhere.

By this point I was incredibly ill and needed significantly more help from services. It took much much longer for me to recover from the eating disorder and I needed to begin physically recovering before I could begin to address the psychological aspect of it all.

A few years on from a point where I could say I was mostly recovered and I still firmly believe that if my depression had been addressed when I went to the GP and was referred on, I would not have developed an eating disorder. And if I had, it would not have been anywhere near as severe as it was.

Physical health does affect and impact on mental health.
Mental health does affect and impact on physical health.

However, someone can experience both without one causing the other.

I am not being hyperbolic when I say I could have died without getting any help because no one thought I fitted into their box.