This is a letter from my heart; it’s personal. So if this doesn’t interest you, please keep scrolling along. My journey here hasn’t been easy, like most people, I have battled with depression, anxiety and self-worth. My teenage years were some of my darkest times, self-sabotage behaviour which led to me trying to take my life at just 18 and weeks later, I went through another traumatic experience that has impacted the last 13 years of my life. And I am not writing this for sympathy, but more so to reach people who have faced challenges, who need to hear that what they are going through is validated. What they are going through is okay, and it’s normal to have all these emotions build up. You’re not unworthy, and you’re not crazy.

I went from being suicidal to living with high-functioning depression, which made me feel completely numb, to not experiencing joy and not eating so I could feel something. All of this behaviour was overlooked by doctors, by therapists, because I was still doing my day-to-day. I was still functioning, and my blood work was normal; however, my inflammation markers were higher than normal. This is common in people who have experienced trauma who live in a fight/freeze response, which was me for 13 years. Unable to process any of my emotions, constantly caring what other people thought about me, worrying about how I looked, the list goes on.

I was offered antidepressants, which I didn’t take because of weight gain side effects. If you have a girl who is already struggling with her self-appearance, is that the best thing to do? I don’t think so. I was always offered medication, which made me feel foggy and completely uneasy. It made me feel so much worse.

The reason I am writing this is because I feel like we need to be asking more questions, questions that pose for a deeper conversation. What was it like growing up in your household? Did you feel like you were walking on eggshells to please your parents? Saying yes to everything because you were scared of what the outcome would be if you didn’t? Not getting your needs met as a child is traumatic. So why aren’t doctors asking these questions? Instead, they hand out pills as if they are lollies.

The K10 questionnaire looks at the last 4 weeks of your life. Isn’t it about time we changed what we are doing? This is my experience; I understand that everyone is different and has a different experience with the public health system. And I am not saying that doctors and psychologists aren’t doing a good job, I am just saying let’s look at someone’s life rather than the last four weeks. Let’s look for little things that may seem insignificant to you but have a huge impact on the person.

This quote by Dr Gabor Maté, “addiction is not a disease but a coping mechanism for painful experiences, and that trauma is not just the event itself, but what happens inside a person as a result of the event.” Pain is supposed to be felt, and when it’s not, it shows up as physical symptoms like autoimmune disease, and it creates inflammation in the body. So, when my inflammation markers were extremely high, why was no one asking me about how or if I was dealing with my trauma? And I wasn’t.

Travelling for 2 months overseas for me was my wake-up call. I didn’t want to live my life in the state I was living in. I remember growing up and being a really happy girl. I don’t know exactly when that all changed for me, but it did. And this might sound cliché to some of you, but now I live my life for the younger version of me. I have now found peace and confidence that I wish the 18-year-old me could have felt. I believe in myself and I believe in the woman I am becoming.

I am speaking about this publicly because I know there are a lot of you who feel this way. I am one person, but if I don’t use my voice, I am becoming part of the problem. I am one person, one person who hopes to see change, change in the medical system and the justice system.