Getting help + accepting you need it

When I first thought about sending in a story I thought how could I? I'm still depressed, I'm still suffering why would anyone want to read my story? But then I thought how could I not?

I got help and now I'm on the road to recovery and if I can offer some help to people who could possibly go through what I did then I want to and I want to prevent it.

I first started suffering from depression about 2 years ago. Like many people I didn't know where to turn. I tried the school counsellor but she offered me little help or support. I tried a teacher who told me it was all my fault.

I tried a friend who told me I had too many problems. I guess an important thing was I didn't stop asking for help until I got it. Too many people give up trying when they don't get the help the first time. If you need help keep asking until you get it.

I then decided I had no one left in my 'real' life who I could talk to so I called Kids Helpline. They were great. I had a really great counsellor there but after a while they couldn't offer me the support I needed. I thought well, thats it, another person is dumping me and thats nearly where I gave up.

Kids Helpline gave me a referral to a psychologist but I was too scared to go to her in fear that my parents or friends would find out. After a while of feeling terrible and self-harming and crying I decided it was worth giving the health centre a call and I got an appointment.

After a couple of months of seeing her I knew it wasn't working and by this time my school had realised there was a problem and called my parents in to talk to them.

I had to see a different psychologist and for the first time in my life I saw a psychiatrist. It was a scary experience for me, it meant admitting, really admitting, I needed help.

This psychiatrist and psychologist offered a turning point for me. Things became out of control and I needed to be hospitalised, three times. It allowed me to see I really did need help and it allowed me to take control.

If I hadn't kept asking for help, if I had accepted that everything was my fault, if I accepted everything was always going to be this way, I would never have got better. Instead I chose to keep talking and talking and talking until I found someone who could help, someone who would be able to turn things around for me, someone who would help me make things better.

Even now I'm not 100% better. I'm still depressed at times. I still suffer from an eating disorder. But now I can see there are times when living is the best thing for me and I am determined to stay out of hospital. I'm enjoying life more than I have in the past 2 years and most of all I accept that I'm going to need help for a long time yet and I am willing to accept that help.

If anything comes out of me writing this story, I want people to realise there is help and people will understand, you just have to keep talking until you find those people who understand and just remember that things can always turn around and in time they will get better.