What Going To Therapy As A Child Taught Me
As an adult, therapy has been a lifesaver. It’s been a place where I can talk about what I want, how I want, and have someone sit and listen the way I want. Therapy has been one of the best tools I’ve relied on for my mental health, and I’ve come leaps and bounds since I started attending sessions with a private service from the age of 18. I wouldn’t be without my current therapist; she always seems to get what I’m saying, and she’s often quite funny, and she gets me thinking about my own irrational thoughts and behaviours.
She gives me the whole package, in my opinion.
I’ve really enjoyed our interactions, and I would recommend contacting a therapist to anyone who has the time and money to do so. Because yes, private therapy can be quite expensive, and if you’re panicking about your financial situation, attending a £40 to £50 an hour session seems quite ironic.
It’s why the NHS has mental health services that are seriously overstretched, and why more and more charity services (that offer discounted rates) are springing up to lighten the load.
But because of this, it seems we’re failing our younger population. A lot of children have to rely on the national mental health care system, and are rarely presented with an alternative. Parents can’t manage the bill, and little kids certainly don’t have incomes of their own.
Here in the UK, we have a system called CAMHS, for anyone under the age of 18 who are suffering through childhood trauma and any potential mental health issues. I was in the CAMHS system from the age of 9 until I was about 17, on and off.
From my prolonged experience of it, it was quite a mess. And I don’t seem to be the only one. A BBC report from late 2018 reported that ‘at least one area’ in the UK is rationing CAMHS care, and so many kids who are struggling with their lives aren’t receiving help until after a suicide attempt has occurred. Immediately, I can look at this report and believe every word of it.
8 years of confusing messages, rushed sessions, and barely any feedback that’s notable enough for me to remember.
When I first started attending these sessions, it was mostly to do with working through my feelings over my diabetes. I’ve been diabetic since the age of 2 — really, I’ve had to inject my own insulin my whole life, or what counts of it. I remember that made me quite sad and angry; we often lift up children who aren’t railing at their lot in life — we look to sick kids as heroes, dealing with what the world puts them through without a single complaint — and admire how strong and brave they are. But I think it makes perfect sense that someone who hasn’t even reached puberty will often cry over the illness inside them. Over what makes them different. Over what could very well kill them one day; even from a young age, I knew that about my illness.
But the purpose of these sessions soon evolved. They soon become all-encompassing; I’d talk about what I didn’t like about my life, what I didn’t like about my school, about my friends and family, etc etc. When I was about 14, I started refusing to go to school, but that’s an issue far too long for me to get into here. But that’s where my problems with my childhood therapy sessions really started, and here’s what I learned:
It taught me children aren’t listened to, even when they’re in a setting designed for that very purpose. The therapist I had didn’t seem too interested in what I wanted to talk about, and the worries I had. She’d try to quickly resolve them, and make it impossible for me to bring them up again. When I described to her what I thought were symptoms of borderline personality disorder, which I had been worried I was suffering with since about the age of 15, I was told my symptoms ‘didn’t sound like very much.’
It taught me that mental health services weren’t to be trusted. I remember just after my 17th birthday, I finally managed to get an appointment to see a more senior psychiatrist, to talk through my worry over what seemed to be symptoms of borderline personality disorder. I barely got a word out myself before I was told I couldn’t possibly have BPD, and that I’d just read through some things on the internet, and that it was ‘so easy to convince ourselves we can identify with what we read online’. At that moment, it was confirmed what I suspected all along: the therapists I was seeing didn’t know how to talk to kids and young people, and that they had none of the bedside manner someone like me needed. They weren’t to be trusted with what I was experiencing, because even in their eyes, what I had to say wasn’t true.
It taught me that anyone who could help me with my problems would constantly check their watch, and hurry me along. I was threatened with the closure of my case once, simply because I was making no progress, in their eyes. Even with the mess of the therapy I had been receiving, it was still the only place I could turn to when I was overwhelmed (which was a lot), and now there was a chance it would be taken away. It seemed there was no time in the world to deal with the backlog of issues I had.
Ultimately, it made me think therapy is not useful at all. That the people who sat on the other side of the room with a clipboard on their lap were against me. That the medical system wouldn’t ever work for me. Which isn’t true, but it’s certainly the impression a lot of people both over and under 18 are left with.
It’s a systematic problem at heart. We’re all suffering from a lack of focus, and a lack of care. It’s not just the kids who aren’t alright.
Mental health services deserve a lot more funding and focus from the government. Health services need a rehaul to cope with the pressure. Because as it currently stands, it seems when a child or another young person has to rely on such a resource lacking, time-limited system, we can’t help but grow up thinking there’s no time for us. That there’s no help out there; there’s no one to understand.
Of course, not every child or teenager out there is going to have the same experience I did. If a child you know, or a child of your own is suffering from bad and scary thoughts, or they’ve started to self-harm, therapy is the most accessible and useful form of treatment available to you.
But, I’m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist myself, and I’m definitely not a parent! I don’t know what’s best for kids, and I don’t know what it takes to be a psychologist. I’m just someone who spent a lot of time in therapy rooms as a kid, and as a teenager, and I didn’t find what I was looking for.
I’m just glad that as an adult, I gave therapy a chance again.
