Trigger warning: please note that this article contains mentions/statistics of suicide, depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder.
Hey! I'm Ella- you might know me as one of YO Bendigo's Youth Councillors. Now that Mental Health Awareness Month is over, and with Wellbeing Week in the near future I wanted to write about youth mental health and my journey to diagnosis.
Youth mental health is a huge issue in the world recently and I feel that more needs to be done about it. Services like headspace are at capacity and wait times for psychologists and psychiatrists are extraordinarily long. A recent report done by the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission found that “the rate of suicide in Victoria is at a five-year high, the rate of mental health-related prescriptions at a 10-year high and the rate of mental health-related WorkCover claims at a five-year high, increasing by 75 per cent during this period.”
The Australian Bureau of Statistics released a National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing in October of 2023. This study had 3 key findings. First, 42.9% of people aged 16–85 years had experienced a mental disorder at some time in their life. Second, 21.5% of people had a 12-month mental disorder, with Anxiety being the most common group (17.2% of people aged 16–85 years). And third, 38.8% of people aged 16–24 years had a 12-month mental disorder.
Like me, others often find the pathway to diagnosis for anything other than depression and anxiety disorders are not only time consuming, but expensive. I was misdiagnosed with depression in 2020. I was put on medication, I started therapy, I started doing all the things to fight against depression. And it worked. By the middle of 2021 I was feeling so great that I convinced my doctor to take me off my meds, my therapist believed I was “fixed”, and all went well in the world. The next 3 years went on a cycle of this; fluctuating between depressed and in control but too scared to go off my medication in case things got bad again. It wasn’t until my friends and family did some research about similar mental illness that we started to wonder if maybe the doctors had gotten it wrong. After another 9 months of different doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists, I was formally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder 2. It only took 5 years to get here, for some it can take their whole life. The relief of diagnosis shouldn’t have to take this long. The data that is consistently being collected around mental health and specifically youth mental health is showing very clearly that the rates are only climbing. This is why I feel funding should be increased in this area in hopes to improve the Australian people’s quality of life.
For those still undergoing their formal diagnosis journey, here are some tips:
- Track your symptoms: it helps speed up your diagnosis if you've noted the severity, frequency and duration of your symptoms
- Do your own research and advocate for yourself
- Bring a support person to your appointments: not only can this help you feel safer, it can also help you remember details, and your support person can provide other perspectives
Do you want to learn more about mental health for young people? Here's some things you can look at:
- Join us for Teen Mental Health First Aid training, where you can learn from an expert on how to support yourself and your friends during times of mental health concerns until a trusted adult can help
- Check out the mental health websites, apps and resources listed at the bottom of our Teen Mental Health First-Aid training webpage
- Visit the friendly staff at headspace Bendigo (on Pall Mall)
- Contact Get 'Psyched, a local youth psychology (on Mitchell St)
Need immediate help?
- headspace Bendigo - https://headspace.org.au/headspace-centres/bendigo/ or
- eheadspace - https://headspace.org.au/my-account/waiting-room/ or 1800 650 890
- Kids Helpline - https://kidshelpline.com.au/ or 1800 55 1800
- Lifeline - https://www.lifeline.org.au/ or 13 11 14
References:
Media release-MHWC's inaugural annual report released (29/11/2024)
https://www.mhwc.vic.gov.au/mhwcs-inaugural-annual-report-released
Australian Bureau of Statistics’ National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing (2020 - 2022)