Don't call me crazy: Part 2

The second part of 'Don't call me crazy' was on last night
It follows a year in the life of adolescents in the McGuinness unit in Manchester which is an inpatient unit for teenagers with mental health issues
This week the documentary focused on 3 stories
Beth 17, who we were introduced to last week
She suffers with anorexia and depression
Crystal 14, who sees people and animals who aren't actually there
And Gillian 17, who we also met last week
She suffers drastic mood changes and was considered a danger to herself

Beth

Last week we saw Beth really struggling

As I said in the last post, as first I thought that Beth was not that bad and some comments that you left said the same thing

A couple of days later a friend of Beth's left a comment on my blog saying that Beth in fact had been on a medical ward before she was admitted to the unit to stabilise her weight

Refusing to eat or to be weighed, Beth was threatened with being sectioned

Beth thought that they were only trying to scare her

But they did in fact section her

This now meant that they could force her to eat

Beth started to make slow progress

She started going in to the dining room and eating with others

She made an appeal to get her section overturned

Unfortunately it was turned down and she was deemed too sick

I don't know if Beth self harmed before she came to the unit but she started to

In fact it seemed that all the girls there did

Beth described how all the bad feelings and thoughts went away as the blood trickled out

Even though Beth was in the grip of this illness, her personality still shone through

She was bright and bubbly and so pretty

Her friend that commented on the last post said that Beth is now home and doing well

She has returned to her beloved dancing and is going on holiday soon

I hope and pray that she can over come this although I know chances of relapse are high

Maybe the fact that there was an early intervention will stand to her

I hope so

Then we were introduced to Crystal

At 14 Crystal was the youngest on the unit

She spoke frankly about how she could see people and animals

We saw pictures she had drawn of them

They included a little girl and also rats

She gave them names like 7 and 24

So called because they were there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

She said the voices told her to do things

That she was afraid of some of them

Crystal was adopted when she was 4 having been abused at home

It was at this age that she first began to see and hear things

She settled in to her new home but the characters didn't go away

She described how the voices told her to kill her adopted father

Tests were done and Crystal was deemed not to be psychotic and not a danger to herself or others

Her doctor explained that at the age of 4 she had invented a fantasy world to help her cope

She imagined this world so she could also choose to not see them

Crystal was discharged

She is now back at school and doing well

We first met Gillian last week when she escaped the unit and took an overdose

She suffers with drastic mood swings and struggled to control her anger

For a lot of her stay she was being held in the acute part of the unit

It was distressing to see her being restrained and it happened quite often

Gillian had not spoken to her mother in 6 months and this was causing her a lot of distress

Eventually though they did make contact and her mother started to come and visit her

This seemed to be a turning point for her and she began to make progress

Gillian

I thought that the documentary was good

It gave a good insight in to different mental health issues

However I would have liked to have learned more about their back stories

Especially Beth

She seemed to have everything going for her

She was pretty, outgoing and smart

How did she fall prey to this cruel illness?

And I firmly believe that for everything we do, there is a reason

We don't starve ourselves for no reason

There's always an explanation

We also don't starve ourselves because we are vain and want to be thin

It's not that simple

It runs much deeper than that

Restricting and the pursuit of thinness masks a whole host of issues beneath the surface

I wonder what happened to Beth that compelled her not to eat?

And it doesn't have to be this big traumatic event that triggers an eating disorder

More often than not it is a series of little events or triggers

For me it was a combination of things

I was unhappy at home

I was a dancer and swimmer so my body was exposed a lot

I remember every comment anyone ever made about my weight or shape

They are all filed away at the back of my head under the heading 'Reasons to hate myself'

The seeds of my eating disorder were sewn long before I stopped eating

Our experiences, especially as children, mould us in to the person we are today

We look for ways to cope and unfortunately sometimes these methods are unhealthy

Also it was a bit unsettling watching kids who were at their most vulnerable

Yes, it's important to raise these issues and get people talking

Mental health is still something that is whispered rather than spoken about openly

We like to pretend that it's not there

But the reality is that one on four of us suffer from some form of mental health

We don't feel uncomfortable talking about diabetes or a broken arm

So why do we have such an issue about talking about our mental health?

So any of us are suffering in silence

Too afraid to open our mouths

Too worried about what others will think of us

Anxious that people won't understand and think that we are crazy

Talking about it is so important

It's vital

Keeping it all in is exhausting and draining

And it does leak out in other ways

I thought that some of the footage was unnecessary
It showed graphic images of the results of self harm and I'm sure that triggered some people massively
Also showing young people being restrained was uncomfortable to watch
The documentary focused on all the dramatic incidents and failed to show that most of the time nothing happens and people are generally very bored
It did show some of the girls having  fun but I don't think it accurately described the strength of the bond you form with other patients

I have huge admiration for the young people that were in this documentary

They showed huge courage for speaking out

They also gave these conditions a face and I think that's so important

Did you watch this documentary?

What did you think of it?