All this week, RTÉ is running an initiative called 'The Big Picture', focusing on mental health in young people. A documentary, Young and Troubled, takes a look at children and adolescents and their experience of mental health services in Ireland - and if you missed the programme, you can watch it here on the RTÉ Player.
Yesterday 16-year-old Megan and 17-year-old Jack joined Ray D’Arcy on RTÉ Radio 1 to share their stories.
Megan told Ray that after her uncle passed away she began to suffer from anxiety about her health, convinced that she was going to die.
"I used to start thinking that I had brain tumours, like out of nowhere…things started to go haywire. I thought, you know, I was next.
"I was the next family member to go…I got really quiet in myself and that’s when the depression kicked in, I suppose."
This combination of anxiety and depression resulted in Megan finding it "a struggle" to get up in the morning, losing interest in hobbies she had previously enjoyed and isolating herself in her bedroom. Her mother, Caroline noticed the change.
"She became very withdrawn. She wasn’t down with us anymore with the family, with her brothers and sisters. She was in the room. You’d go up and the room is in total darkness and Megan is in the corner on her own."
Megan began to self-harm at the age of 12. She described how it felt to Ray.
"It was a relief, in a way. It was like the pain wasn’t inside of me anymore. It was like a relief. It was like my mind had attracted to something else."
Megan hid her self-harming from her family, who put the changes down to the fact that she was struggling to adjust to her first year of secondary school.
She thought about taking her own life and made a plan to do so but thoughts of how it would impact her family made her reconsider.
"That afternoon, I had gone for a walk…I had a letter and everything wrote and the plan was not to return…I just kept getting flashbacks of everything and that just made me [think], you know, ‘I can’t do this’."
Looking back on this period in her life, Megan describes herself as if she were someone else.
"I was someone completely different, you know. There was someone living inside me, almost. I wasn’t Megan."
"There was just somebody else inside of my head and they were, you know, telling me to do all these sorts of things and they were controlling my life…Some days they’re back."
Listen back to the whole discussion on The Ray D’Arcy Show here.
If you feel you need to talk to somebody, The Samaritans have a helpline which is open 24 hours a day. You can speak to them by calling 116123 or texting 087 260 9090.
