I have a real fucking problem with how I'm reacting to other conditions that real people suffer from

Is this how it works on the UK? I thought you had to get referred by your GP... I could be wrong though but that's just what I did last time

 

I think that's generally true, but to find out for sure you can totally call the nearest psych clinic to ask about it. You say something like:
'I have problems that I think you might be able to help me with. Can I make an appointment directly or do I need a GP referral?'

If you generally like your GP and they seem competent wrt mental health issues you can also ask which providers they recommend. At least in the Netherlands GPs generally know about these things due to referring other patients and hearing their experiences and getting the letters from the specialists.

 

In the UK, yeah, you generally get referred through your GP if you want to go on the NHS. If you can afford private, you can just schedule something and pay for it, I believe.

Seconding what Emma said. Find MH services local to your area (I can help you with this if you like!) and see whether any of them accept self-referrals. Phone them, write to them, whatever. There are also a lot of free counselling services for young people in the UK that are run by local charities, and aren't strictly NHS (or at least, the counselling they offer isn't), which accept self-referrals - everywhere that I've lived in the UK has had one or more of those.

If you go to your GP, please go armed with a print-out of what's been going on; a good GP should be able to see that you need help, but just in case you're a really good actor or something, bring something in writing. *ETA* Even if you've convinced yourself on that day that everything is OK, you can always tell them that you promised some concerned friends that you'd get checked out, and regardless of what you believe at that moment about whether or not you have any problems you can just tell them the things that we've said we're worried about. Tell it from our perspective, and you can add on as much "but I don't believe them" as you like; they should get what's going on.

 

If your baseline feeling is either "awful" or "guilty", then that is unambiguously a problem, even if you have good moods too. I have good moods! I even had good moods when I got so sick I almost died. Good times don't invalidate the profound badness of the bad times.

You definitely do not "have it easy" in terms of the cards you've been dealt re: mental health. This is not easy. Whether or not you "have it easy" in the rest of your life doesn't matter, because mental illness can affect anybody; depression isn't something you earn by having enough bad things happen to you, and you don't need a reason to be depressed because depression doesn't work that way. (Whatever else is going on, you definitely have features of depression. And yeah, you can have "features of depression" even if you don't fit the diagnosis, and those still need and deserve help and support.)

 

The irony is fucking real.

As I read this I am in the middle of explaining to a friend (the selfsame one I just mentioned in the hypersexuality thread) why her own mental health problems are real, important and "severe enough", and that she should seek therapy.

All whilst being on precisely her end of the same conversation here.

The irony is so thick it could stop a mortar shell.

 

^ This irony you speak of is near-universal, I believe. Or so it feels that way. One way or another, we all suffer. We suffer differently, but no matter how "good" or "easy" someone's life seems, chances are there's still something in their lives trying to tear them down. I don't think you should be getting this hard on yourself, not for the thoughts you have, not for anything.

I think your mental issues are valid, and you would not be wasting a professional's time. They've more likely than not seen patients just like you, and it's literally their job to listen to you and help reflect on what's most likely going on with you.

Not that I've ever seen a professional myself, I've.... been delaying that for the past several years now. For very similar reasons regarding "but my problems aren't THAT valid" but recently I finally ditched that thought.

I understand if you continue denying that your health is important too, considering this sort of thinking seems... constant? inevitable, or that it won't stop, or that you just can't seem to convince yourself otherwise, despite reading what everyone here has said?

Any way, I hope you find ways to cope & feel better, however that winds up happening. These thoughts don't seem to be pleasant to have :(

 

Thank you, Jade. And yeah. I think you all are probably right..

 

putting my vote in the "do actually see a professional you clearly are in distress" pile. and to be super fucking real:

Spoiler: I am being whiny and uncharitable so if you're sensitive to that kinda thing please don't read this

your utter conviction that you are Wrong and Bad and a Faker is so obviously illogical to me (or rather clearly the result of scrupulosity """logic""") that it is kinda wigging me out! in the sense that I Really Don't Like illogical things, yeah, but also in the sense that you have a problem which is causing you distress which is making me anxious and in the sense that it is uncomfortably reminiscent of my own anxiety/depression """logic.""" please don't use this as an excuse to beat yourself up, though; it's totally a me problem. but if knowing that your seeing a professional and getting better would make someone (in this case me, but I am sure other people as well) very happy would be a good incentive for you to do so, please do use my whining to motivate yourself. :)

 

I second basically everyone in this thread.

Wishing you had something specific and tangible wrong with you so you had a valid reason for not being okay - that's a pretty reasonable reaction to having undiagnosed, untreated mental illness. You know that something is wrong, you're not sure what it is, your brain is trying to make sense of the clusterfuck, sometimes gets it massively wrong. That feeling took up like three years of my life, I know that feeling intimately. I have it so good, nothing is wrong with me, so whyyyyyyyy can't I function? Getting treatment for my depression + anxiety helped, and I'm sure it will help you to get treatment for whatever symptoms you have.

Another thing - people who have something wrong with them, but have trouble expressing it often pretend something else is wrong with them. I know someone who faked respiratory distress to show that she was anxious, someone who cried about non-existent parental abuse because she didn't want to admit she was raped by a friend, someone who faked dissociation to express emotional distress. One guy told me about various suicide attempts which weren't real, but his need for support and sympathy were totally real. So even your 'fake' stuff points to real problems.

You absolutely should get treatment, please do. I'm not very good at positivity, so here's some negativity to convince you.

Spoiler: negativity

I believe you're not nearly as bad as you think you are - it's depression and scrupulosity fucking with you and making you feel Wrong and Bad. But here's the thing: even if you were exactly as bad as you think you are, you would still be a person entirely deserving of help. Even if you're bad, you deserve to feel better, you deserve to get better, and you deserve to be better. At least this is what I tell myself and it usually works.