“I will create scenarios up in my head or try to prepare myself for something bad to happen before it happens.”

I have EUPD, which I was diagnosed with in 2017. I have had anxiety and diagnosed depression disorder since 2015, and also PTSD since around that time. I have always suffered with my mental health since I was a child, say the ages of 13 to14, but it wasn’t widely spoken about then. It was always put down to hormones and my age.

At 17 I started on antidepressants and have been on different ones over the last few years. But I didn’t really get much help until I had my daughter in 2017. I was referred to my mental health trust and saw a psychiatrist. But I had taken an overdose and wasn’t even referred to the trust then- it was only when I started to feel that maybe it was something that wasn’t right with me that my GP referred me to them after a few appointments. I was then diagnosed.

I then had a mental health midwife. I was suffering quite badly with my pregnancy and my circumstances (being alone in a pregnancy), alongside having hyperemisis, and my midwife took an interest in helping me. I was then looked at again by my psychiatrist and they diagnosed me with EUPD.

For me the most significant symptoms are the mood changes in the day. I struggle to stay stable in mood, which can range from being happy, then a few hours later angry and depressed. Hate the world. Don’t know my purpose in life. Can’t see a way out. Then can calm down and then be ok. It’s really draining to live with.

I get severe anxiety and struggle with constant ups and downs with mood. I suffer with the EUPD badly day to day, which has massively affected relationships with partners, friends and family members- just living a normal life, like other people. I also suffer with panic disorder, which affects me working and planning things. I get paranoid quite badly too. 

I have found the professionals I have dealt with have been pretty poor to be honest. I took an overdose and self harmed quite badly last year and I ended up in hospital. They then wouldn’t accept me under the mental health team as I didn’t get back to them about a letter, so they said until I could prove I could commit to them by taking part in a group community course which was for EUPD, they wouldn’t take me again.

I was then referred four times by different health professionals as I was self harming and struggling with my mental health with no support, especially being a single parent. They then said they would give me a support worker and then took me back. I was given medication by the community mental health doctors who come round after a crisis if you have been to hospital or anything which started me on Quetiapine. which made me have severe nightmares, hot sweats and made me really tired.

I now have a psychiatrist who I see every 6 weeks. I don’t find it’s very helpful to be fair. They just give me the same tablets. It’s only when I have a crisis they say I need to change my medication however can’t do it until I’m in a better place so they start me on other things to help which are also addictive like Zopiclone and Premithazin and Clonazepam.

I was being given Clonazepan for three years, which I didn’t know was a problem until I ended up in hospitals after taking an overdose. They then told me my body had got used to taking them, which is probably why I’m still here today. However I wasn’t aware that they weren’t to be taken all the time. I was told to take them when I needed to.

I found even some of the community doctors haven’t had a clue about EUPD, depression or anything like that- or even the medication, which is awful when they are administering tablets to vulnerable patients.

The most positive experience for me was going to the group called the Sun Project. It changed my life, helping me in accepting who I was and what my diagnosis was. I felt so alone and that nobody understood me. But actually the people on the course were all diagnosed with EUPD and you saw parts of your personality in so many people, which was actually so emotional as I felt like other people got what I go through.

EUPD has massively affected my work and relationships. I found I have ended up in toxic relationships; I can be very intense and have abandonment issues and I end up feeling like I am always going to end up on my own. I kind of push the person away before it happens. I will create scenarios up in my head or try to prepare myself for something bad to happen before it happens. I have massive trust issues and feel I’m not good enough for the person so I self destruct, I think.

With work, I have always let anxiety hold me back from pushing further into my career. Since having my daughter I also suffer with chronic fatigue, which gets triggered alongside my mental health and has made me unable to work right now, because I have these cycles of not being able to get out of bed with no energy. It’s like having an ongoing flu, which then creates depression.

It’s affected friendships as I’m unable to make plans. One day I could feel totally up for something, and the next day or the day of going somewhere, I can build up such bad anxiety it’s like fear and I can’t go. When I’m in a bad episode, I struggle to communicate with people, so it’s hard for people to not take it personally, but I just can’t speak to people- I can’t even call for appointments or even go into the school.

Thankfully I have my mum and dad as my support network. But friendship-wise, some people don’t get it, so I feel it’s hard to be myself. I get quite paranoid that people are judging me or thinking I’m not ‘all there.’ If I’m on a more manic day, sometimes I feel people are like, ‘God she’s a bit mental’, just a million miles an hour. I forget things. I’m late or I just get quite agitated and aggressive if I’m being challenged by someone.

I think a lot of people feel ashamed to talk about being a parent with mental health. Especially as it makes you worry people won’t think you can cope. But actually, having my daughter saved my life. She gives me something to live for. She gives me a reason to have to be here for and keep fighting every day.

It is challenging when I feel I have to be able to be a normal mum- be able to manage appointments and emails, and things expected from her school. Also juggling being me and having relationships. I’ve only had one since having her, which sadly has been very challenging. He also suffers with his mental health but I guess I felt he got me, so it’s what kept drawing me back to him.

It ended up being domestic violence so I had social services involved, who weren’t concerned about my parenting or my child, just that I hadn’t been given any support as a parent suffering with mental health problems and only had just been taken under any mental health team. But they aren’t involved now and did make sure I was getting support.

I do feel guilty that my daughter sees the ups and downs and I have spoken to her a lot about feelings and always made sure she knows it’s never her and how loved she is. But it still does make you feel guilty as you feel bad. But when I feel I’m struggling I have learned I have to reach out to support, which is family for me. But she keeps me going. She is my reason I’m here. And I feel I have to fight the bad days so hard to get to the easier days.

I think people don’t realise that there is no cure for EUPD and it’s difficult for people to come to terms with that. I think people feel like they hand out the diagnosis flippantly, but they don’t understand there are a lot of different levels of having EUPD. I think people don’t understand the difficultly living with EUPD and trying to live like a normal person. People aren’t very aware of EUPD still.

Some of the best people have EUPD and I wish people would educate themselves on it, as how people perceive them has detrimental effects on people with EUPD or can make them feel very misunderstood and judged. I think a lot of people know the diagnosis only from the trial with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, which is seen as this as a negative diagnosis for crazy people. But actually the qualities that people have with EUPD are the best qualities I feel a person could have. Not all of the symptoms of EUPD are bad. That is one thing I wish people knew.