"Dudhope taught me there is always someone I can trust"

I was initially admitted to Skye House after numerous suicide attempts, the one which lead to me being hospitalised. I stayed in Skye House for 4 days, which was very difficult for me. I had been in a children’s care home for nearly 7 months and I had come from a pretty rough background, and had self harmed for several years. Moving placement to placement had been hard enough especially with my mental health difficulties. I was angry that I had had yet another failed placement. In skye house I was a bit of a nightmare. I was non compliant and I kept trying to push people away, I didn’t want to speak to anyone about my dark thoughts. Some of the staff were lovely, and listened to me rant out my anger at 3am when I couldn’t sleep, but others weren’t so nice, I can’t really blame them.

When I was transferred to Dudhope YPU 4 days later, I was so much happier. It seemed that all of the staff understood and they ALL wanted to help me. I was still on constant observations but on the Wednesday that week, I got off them. I was a very disruptive patient whilst there, but I was shocked when nobody made fun of me, argued with me, judged me or anything like that, I had other patients come over after I had wrecked the entire place, hug me and ask “are you better now?”. The staff were amazing at deescalating my extreme violence which was very prominent, and fulled by my equally extreme anger at the world in general. I shouted and swore at staff, refused they’re support after self harming  episodes and became violent with anyone who angered me. 

But despite all of this, the staff stuck by me and sat and listened to me, and tried to help me (even after I’d assaulted them or worse). This is the first time in my life where someone has stuck by me after seeing all of my issues, and because of this, I learned to trust again. Trust that people do actually care, and trust that they could keep you safe whether it be from yourself or others. I started to engage with the staff team, but then my previous placement, broke down and they refused to have me back. I was effectively homeless. I went back to my violent, aggressive ways and pushed everyone away again, but still, both the staff and the young people were there for me, and not once was I “punished” for feeling angry and not being unable to control it. 

Dudhope YPU has taught me that even when other people let you down, there will be someone else you can trust. I had major attachment and trust issues, and because of my inpatient experience, I became a better person, much better able to cope with my difficulties and also able to fight for what I need, which is a stable environment. I have a diagnosis of complex trauma with depressive and anxiety features and my CAMHS team are currently looking at emerging borderline personality disorder. BPD is thought to be caused by a traumatic event(s) in childhood and is not how the media portrays it. We are not “cold”, “heartless”, or “over emotional” people, we feel emotions intensely and cannot help it. Read into it, you’ll be amazed at how different it really is compared to how it is made out to be in the media, 

My past and my mental illness does not define me, that is what Dudhope YPU has taught me, and they are a truly amazing service,

Thank you so so much for everything you done for me, right up until my detention was lifted, you were all there for me.

To any other person who can relate to this, please just let people in, trust them, because you can’t heal that inner turmoil without speaking to people, I learned the hard way.

Time does not “heal” pain. Time teaches those who are pained, how to deal with it in a more effective way, pain changes people and their personality, do not EVER judge someone based on your own prejudices,