4th of September - Blue-haired girl
Maybe it’s a shy-person thing, but you know how there are people you don’t really know, yet you feel a connection with? You make eye contact, and there’s an unspoken understanding between the two of you. You stand in the same corner during PE, in silence, sharing the same sense of alienation from your classmates. Neither of you really talks to anyone, let alone each other. Nowhere near friends, yet there’s something between you.
Time passes. She switches classes, but nothing actually changes. Maybe you feel a bit more alone. Sometimes you pass by her in the hallway. Eye contact has always been awkward, but she notices you too… right? One day, her hair is blue. Did she notice when you dyed yours red? It wouldn’t be like either of you to mention it anyway.
High school starts, and you don’t know what school she ended up at. Is she still living in the same shitty town? You ask yourself if she’d recognize you on the bus. You’d recognize her immediatly. But after all, you never really knew each other. You’re unsure if she ever knew about the connection between the two of you. Because even though she became someone in your life, you were never part of hers.
27th of August - A tale of a broken teen and a broken healthcare
It had been that kind of day. The kind of day that most days are. I was anxious all day, not intense anxiety, but enough to leave me exhausted once I got home. I’m not quite ready for that exhaustion yet. I know I need a way to manage my anxiety. It’s not like I haven’t tried.
I have been to therapy three times. The first time was online. It was part of a study, a model for completely independent CBT. Reading and some tasks to do by myself, week by week. It didn't help.
So I got referred to an actual therapist. He was cool, probably the perfect therapist for someone, but not me. Again CBT, following a strict template. I don't know if it did anything for my depression, but it naturally goes up and down sometimes. So it got a bit better for a while, and we started focusing on the social anxiety instead, which was even worse back then. The therapy might honestly have made it worse. I was in a fragile place, with no friends whatsoever and still so close to falling back into that dark place. The exposure stuff was scary, not the amount of scary it was supposed to be. It was too much for me.
At our last session, he told me that I might need a therapist with a different approach. After this, I got referred to BUP (the child and youth psychiatry). It took months before I got an appointment with a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with depression and GAD, prescribed an SSRI and a sleeping aid, and put on a waiting list for therapy. I’m pretty sure that’s what happens to most teens with the same diagnoses at BUP, no matter their circumstances. After another couple of months, I finally got to see a therapist. This too was CBT. The Swedish healthcare system loves numbers, things that are easily structured, treatments with measurable results. And CBT follows a plan: you give the patient x amount of sessions, with a decided focus for each one. It doesn’t matter if it’s actually helping anyone when it looks like the perfect treatment on paper.
But the therapist I got really listened to me, and she made an effort to tailor the treatment for me. She was great, but it’s like we’re stuck in this box of too many mentally ill people, too few healthcare workers, too many greedy people at the top, and politicians talking about how important youth mental health is, but no one ever does anything. So you only get ten sessions, and if you’re not healed by then, too bad! Maybe try switching medication?
Our time was up, and it had felt like a beginning, but I wasn’t yet ready to do it by myself. The things I learned and the tools I got were not yet ingrained, and I wasn’t in a place to keep up the routine.
I turned 18 this summer, which means I’m no longer in contact with BUP but will instead be under primary healthcare. I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, or not with a doctor, but with a nurse. It was different from my time with BUP. She was nice and booked a new appointment for next week. Things never moved this fast at BUP. I know it was a nurse I saw, not a doctor, psychiatrist, or therapist. But still, honestly, having someone who continually checks in and knows what’s going on, who knows whether I need more help or not, is enough.
Because I felt lost at BUP. Eternal waiting lists for therapists, hard to reach, and unclear responsibilities. In the end, I only had an appointment with a nurse every few months to check in on medication, not even the same nurse every time.
I need to know how things work, who to contact, and I need to have someone to talk to, even if it doesn’t cure me. I really hope I can get that now.
25th of August - Generalized Anxiety Disorder
I forget just how the anxiety in school feels.
It’s not like I don’t have anxiety when I’m at home. It’s always there, shifting between my awareness and just under the surface, shifting between the thoughts and just the feelings. I’m always a bit tense, a bit worried, a bit scared. Most of the time I don’t even know why, but it’s always there.
However, in school it feels different. It feels more acute, more active. It’s like the danger is closer. Instead of something far in the distance, it’s right in front of me. So the thoughts get louder, and the feelings so much more intense.
So I see my friend talk to someone I don’t know, and I get scared that she’d much rather always talk to them. Or I fail to make small talk with the classmate beside me, and I become unbearably aware of my lacking social skills. Or I catch eye contact with someone, and I’m convinced that must mean they hate me. And the thoughts pass, but the feelings linger. So the day goes on.
And it’s fucking exhausting. I get home from school, the knot still in my chest, and it’s this intense feeling of not knowing what to do, where to go. So I lay down, and I stay there, scrolling. Because it’s the only thing that is just as quick and intense as my thoughts.
The fear becomes my whole life. I can’t do anything when it’s always there. It’s paralyzing.
I wonder what you're suposed to do. When your get anxious? When your anxious all the time. I want something that works. Something that calms me. Something. Anything.
5th of July - My horse died today
Yeah, dude is dead. And i can't really wrap my mind around it. Birkir ♡, he was the best. I mean he was there, outside, everything good, just two days ago. We were out riding earlier this week and now... that that was the last time. Now he's just gone. I feel bad. Mom toke him to the clinic earlier today, we still thought there was a chance he'd survive, so I didn't say bye proparly cause i thought that would mean he'd defenetly die. And then he did. He didn't even seem like himself. I miss him. Lily, our other horse, is just alone now. I can't tell her that her friend is dead, yk cause i can't talk to horses. It most be confusing for her Birkir is just gone and she don't know that he will never be back. It feels weird that he is not there. I feel bad about not taking the time to ride more during the paste few months. I miss the damn horse. Gaush i'm just wrambeling. Here's a photo of him. Bye.
(gousch, that was a bad picture, i'll find a better one later, Birkir is the dark one and Lily the lightbrown one)