Catch Up

Mind got in touch recently and asked me to contribute to their blog and so I thought this seemed like a good time to let my readers know how things are going with Julie these days.

Julie is now seventeen and taking GCSE exams this summer, something we sometimes thought she would never manage. She is still not going to classes yet, and is largely taught individually by staff, but we hope this will change next year when she starts at sixth form where class sizes will be smaller. Fortunately her school opened its own sixth form just a year or two ago so she will be able to continue in the same place with many of the same staff.

So is she still affected by her mental illness? Yes, and though her condition changes all the time, she is very definitely impaired. Fortunately, the school has managed to find some funding for extra support for her next year. She is vulnerable and easily overwhelmed by stress, sometimes in ways that are not obvious. I have described in my other blog for example, how it affects her ability to make friendships. She still self-harms and takes overdoses, which as my Mind blog post probably makes clear, is still challenging for us to manage.

But let's think about what she has achieved since the winter, and it is obvious she has come a long way recently. She now rides her bike to school, and can come and go between home and school with some independence. It was round about Easter that she managed to start spending short periods of time alone and unsupervised at home. Although this sometimes ends in disaster and an urgent trip to A&E she has remained keen to keep trying! She has finally managed to beat the olanzapine and lose weight, and we are regulars at our local gym. Most importantly, she has made the transition to adult mental health services quite smoothly, and has a great care coordinator who she meets regularly. We finished with formal therapy a few months ago, so these meetings, and the things we've put in place at home to keep her well, are the front line in managing her illness.

Mental illness still plays a disconcertingly large role in my family life. I have described this here in more detail. But thanks to this blog, amongst other things, managing this is now so much less scary and isolating.