"Crazy Eddie" is a nickname one of my British school teachers gave me when I was attending primary school in West Africa, in an end of term review. I faked laughing along as I was mocked, as I had become accustomed to it, and beamed a deceitful smile. It became one of the few coping mechanisms I adopted while in denial. However, the embarrassment I used to face at that particular school was not always humoured like this.
Living with Asperger syndrome (AS) and mental health issues is not an easy feat. It never is. Imagine yourself in a room full of people. All those people are laughing and mingling. Meanwhile, you aren’t. You’re sitting there in the corner all alone, watching everyone make nice with each other. Nobody even acknowledges that you’re there.
"Around mental health in general, there is a lot of stigma attached, a lot of misconceptions and a lot of phrases that tend to get used towards people with mental illness."
Watch Katie talk about the three most unhelpful things you can say to someone with a mental health problem and the impact this has on them:
I was a six-year-old, no different from my classmates I thought. I cried when my ice cream fell to the ground, I couldn't sleep a week before my birthday and I always tried to stay awake until my eyes betrayed me.
