Many people know me as the person who laughs, smiles and jokes. But not many people know me as the person with a mental health condition. The reason for that is that there is no way of telling if somebody has a mental health condition.

When I was 14 years old, I was suspended two weeks before the official start of the Christmas holidays. I’d been self-harming for months at my boarding school, while firmly believing that I’d been exceptionally secretive.

Fortunately, I was surrounded by a group of people who pulled away every lie and excuse until I had no choice left but to accept help. At the time, I hated them all. Despite the hours that these people had spent trying to understand and support me, I felt deeply betrayed.

Here’s the thing. People with anxiety are not paper dolls. They won’t snap in half if you even so much as breathe in their direction – so why are people with anxiety still treated as though there’s something wrong with them?

It’s so important to surround yourself with loved ones who care about you and acknowledge your mental health difficulties. You need a stable support network around you, even if it is just one or two people you can really count on.

As a man with mental health problems myself, when the topic of men’s mental health comes up I often feel guilty. There are so many women suffering not just from mental health problems but also from a wide range of societal problems that can make it harder to cope with them. Who are we as men to complain about the stigma we face? But the more I think about it the more I realise that the guilt I feel is only a reflection of the problem as a whole - that we struggle to face up to the reality of our so called “weaknesses”. 
 

I first properly experienced mental health issues at the age of 15 was when, and with this came a lot of damaging attitudes and actions. When I started going to therapy for treatment of depression and anxiety, I was still at school and my peers told me that ‘I didn’t look like a psycho’, which is kind of a backwards compliment that made me feel I had to be sicker.

I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was 16 years old and started counselling sessions. I was so ashamed of it, that I would lie about where I was going. I didn’t want people to know I was having counselling, in case they labelled me “crazy” or “insane”.

We were on a family holiday in Devon when I had my first panic attack. I was only seven years old and we’d had a car crash - nothing serious but I felt like I was trapped, like everything was closing in on me. It was suffocating and horrible. My Dad had experienced panic attacks before, so thankfully he knew what I was going through.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This is an illness that I have struggled with for around eight years. Throughout my school days, I began to carry out compulsive hand-washing, checking and routine rituals - this was to manage my anxiety about the strict exam culture, bullying and social pressures.

According to key figures from the LGBT Foundation, LGB people are two to three times more likely than heterosexual people to suffer from depression. I am one of these people.

“I’ve always known Chloe was a bit ‘different’. Even when she was a toddler I could see she was different to other kids her age.”

I will never forget hearing those words from my mum. Not for any negative reasons, but because it affirms OCD is something I was born with, it is a part of me as much as my blonde hair, blue eyes, my laugh.

You hear stories of how exciting, liberating and hard-working life at university is. You get told that the many parties and mingling with like-minded people will be ‘the best time of your life’.

When I think back to the start of 2009, when I started a web development course at Manchester Metropolitan University, I remember the good times, the parties, sharing a pizza with my friend who I moved to Manchester with. I had a great time at university.

If I didn't have my friends I wouldn't be as happy as I am now. In my darkest moments, they support me. When I feel like there is no light, they switch it on. When my thoughts are drowning me, they give me a new perspective. When I feel like a failure, they remind me of my worth. At every single point of my journey through life, they celebrate my achievements and my happiness, and they support me through despair. They make sure I never feel alone. They never pretended to know the answers.

Reducing stigma comes from the frontline, from education and most of all from being brave enough to admit when you’re not feeling well. In short, it’s about talking. But a lot of people still don’t feel able to talk about their mental health, so it’s up to all of us to break the silence and start those conversations.

Head Girl. High achiever. Destined for Oxford.

These were all labels that were attached to my student identity by my (highly academic, all-girls) school in the autumn of 2015.

What the school didn't know? That I was experiencing extreme depression and anxiety.

I have a personality disorder. I have had it my entire life, but I was only diagnosed two years ago. Since then, and especially in the past six months, I have noticed a difference in how other people react if I choose to disclose that I happen to have a personality disorder and it has cost me to the point that I now feel at a detriment if I access support even if I really need it.

 The confident and vibrant girl that I once was became no more. I fell into the trap of depression that seemed to have hit me overnight. I would usually be the one that always hid in the bathroom crying my eyes out and then wipe my own tears away only to walk out those doors like I have it all together. The young fifteen year old girl that I was at the time was drowned with anxiety, fear and a lack of something unknown. I was overwhelmed with the world and fell into exhaustion trying to act like I have it all together. The truth was that I was tired.

So I’m 21 studying Geography and living between Cardiff and Gloucestershire. I have a number of great friends and love spending time with them and going out but also enjoy peaceful times on my own. I love my course and I really enjoy being active.

Sounds like a dating profile, I know. But that is the point of this blog – there is so much underneath that people do not know just because it is not visible.

There’s a lot of stigma around mental health and people who suffer with mental health, over years it's become this stigma that no one talked about it - people brush it under the carpet resulting in people like myself feeling isolated and alone. My names Laura and I've suffered from anxiety and depression on and off my adult life.

Three years ago I found myself at what felt like my rock bottom. I was at the end of my first year of uni, I hadn't left my apartment for 6 days, I hadn't left my bed for any other reason than needing to go to the toilet, I hadn't showered, I hadn't made contact with anyone.

On World Mental Health Day, I spoke. I spoke about my experience with mental health, which I haven’t done so honestly and raw before. I made my post public and had the biggest surprise when I had the most wonderful response. I’ve always been an ambassador for this sort of thing, especially at 17/18 when I was psychology representative at my sixth form which I used as a platform for National Eating Disorder Day, Time to Talk Day and World Mental Health Day, for example.

In my past I have and still frequently experience depression. I've used medication for years trying to deal with it, but it does have side effects. I understand that mine may not be considered as severe as many others'. But it's severe enough to affect me, my relationships and my life. 

When used as an adjective, the term ‘borderline’ means ‘only just acceptable in quality or as belonging to a category.’ This is why a lot of people make the assumption that borderline personality disorder is not quite a personality disorder, not quite a mental illness. It’s a term that creates confusion. Your personality is often used to describe who you are as a person, so being told you have a personality disorder makes it feel like there is something wrong with who you are. That’s tough to hear.

My battle with bulimia started at the age of 12 but with the gift of hindsight I have discovered my battles with binging and body image started before then. I come from a family of very slim people. Despite a height range, the build is the same. Wide shoulders, slender bodies. At 20 years old and nearly four years into recovery, I can finally see that I'm built just the same. At 8 years old I thought exactly the opposite. I felt like the odd one out. I felt large. As I grew, my desire to be smaller grew too. Doing exercise in my room on the carpet or bed, I was so proud of myself.

Everyone says that your school days shape your life. But I feel that mine did in a profound way. And I’m still affected by it every day. I was sixteen when I first started struggling significantly with mental ill health. At the time I had no idea what it was – or even if I was ill – and that terrified me; the idea that I could be like that forever was my worst nightmare.

Three years ago, I lost my voice. I could still say what I was expected to, say what people wanted me to, say whatever I was told to, but I couldn’t seem to find my voice. I could say whatever anyone needed me to, anyone but me. My voice had been almost silenced by the people around me. I was made quieter by the people who called me selfish, the people who thought I was weak, the people who convinced me I wasn’t worth their time or energy, all because of my worsening mental health.

My name is Josh Davis and I am 18 years old. I have suffered from extreme OCD for 9 years of my life now and have faced moments where I have just not wanted to continue or thought I can’t. I have experienced OCD for 9 years and only just recently reached out for help.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been an anxious perfectionist. When I was 3, that centred around using up too many stickers or colouring outside the lines; at 5 it was a fear of dying; at 8 it was a paralysing fear of lifts and at 16 it was the incessant worry of not getting 100% in everything at school. For years, I dismissed these feelings as normal parts of life, necessary sacrifices for success, things that everyone had to deal with.

Approximately 3 years ago, just after I had finished my first year undergraduate law exams, I was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety. Since then, I have achieved more than I ever thought I could. But my biggest achievement by far has been learning to be happy in myself.

On Thursday 10 March, we hosted our fourth children and young people Roadshow event aimed at the voluntary sector, schools and others working with children and young people. At the event, a panel of young people and representatives from Kent Healthy Schools, Mental Health First Aid, Headstart Kent, a local headteacher and a young person spoke about their personal experiences of mental health problems and the opportunities for local services to engage in joint working and share their learning to tackle stigma and discrimination.

Recorded live at the second Time to change children and young people Roadshow event, Liverpool, 08/02/16

On Monday 8 February, we hosted our second children and young people Roadshow event aimed at the voluntary sector, schools and others working with children and young people. At the event, Shadow Minister for Mental Health Luciana Berger MP spoke about her vision for tackling stigma and discrimination around mental health and a panel of speakers from local services discussed opportunities for joint working and how to set up networks in order to share learning.

Recorded live at the first Time to change children and young people Roadshow event, London, 28/01/16

Today is the first of our four children and young people Roadshow events aimed at the voluntary sector, schools and others working with children and young people. We are privileged to have a range of speakers and young champions with lived experience of mental health problems who have kindly agreed to chat to us at today’s event.

I knew for a long time that I had a particularly melancholic attitude towards a variety of things. However, I chose to plod on deliberately ignoring the clear signs and symptoms that pointed towards me suffering from depression. I chose for many years to suffer in silence – but I can say now that I feel better having opened up about my depression and actually seeking support.

My name is Ellie, I'm 22, a full-time student entering my 3rd year of English Literature and owner of a business. I also have depression and anxiety.

A-levels are hard for everyone. The challenge to “do well” is enough when you’re healthy, but when you suffer from severe mood swings and impulses, which leave you exhausted, irritable and sometimes incapacitated, it sets a whole new challenge. My bipolarity came to the surface at a bad time.

I have had Bipolar Affective Disorder since I was 18 and my mental health problems became more severe during my first year of university, which resulted in me being in hospital for 9 weeks. It is certainly the hardest challenge I’ve had to face.

I often wonder who exactly is the victim of my illness. I very rarely see myself as one. Usually, in an episode, I feel bad about myself and my life, but not bad for myself.

Throughout my younger years, I'd always been the 'happy kid'.  The one that was always smiling and joking. I was confident too, taking part in plays and volunteering answers in class. When I got to the age of 14, I started to feel 'down', or at least that was how I thought of it. Suddenly I lacked the enthusiasm I once had.

Six years ago, aged 17, I was admitted to a mental health adolescent ward with anorexia. I spent a year living in hospital, fighting my eating disorder. It was by far the hardest year of my life, but without it I would not be here anymore. It was hard work, and every meal was a battle.

Depression. Mental Illness. Three words that cause people to treat you differently, that make you stay quiet and tell yourself this isn’t happening. This isn’t you.

We need to keep people in schools by ensuring that mental health issues are discussed, not hidden away

“So, two A’s for English I see. Well, I hardly think you deserve them given your lack of attendance to my class.” That is what my English teacher said to me on GSCE results day. It all seems so long ago now but I will never forget how my teacher decided to shame me rather than praise me for my success.

Where to begin? I started to notice my mood changing and feeling more down during my final year of university in 2011-12.  There were so many factors that caused it - especially the pressure of doing my dissertation and looking for a job even before graduating. I also have a learning disability in the form of Dyslexia so things were much harder than they seemed at the time.

I love my family so much, they're one of the main reasons I'm still here fighting each day. But in the past, whenever I've managed to gather to nerve to discuss how I feel, they were never receptive.

I have always suffered with “nerves” as they used to call it in a less enlightened times.  The mere thought of going to school would see me dissolve into a flood of tears. Supposedly enjoyable events and situations, like playing football and cricket which are hard wired into the young male brain, would be akin to trial by ordeal.

I’m been thinking about root causes of anxiety.  How & why does it develop? Are some people simply born with an anxious temperament, or does traumatic experience trigger it? Personally I think it’s a mixture. I was born with the ability to develop an anxious condition if the right environment were presented.  For me, this environment was secondary school.

On my way home on the train with my Dad after having a massive panic attack at university in London, was when I first acknowledged to myself that I needed some help. Physically, the panic attack was the worst I’d ever had, and I ended up being carted off in an ambulance, alone in a big city. I was scared because I thought I was about to die.

As a ‘Time to change Champion' you get to have many interesting conversations with lovely people, usually one to one, but every so often you get a wonderful opportunity to talk to groups. One of these opportunities led to potentially the best conversation of my life, and a critical moment in my recovery, all at a Time to Change event. There was a little issue with this group that I was stood in front of, besides my wife, her colleagues and friends, a former teacher of mine, and just over 200 year 9’s (13 and 14 year olds) in a large Comprehensive school.

Warning, some readers may find this post triggering.

There was a time three years ago which I often identify as the time where I was at my worst. As an international student in his first year spending the Christmas break on campus was not easy. I was deeply depressed (although did not know the name at the time) and would spend the entire day in my room for weeks on end apart from going for the occasional run. I was also anxious and felt unable to connect with anyone.

Looking at me, no one can tell what, if anything, is 'wrong' with me. This is the problem with mental illness, you can't see it. I have a diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety.

How do you explain to someone what it feels like to have depression, to feel like you are 'dead in a city of pulses'? How can you get someone to understand how seriously anxiety affects you in your daily life, when each panic attack feels like gravity is holding you down and crushing you?

I've been struggling to different degrees over the last ten years and at the moment feel like I'm doing ok.

I actually work as a mental health support worker, trying to help others to get their lives on track and to get appropriate treatments. And yes, I do this job because of what I've been through.

A while ago, a doctor in A&E told a very good friend of mine that her injury was 'a classic Borderline self-harm cut.' Later, a different doctor told my friend that her injury should never have been referred to like that and apologised profusely for the other Doctors words.

Before I applied for university to study a MA I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety and spent time working to realise I was poorly and needed help.

Okay maybe you don’t tell them straight away, I usually don’t, though I feel like they need to know about me in case I ever get in a bad way. Just so they are prepared for it - if I suddenly locked myself in my room all day, not eating or drinking, people would probably find me pretty weird if they didn’t know I had a mental illness.

June 2009. A hot summer night in Manchester. It finally happened. I was on the pavement, cradled in the arms of my best friend.My face felt as if it was on fire and I could hear someone screaming hysterically. It took me a moment to realise that this sound was coming from me.

I had hit rock bottom.

As many of you may know, Brighton Village was held on Saturday 3rd August 2013. When I am home for the summer, Brighton is just over an hour on the train away so I knew I had to go this year. I have been a huge supporter of Time to Change for a long time now and am a registered Champion. I applied for a volunteering position with them at the beginning of June.

I've struggled with mental health problems for over six years now and if there is one positive thing to come from this then it has to be the way that people have been there for me.

Please note: do not read this blog if you feel vulnerable to triggering issues

I first experienced psychosis when I was 16 and still at school. I remember the exact moment when I heard “my friends” talk to me through my speakers. They were saying great stuff about how awesome I was.

Warning, some readers may find this post triggering.

Starting university is a unique experience. Leaving your hometown, family and school friends is daunting but moving to a brand new city, making new lifelong friends and gaining independence is an experience incomparable to any other.

Hey :) my name is Laura and I am 16. I suffer from anxiety, mild OCD and am recovering from panic disorder :)

Hello :D I am Fran, I am also 16 and I suffer from severe depression, anxiety and OCD.

Although we suffer from different mental illnesses, thanks to them over the past few years we have formed a very strong friendship.

I'm a university lecturer at Goldsmiths and during Mental Health Awareness week I'm sitting on a staff/student panel, an event organised by our Disability Team, discussing the challenges of mental health issues and university life. The reasons I feel able to contribute to this?

It was a huge step; packing up my belongings and leaving to go to university 200 miles away from home. I was excited but terrified. I was leaving friends, family and a boyfriend of 2 years. I was sure we could make it work long distance.

At the time, it was becoming harder not to feel lonely. It was becoming harder not to lie down in my bed at night and not spend hours staring at the ceiling. Usually this wouldn’t be such a bad thing, usually, this would be quite refreshing to sit and think – but what about when your thoughts no longer occupy your mind, what about when your dreams no longer excite you enough to close your eyes?

I first decided it was time to talk to someone about the way I felt just after I turned 16. I’d had depression and had been self-harming since I was 14 and it was getting worse and worse.

Last year, I completely and utterly fell in love with the Time To Change campaign. At a time where I felt broken, I was desperately looking for a safety net, I really needed something telling me that things were going to be ok.

Snap out of it!' is a production, premiering in Cambridge this March, that tackles the ideas and stereotypes that have attached themselves to mental health issues.

Rather than talk just about my own mental illness, I’m going to focus this blog more on my friend Cat. We met and became friends at uni (she’s a finalist, I graduated in July) and we both moved into a shared house with two good friends just over a year ago.

I’m chilling out on the sofa, making the most of the last few days of the Christmas holiday by playing rubbish games on my phone, when I hear “My name is Rae. It’s 1996, I’m 16, 16 stone, and desperate for a shag. Oh yeah, and I’ve been in a mental hospital for a while”.

Back when I was still at school studying for my GCSEs I was struggling by myself with what I thought was depression. It later turned out to be bipolar disorder but perhaps that is another story for another day.

Please note: do not read this blog if you are feeling vulnerable to triggering issues.

I have a complicated past when it comes to mental illness. My first ‘episode’ was when I was eleven. I was bullied regularly by everyone in school, even by the teachers.

I suffered from anorexia nervosa between the age of fifteen and a half and twenty-two and a half. That’s seven years of my life. More than one quarter of my years.

My mother is looking at my nail-polish, bitten, chipped and the colour of a rose, deep red. She reads a poster on the wall, then looks back to my hands. They are shaking, nails on one hand gripping the other so tightly I know I am leaving indentations of half-moons, tiny little nervous red marks.

India Knight can be a good and interesting columnist so it was a real shame to read her ill-informed, irresponsible and plain wrong views on depression in The Sunday Times yesterday.

In my personal experience the support from my parents has been essential to my recovery. Since my diagnosis of depression and a first episode of psychosis they have really been there for me.

Have you ever felt so low you can’t even function? I have suffered from depression for 5 long years now and I know this statement rings true for me.

I was diagnosed in 2008 with depression and anxiety. Suddenly, the rumble of feelings that had been gradually affecting my life more and more had a label and I was given something concrete to tell my friends and teachers, which explained why I hadn’t "been myself lately."

I never thought of myself as a good liar but when I eventually faced up to my problems I realised that's what I had been doing constantly, for 3 years, to my family, my friends and even myself. I've been described as 'the best actor in the worlds worst play', which I think is appropriate.

Having suffered with depression and anxiety for many years, it came as no real surprise when I experienced a breakdown after the death of my father in '94. Having been very close to him it was a huge loss.

I have never constructed a creative piece of writing in my life. I tried to write a book at the age of 10, but sadly, my story ended on page 7. This was despite my best efforts at stretching out the story by writing in huge font sizes and leaving mammoth gaps between each word. Anybody remember the rule at primary school whereby you should leave a finger gap between each word?

Until it began to affect me, I was completely ignorant about mental health.

In December last year I was walking home from another busy 12 hour shift, where I worked in a nursing home. It was a cold frosty night and I was exhausted from working three long days on no sleep. I remember walking home wishing and praying for sleep that coming night in order to get me through another 12 hour shift the next day. I could not let my fellow colleagues and more importantly the residents down by leaving them short staffed.

Our Facebook community is now over 100,000 people strong! That's a lot of people - in fact our entire Facebook community:

That feeling, the one on the underground, as the doors slam shut and the train pulls away. You are left stood on an empty platform, the faces of the passengers squeezed into each carriage speeding past, as they begin getting on with their day, their life, and you’re left stood there, alone: your life is on hold.

It's hard to help people understand what’s going on inside your head when you have such a limited understanding of it yourself.

There's a bit of a trend at the moment on Facebook of posting and sharing pictures of beautiful, smiling, young people, with no hair, accompanied with a message about how cancer needs to be beaten.

Psycho, nutter, loon, mad, mentally ill. To be honest it doesn’t matter what terminology is used, they all spell out the same thing: I’m different, an outcast, not "normal".

From the moment a referral was made to mental health services I was suddenly a different person. It didn’t matter that five minutes ago I was like everyone else, just a fifteen year old girl. Suddenly I was set apart and needed different treatment to everyone else.

At the young age of ten it was easy for me to remember my dolly whenever I left the house and to hide my vegetables in the dog if I didn’t want to eat them but to understand and be aware of mental health was a completely different matter.

I wanted to write and talk about my experiences of depression and discrimination as a young adult. I started self harming when I was 16 and had recently started Sixth Form College. My parents were told and they were shocked and disgusted. I was punished for this and had my MP3 and my television taken off me.

I want to say a big thank you to Frankie from the Saturday’s for opening up about her struggle with depression. It is always hard for anyone to open up about any issues they may be experiencing relating to their mental health.

Dear Mam,

There are not enough words to say how much I want to thank you for not giving up on me. Without you I wouldn’t have recovered from anorexia and instead your last memories of me would be tainted by that horrible illness which turned me into an evil, lying monster.

I am subject to a gagging order. My employers thought it prudent to offer me a settlement and silence me by contract to ensure that I never utter a seditious line.

So here we go. I will tell you what I know.

For eight years I worked as a teacher. I was considered popular, if a little eccentric, with staff and students alike. Management had even described me as inspirational! I was involved in all aspects of the work from classroom teaching to organising school sports teams, overseas trips and excursions in the great outdoors.