Melissa Bee

My Why

Topic warning: suicidal ideation. Please read if you can. 

My name is Melissa, I’m a psychologist*, and I’ve lived with mental ill health for 29 years. 

It started with OCD when I was 9 years old. It was summer holidays and suddenly my brain started to fill with horrific thoughts and images that I couldn’t get rid of. I told my parents, who had no idea what to say or do. Don’t worry about that, why are you worrying about that? I told mental health professionals, whose who sadly didn’t have the knowledge or experience to recognise OCD. They told me my experience was “very weird” and that perhaps I was “repressed”. These thoughts continued into my teens and plagued my life. I lived in fear of hospitalisation or jail, since it was only a matter of time before I hurt somebody. I didn’t trust myself. I was told to snap out of it, compared to other “normal” kids who weren’t “like me”. I believe as a result of this experience, the emotional neglect and complex trauma, I developed attachment issues and was later diagnosed with BPD.

At the age of 22 I sought an OCD specialist, and Emily changed my life. Finally somebody explained to me that I wasn’t sick and twisted. That intrusive thoughts like this were common in OCD and she had heard it all before. Finally the anxiety stopped ruling every second of my day and night, I could recover. I’ve now had this conversation with others in my work, at least 5 people now, and each time I do I heal a little bit more. 

But the damage was done. Thirteen long years of fear and disconnection have an impact on a person. Since then I have dealt with chronic low mood, anxiety, discontent, and lack of meaning. I’ve been diagnosed with every acronym in the book - is it BPD or ADHD? Add MDD, PMDD. One psychiatrist even pulled Bipolar Disorder from his ass but I’m not sure where the mania is. All of them proving the diagnostic system is problematic at best. Nobody ACTUALLY knows what to do with me. Neither do I most of the time.

Every once in a while I decide I can’t do it anymore. That the damage done by my mental health (namely my divorce, the move to half custody and missing out on half of my daughter’s childhood) seems too much to bear, the regret is too intense, and I want to leave this life. In these moments, a lot of things no longer matter - the degrees, the success, my work - and it comes back down to only one thing. 

Connection. Believing I am loved. A support network that runs in to save me when I cannot save myself. Family, friends, colleagues who remind me they’re there and aren’t going away. My sister FaceTiming me with my niece who has learned a new word. My colleague sending me a check in message over Teams. A beautiful friend sending me a gift in the mail. This is what makes the difference.

I’m walking in October to continue the conversation and remind you all that your support means the world to somebody going through it. I’m also walking to keep myself going, because life is tough right now.

$5 from everybody I know will remind me that I have support around me and that our struggles are not unseen. 

Please consider donating if my story resonated with you. I see you too.

*Provisionally registered. AHPRA makes me say that.