Since the age of 15, Amy has experienced different mental health challenges. When in year 12 this escalated to thoughts about taking her own life, she started getting the treatment she needed to manage her depression and anxiety.
Starting at university was a turning point for Amy, where she began to establish her identity, found supportive friends and joined a club for the LGBTQIA community.
However, her mental health journey has not been linear. After a second attempt on her life, she realised that her studies were causing too much pressure and stress, and that she needed to take a different path.
Amy is now a lived experience worker – supporting people with thoughts of suicide.
If you or someone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Partners in Wellbeing on 1300 375 330. In an emergency, call 000.
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If you or someone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Partners in Wellbeing on 1300 375 330. In an emergency, call 000.
I think it started kind of insidiously. Like it was just kind of little things of feeling different from everyone and not belonging, and then I would sort of isolate myself and feel I wasn't good enough I think.
I started to think about suicide and suicide ideation and how can I not be here anymore, and then I started to act on those thoughts and to have I guess attempts on my life.
Which were hard, you know it's hard to remember what it's like to be that young and not want to be here.
So I finished high school and so the year after I went to university. I started studying psychology. Which was always my passion.
There was something about uni where I got a bit more of that sense of identity and breaking away from who I was before.
It was at uni I started to realise that I might be same sex attracted, I think.
My friend joined the queer club and I was like, queer club you say? And so I found people that I could just fit in a bit more with and know myself a bit more and feel safer. And that was really powerful.
Then we learned that mental health fluctuates and things in life, maybe aren't always linear. That recovery isn't linear. I had an attempt on my life again.
The stigma was a bit better then, I think, I had such a close knit group, I remember
being able to tell them. Which kind of blows my mind when I think back about it.
It took a long time for me to realise that my life wasn't worth pushing through that situation. I needed to look after myself and my mental health and my physical health and that life would just have a different course, different path for me following that.
Amongst all the shame I packed my bags up and got a job in community mental health as a peer support worker.
I see amazing things in my future. I'm due to get married next year. Things feel really bright and equally I experience anxiety. I know through my work in suicide prevention that thoughts of suicide are really common.
So knowing you are not alone, pushing through the anxiety of sharing, to get help and know it will shift and change and these feelings are not forever. Feelings are not forever, they change.