School and CAMHS failed me; This is what happened
There are two domains that come up time and time again in UK neurodiversity circles. The first is education, in particular the lack of appropriate Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision. With over half a million Education, Health, and Care Plans (EHCP’s) currently active as of January 2023 (UK Government, Accessed 2024) one might think that resources would be directed to this area, but no, they are not. The other domain is mental health, in particular Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). There has been an ongoing campaign for over a year now. This includes a petition with over 200,000 signatures calling for action to be taken on the failure of CAMHS to support Autistic young people (also the topic of my most recent book). It seems as though nothing ever changes. A great deal of harm is done, and I intend to lay that out by talking about my own experiences.
Why are school and CAMHS such important topics for Autistic people?
I have previously written about the disturbingly high rates of suicide and suicidal ideation in Autistic young people. School and CAMHS play a role in this. Not only is school a place where we learn skills for adult life, it is a place where our neurodivergence is often identified. Harmful school environments and low-quality training in neurodiversity mean that many young people are going undiagnosed and eventually being represented in suicide statistics such as the 10% of suicides that were people with likely undiagnosed autism (Uni of Cambridge, 2022).
For those identified by the system, there is a great deal of exclusion from services such as CAMHS who often reject referrals of Autistic young people. This means that Autistic children are struggling through childhood and education, entering adulthood with unaddressed mental health needs, and at increased risk of poverty because of their experience of education (Tian & Ma, 2023). School and CAMHS set young people up for a life of struggle on multiple fronts.
How did school fail me as an Autistic person?
I was the weird kid. When other boys were off playing football, I was doing 5 dance classes a week at a relatively prestigious dance academy. I was bullied from the age of 6. Teachers would argue that the bullying was my own fault for being different. If I would just try to be more like the other boys, they said, I would be so much happier. It seemed that they were only interested in stamping out my individuality rather than nurturing my interests. Despite me being at odds with my peers. Despite my obvious differences. Despite the please of my mother. They failed to identify my neurodivergence. I was was doomed, it seemed, to struggle through school.
At the age of 10 I made my first suicide attempt. A GP would write letters trying to get me support and hold my school to account, but those pleas fell on the ears of ones who would rather not listen. I spent my entire time in the school system without any kind of learning support. I was also experiencing trauma outside of school that went unnoticed and unaddressed. It seemed that I was solely responsible for the outcome of my life, even when I was too young to truly understand the ramifications of that outcome. By age 15 I had enough and had what was described as a “nervous breakdown”. I now know it was Autistic shutdown secondary to burnout.
How did CAMHS fail me as an Autistic person?
CAMHS didn’t see me after my first suicide attempt, in fact they didn’t see me until several months after the “nervous breakdown” I had at age 15. By this point I had been having night terrors for years, waking nightmares where the world ceased to exist and was instead replaced by things generated by my mind. This was perhaps the first indication that something more than depression was going on, and yet no one identified those concerns. CAMHS were no help. After months of waiting, I got to see a psychiatrist for 5 minutes who discharged me for not wanting medication after 5 minutes of consultation. Through out my childhood, CAMHS had multiple opportunities to intervene and help, they chose not to. Again, it was down to me to be more “resilient”. It didn’t matter that the world was throwing punches at me. Services wanted me to be better at taking the punches.
What was the result of these failures?
I left school with too few GCSE’s to study my A-Levels. Despite being academically gifted, I could not cope with the pressure. I did catch up eventually and get into university, but I still struggled. In my third and final year of sixth-form college I began to hear voices and experience paranoia. Knowing that service would fail me again, and too scared to admit what was happening to me, I turned to cannabis and alcohol.
Over the next few years this would escalate into daily use of morphine, diazepam, and spice. Coupled with anything else I could get my hands on. My addiction got so severe that my friends and family planned my funeral while I was still alive. My life was over in the eyes of so many. The failures of institutions of my childhood had led me to become a drug-addicted, and (at the time) undiagnosed Schizophrenic. It took many years to reach a place of safety.
Why am I telling this story about school and CAMHS?
My story is not an isolated incident. Autistic children and young people are still being failed by these institutions. Education and mental health services are exacerbating these outcomes by failing to appropriately support us. So, in part, I am telling this story to hold them to account. I left school in 2006. These issues with education and CAMHS are still happening in 2024. 18 years on and I am still seeing my neurokin suffer. What upsets me the most is that our government knows this is happening, and has done nothing to fix the problem. So I am laying my pain onto the page in the hopes it inspires others to join this fight. To hold services accountable, and make a difference to the countless Autistic young people living in this country.
