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CAMHS nearly killed me, and it’s not okay.

I don’t talk about my childhood much. Partly because I don’t want to upset my readers, but also because it is not my story alone to tell. The people who did so much harm to me as a child also caused harm to others that I love immensely. A sad part of my life is that as a result of the harm done to me, I made choices in my life that hurt those people I loved. I don’t blame myself, but I also haven’t quite reach the point where I can release myself from the sense that I need to make reparations.

Something that I think is really important to talk about however, is the way I was failed by professionals who very well could have turned my life around. I am happy with my life now, but I do wonder what it might have looked like had I not been left to drown by a service that was meant to be my saviour. That service was the UK’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

The worst part isn’t even that they ignored my mother’s pleas to assess me for autism. It’s not the time that they tried to put me on Ritalin after a five minute conversation. It’s the way they were nearly complicit in my surrender to the suffering that I experienced. I’m a suicide survivor, and CAMHS didn’t care.

I came to them, beaten and bruised, I laid before them my trauma, my pain, my isolation, my disdain for every aspect of myself. I told them that I couldn’t cope, that I was scared to wake up each day. I told them things about my past that I can’t bring myself to say publicly, even to this day. I was met with silence. Cold, uncaring silence. They did nothing. They labelled me a school refuser. They still refused to assess me for autism.

Is it any wonder then that I found solace in the steel trap of drugs and alcohol? What can one do in the face of unending suffering than desperately scramble to drown out the noise. The noise was inescapable. The voices in my head would scream at me daily. I was paranoid and distrustful of everyone, even those that I loved dearly. CAMHS allowed my psychological wellbeing to deteriorate to the point that I could no longer cope with existing. I resigned myself to an early grave.

Some might ask why this is relevant, I am a man in his thirties, surely this was a long time ago?

No.

This is still happening. Everyday, thousands upon thousands of families are forced to watch on as CAMHS allow their children to suffer. If you want to know why so many Autistic people die by suicide, start by taking a look at this (dis)service. CAMHS are complicit in an untold number of deaths. Each data point in those statistics represents a story untold. A future unrealised. With each child lost by the negligence of those meant to help them, our future becomes a little bit darker.

I am happy today, but it hurts. It hurts to know that my child and millions like them do not have this service in a good working order should they need it. I want a world that protects my child and seeks to heal wounds and change worlds. It’s the least they can do for our precious children.

My name is David, and I’m a CAMHS survivor.

Please help us change children’s lives by signing this petition.

Back to the corner: Psychoactive drug use, my Autistic experience

Some 4(ish) years ago, my debut blog post on this website was Standing on the corner: Where autism and addiction meet shortly covered by Recovery services as an Autistic adult. Back then My writing was merely an attempt to scream into the void, offloading my frustrations. Little did i know that in 4 years, my articles would have garnered over 25,000 views, and that people would ask me to go places and do things. I was also pretty surprised to discover that for the most part I don’t mind going places and doing things.

With that in mind, I decided it’s time to take another crack at this one, seeing if 4 years of experience makes for an improved experience for you, my wonderful readers and followers.

So here we are.

I’m David. Born Autistic at the dawn of the 1990’s. My life was pretty standard for what you’d expect of a truamatised, psychotic, recovering addict. So let’s consider where this particular part of my journey started.

October 2008.

My long term relationship came to an end (mutually, but still painful none-the-less). On that very same day, I had a peculiar experience. I heard a number of voices calling my name, but it seemed that it wasn’t the people around me that were doing so. Interestingly, this was the day of my first ever cigarette as well. Hindsight tells me that the fact that my first cigarette led to me smoking an entire pack in a number of hours should have been a huge warning for what was coming. Sadly, hindsight isn’t good for much, and I have a traumatised AuDHD brain that at the time was going through what some might term a “prodromal phase” for the psychotic condition I would later be diagnosed with.

Over the next week I discovered that smoking cannabis really helped my growing paranoia and auditory disturbances chill the f*ck out, and that when drank a litre of vodka, I just didn’t give a sh*t. Just a note here for anyone who can’t see what’s coming; drug-use and trauma is a volatile mix. Some people use psychoactives safely and medicinally their whole lives, with no real negative outcomes. I on the other hand came to resemble one of those warning videos your school would have shown you about the dangers of peer pressure and drug-use.

So, naturally I did what any normal AuDHD’er would do when they discovered something that makes them feel good. I did it again. And again, and again, ad infinitum. Each time I used, my consumption grew. Each new environment I entered I would break down another boundary in my life. First it was cannabis, then alcohol, and I figured that since these two weren’t the dangerous and hellish things my school had made them out to be, perhaps other psychoactives would be okay as well. Side note: this is why using scare tactics and abstinence based approached to stop young people from getting high is f*cking irresponsible, because when they find out they’ve been lied to, they don’t truat you on ANYTHING.

My time at university can be summed up by quoting myself “I don’t think you’ve ever seen me this high, have you?” and the phrase said to me most often “How the f*ck are you still alive?”. You see, I hadn’t noticed it, but I was taking drugs by the shed load. I was out of my mind on pretty much anything I could get. It’s easier to list the drugs I haven’t used than the drugs I have used; To date, I’ve never used “street” heroin, or crack cocaine. More on this in a moment.

What this meant was that when I ran away from my environment, making the 300 mile journey back to my mother’s house, I swore I would never use again. After all, I had nearly died on a couple of occasions, and found myself on the radar of what one might describe as “less than savoury people”.

More on my drug use…

Yes, I have never used Heroin or Crack, but what did happen was that I got addicted to Oxycodone, Diazepam (Valium to my american followers), and Spice (you know, that zombie drug that everyone was talking about for a matter of months until it became illegal and everyone decided to pretend like the problem was solved). Of course, I was drinking a litre of whiskey most nights, and I also had excellent taste in red wine and ales.

Unsurprisingly, I found myself under the treatment of what would describe itself as a “Substance Misuse Service” (SMS), interestingly, there seems to be an unwritten rule that when you spend more time in hospital from drug overdoses than you do at home, they get a little angsty with you. Here’s where I start getting pissed off.

By the time I was under the SMS, I actually wanted to stop using, but had completely forgotten what normal life was like. I hadn’t been sober a number of years, and was quite frankly spending most of the day looking like I had just left the set of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. My keyworker was a wonderful person, and conveniently specialised in Novel Psychoactives like Spice. Sadly, that’s about as far as my good experiences go.

You see, I had also been referred to the local secondary care mental health service, referred to as the “Assessment and Treatment Service” (ATS). Again, they took umbridge with my repeated unaliving attempts, and decided they should probably do something about this obvious wild card called David.

Here’s the problem though.

The SMS needed my mental health to be treated. How can a person stop using drugs to hide from trauma, when that trauma is still ongoing and not being processed? Luckily, the ATS had a stellar response; “We can’t treat your mental health until you are sober”. Thank goodness that we could all agree on absolutely nothing.

I was quite privileged eventually, because my lead practitioner at the ATS actually spoke to my keyworker at the SMS, and we eventually got somewhere. It was a psych ward, but it was still somewhere, and that’s what matters.

I detoxed off the psychoactive stuff, and then detoxed some more in the community. April 7th 2016 I had my first day of sobriety in close on a decade. This warranted a celebration, naturally, so naturally I threw myself into a monotropic spiral, had a major psychotic episode as a result, and earnt myself a free trip back to the psych ward. Oh, and by the way, being Autistic on a psych ward is a huge steaming pile of bullsh*t that has been placed in an already burning dumpster.

So what other issues did I face? Services were woefully ill equipped to take on a neurodivergent client on just about every front.

The entire system for appointments was clearly designed by and for neurotypical people who assumed that everyone had a good grasp of time-keeping, sensory regulation, emotional regulation, and their short term memory. It was an absolute nightmare.

So what was different about my drug use compared to a neurotypical?

I think the largest difference was my approach. Drugs were my special interest, still are to an extent (just without the use of said drugs). I used myself as a science experiment. I kept detailed journals of what I’d taken, what dose, what I had combined it with, and how it affected me over a number of hours. My ultimate goal was to find the sweet spot where I was no longer aware of my existence, but still alive.

Another interesting aspect of my drug use was my blatant identity crisis. Growing up Autistic meant being constantly told that who I was, was incorrect. Everything about me was a target for the neurologically provincial bigots. So when I discovered that drugs allowed me to build a new identity, one that I felt was better accepted (says something when your addict identity feels better accepted than your Autistic one, doesn’t it?), I leaned into it and allowed psychoactives to become my ENTIRE identity.

Of course, I was still Autistic and ADHD as hell, so drugs often served to extend my spoons reserves far beyond their limit.

The biggest pull of drugs though? I could switch off my feelings, or change them in a matter of minutes to hours. I had the control, I felt what i wanted to feel. Take that, brain!

Of course I tried things like the 12-step program to get sober. It really wasn’t my sort of thing, but apparently voicing that in meetings is a huge faux pas that means none of the 12-steppers continue to talk to you when you leave the program. I ended up taking things I had learnt from multiple sources and building a life where it was easier to not use anymore. When I was struggling, I would reach out and help someone who needed help. It became a philosophy that I lived by. These days I have to be a bit more careful with my spoons, but still essentially try to live life by helping others out of the dark spaces that litter the world.

The fundamental problem with my experience in “the system” was that no one had any appropriate training around neurodivergent people. To be fair, I didn’t even know of things like monotropism, double empathy, meltdowns, burnout, or really anything to do with actual neurodivergent experience, so I couldn’t really act surprised when services didn’t either.

Life hasn’t been perfect since I got sober, but I’m glad I got to experience it. Sobriety has been a gift that I gave to myself, I don’t intend to ever return it, but one thing I have learnt more recently is that if you spend your entire life trying to predict the future, you’re not going to have a fantastic experience of the present.

A set of final words? If you are struggling right now, with any of the stuff in this article, I want you to know that it CAN get better. I don’t say that to bullsh*t you. The ugly truth is that not everyone survives this stuff. I do, however, urge you to give yourself the best chance you can. 7 years ago, as I embarked on my recovery, I could not have imagined being where I am today. The suffering I was experiencing seemed unending and inescapable. I got out, though.

I truly believe that everyone deserves a chance to be a happy and content member of the society they live in. Of course mental health and addiction are only a small part of peoples experiences, which no doubt I have already, or will, elaborate on in some capacity.

I just need one thing from you, dear reader, don’t give up. Keep trying.

Addiction advocacy and the inspiration paradox: A reflection at 6 years sober

Today I am 6 years sober from addiction. During those six years I have learnt many lessons, but in this reflection I would like to consider something that has played on my mind for the past three years of my advocacy work.

Inspiration.

While not overtly a bad thing, it is often misused to infantilise and minimise the achievements of disabled people while hiding behind a mask of feigned respect. This phenomenon is known as “inspiration porn”.

A good (hypothetical) example of such a thing would be a video of a disabled person doing something completely mundane, like dancing, but they would be dancing with a non-disabled person. The video would centre the non-disabled as some kind of saviour to the disabled person for doing something as basic as treating them like a human being. The implication of the video, albeit in subtext, would be “Look at the amazing things that disabled people can achieve when an abled person rescues them from their shameful existence”.

It’s dehumanising and wrong.

So, addiction advocacy.

As a recovering addict in the public eye, I do what I do because I want to help others overcome similar challenges to my own, and help reduce their suffering. This does in fact require inspiring people. If it weren’t for the sober addict who showed me kindness during my first stretch on a psychiatric ward, I might not have chosen recovery.

The fact that they had turned their life around, and become someone I wanted to look up to was inspiring, and that isn’t a bad thing.

What would be bad would be if people like myself are allowed to become another source of inspiration porn. It’s a difficult line to walk. I want people to have what I have found, not get off on the tragedies that have formed who I am.

Contrary to popular belief, addicts are people. We are not burdens, we don’t deserve our suffering. Regardless of whether or not we are in recovery, we deserve food, housing, health care, support, and kindness.

This is what I want to inspire in people.

So please, don’t look at me and think it’s a miracle that I recovered. My recovery shouldn’t be the inspiration. I was privileged to have a loving and supportive set of family and friends. I had good key workers (although the services they came from were woefully ill-equipped). I was in a place where I was ready to enter recovery.

What I want to inspire in you is the idea that all addicts deserve recovery. I want to inspire you to challenge the systems that keep people like me trapped in a world of suffering.

I want you to know that those with less privilege than myself need us to get in the trenches and help them fight this war.

If that is what I inspire in people, then I am happy with what I am doing. If, however, you look at me and see a walking miracle, then I have not gone far enough.

The tragedies and traumas of my life should not be celebrated. They should be wielded as weapons to dismantle the masters house, and rebuild it into something where we can all coexist and thrive.

Autism, addiction, and my need for control

I have learned a great deal about myself through self-reflection over the last 5 years of sobriety, but one lesson was considerably difficult to learn.

I like to think of myself as a friendly and generally happy and fun person to be around, but the truth is that I need control. I need control over everything. When things in my life are out of my control, I experience a deep-rooted anxiety and panic that can push me into a self-destructive spiral if left unchecked.

This is what made substance use so attractive to me. My life was chaotic and terrifying thanks to my worsening mental health. Substance use gave me control over my feelings and reactions. As an addict, I quickly learned that when things got too much to handle, I could essentially switch myself off.

Not only did it give me control over my emotions, it gave me control 9ver my identity. In previous articles I have spoken about how I was unhappy with my identity, and it’s just as relevant here. I wanted to be someone or something else. Drugs and alcohol gave me that. I was “Dave the Rave”.

I was the guy that by all definitions of the word, should have been dead.

Of course what I failed to see was that I was not controlling my identity, the substances were in fact controlling me. I was not choosing to be David the Addict. It was inescapable.

The final point to consider was that as my mental health deteriorated, so did my routine. My life was chaos. This was horrific to me as an autistic person, which subsequently caused me to deteriorate further. It was a vicious circle that span in perpetuity. Drugs and alcohol actually gave me some semblance of routine. Yet another insidious way that I fooled myself into thinking I was doing okay.

Even now at 5 years sober, I still struggle with my need for control. I catch myself trying to engineer every aspect and every moment of my life. Meditation helps me sit with my experiences, but truthfully the only thing that stops me from manipulating everyone is knowing that it’s wrong. If it was a socially acceptable thing to do, I would absolutely engineer and manipulate everything about my life.

That’s how much I need control over my life.

Filming addicts in crisis is a form of violence

I remember some years ago when the drug known as “spice” was sweeping through my country. Not only were the tabloids having a field day, and not only were people filming addicts on the street under the influence, I was using it.

It was a relatively common sight in some cities. Individuals helplessly and mindlessly stumbling around in a zombie like fashion, people screaming curses, refusing to see the suffering of those of us who were hooked on the stuff.

But what I really want to focus in on are the people who were filming us. They were the worst kind of people, and sadly, they still exist.

The people holding the cameras often claimed that they were “spreading awareness”. In fact what they did, was post the video to social media, and embark upon discussions of how people like me were scum, how we deserved to die, how our suffering was our own fault.

They weren’t spreading awareness, they were spreading hate. It was an act of violence against a group of people that are already significantly marginalised by society. It was the moral model of addiction running at full tilt.

When a person is suffering in such a way, filming them and posting it to Facebook is perhaps one of the most humiliating things you can do. Unfortunately, humiliation is what these people go for. People speak words and carry out acts of violence against addicts eith great regularity. Often without ever raising a fist.

I hope dearly that none of my followers have ever done such a thing. And if you have, I hope you have come to feel remorse about it. By doing such things, you are actively helping to kill addicts.

If it sounds like I am using strong words, then take heed. This is not a harmless matter. Imagine trying to rebuild your life from addiction while videos of you in the thick of it circulate on social media. The Internet is forever.

If you ever see a person suffering in such a way, please extend compassion. Make sure they are safe, call for any help that may be appropriate. You can also help protect opioid addicts by receiving naloxone training. The dawn of naloxone has saved many, many lives.

Addicts are human beings with emotions, hopes, and dreams. We are often traumatised children. Extend compassion where you can.

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