My triumph over my mental health struggles | Zaynab (ZEZE) Zaynab sohawon | TEDxYouth@Brum

[Music] i knew someone who was so psychotic that should talk to ants and she was so paranoid that people were poisoning her that she wouldn't eat at all i knew someone who was restrained in a forensic low secure unit for one and a half hours at a time to stop her from running into walls thinking they were portals i'm 19 years old i'm an aspiring neuroscientist i love unicorns and cake i want to get a fiat 500 for my first car i identify as a dora the explorer look alike my family make fun of me saying i'm not a real brown person because of my intolerance to handle spicy foods i'm pretty average for a young person now do you remember that person i was talking about who is psychotic suicidal and self-harming yeah that was me i'm that girl i was sectioned for four years inside psychiatric units and had been known to mental health services since i was 11 years old my diagnoses are emotionally unstable personality disorder psychosis and autism but what is a personality disorder if i were to be asked out on the street to tell someone something about me i would start off by saying that i love unicorns i wouldn't even mention that i have a pd a personality disorder that's because pd's are not all of me however unicorns on the other hand well they are all of me on a serious note pd's are perceived by the media to be incredibly dangerous disorders where people are killers or murderers or worse if you have a personality disorder the media say you're irrational and crazy and need to be locked up let me tell you what it actually is emotionally unstable personality disorder is a long-term disturbance of behaviors associated with unstable self-image turbulent relationships having major trauma and feelings of a chronic emptiness eupd emotionally unstable personality disorder is characterized by engaging in self-harm making suicide attempts and reckless behavior up to two percent of people in the uk suffer with a personality disorder that means it affects 1.32 million people that's more than the total population of birmingham i'll say that again there are more people with the pd than there are people in brum that's a problem it's the most stigmatized mental illness out there stigmatized even by mental health clinicians eupd is globally highly prevalent however in the chinese classification of disorders it's not mentioned it's so stigmatized that china doesn't even count it as a disorder a mental health nurse told me that patients struggling with their mental health during giving birth who have eupd are turned away from perinatal mental health services if that's their primary diagnosis it's the same for early intervention psychosis services even mental health clinicians and services reject people with this diagnosis if even psychiatric services disregard us how do we as a society expect to understand it i was made to believe that i was a bad person for having a personality disorder but i was not a bad person feeling desperately suicidal and feeling broken i was told i was manipulative but i was not manipulative for stopping my meds and going psychotic whenever i felt out of control i was told i was attention seeking but i was not attention seeking for feeling so abandoned that i'd make attempts on my life because i couldn't bear the pain it's a diagnosis of exclusion which needs to be changed we're vulnerable individuals who've had inexplicably difficult traumatic experiences which have damaged our core sense of self-worth causing us to feel like life is worth not worth living i just had complex emotional needs personality disorder doesn't mean who we are is a disorder it's how we have reacted to the chaos surrounding us that is disordered personality disorders are a serious illness not a quality of our innate identity but more importantly we need to talk about self-harm and suicidality and how this is a normality for someone with this disorder how do we manage it how do we change our perceptions how can we challenge what we know and learn together about supporting peers in mental distress it's okay i get it these are tough questions but don't worry i've got you we'll figure this out together i came on this stage to educate and equip you with the necessary tools for you as the youth of birmingham to know how to respond to peers who are suicidal and have a personality disorder figures show death by suicide are skyrocketing kovid has changed the game whilst we now have a global public health pandemic we also have triggered a mental health pandemic now mind says that 68 of young people said that their mental health got worse during lockdown many more people are entering psychiatric inpatient with higher acuity of distress and more people are in crisis more people are suicidal all the people running the country rely on figures they rely on figures to solve this colossal issue that's why public health have invested 25 million pounds into reducing suicide rates by 10 percent little do they know that the king's fund projected that by 2026 money to be spent on people with the pd will be estimated as 1.1 billion pounds 25 million it's not enough thing is i know we can do more than that as the youth of birmingham we can do more than that we can't sit back and leave the money to solve everything we need to respond to the pain behind suicide and pds these are the most vulnerable demographics in our society and these people these people need to be heard this would be through championing the three e's and the three s's of suicide prevention first e empathy have empathy because compassion is key in the healing process a little compassion goes a long way secondly ask open ended questions listen for the unheard story be curious about what's going on in that person's life being a listening ear could be the one thing that person is looking for to stay alive thirty emphasize you care be the voice that young person needs in that moment we don't always need clinical interventions sometimes all we need is a society that fosters resilience and recovery onto the yeses now first s say something rather than nothing if you don't know what to say just say you care tell them they are seen and their pain is validated respond to the emotional distress beyond the action third s safety ensure safety and call 999 if you think someone is in imminent danger and remove risk items this year's tedx theme is insert future here i want to insert a future where we respond to personality disorders more safely more effectively and with more compassion and in doing so we can transform how we react to suicide we need to be proactive in early prevention of suicide not reactive to when suicide is completed now before someone is suicidal everybody says how they'll be there for them when they need to talk during suicidality people are told they're attention-seeking taking up an extra bed in hospital that they're not actually suicidal after suicide everybody works together to see how it shouldn't happen again however nothing happens it's just a suicidality cycle within the system we have to bear in mind that suicide prevention does not start when someone tells us they're suicidal it starts when someone actually thinks of self-harm as an option before they actively hurt themselves we need to be more empathetic and kinder as a society being trauma-informed because everybody is healing from things we can't see that's why as the youth of birmingham we should work to protect each other and normalize not being fine it's kiwi impact change as a city birmingham was where i first became deeply suicidal it's where i dug my grave but birmingham is also the place where i rebirthed and revived myself i turned that grave into the most glorious of flower beds i embedded my roots in birmingham and nourished the best in me to allow me to blossom now i'm giving you the seeds to make your own now i'm an award-winning mental health advocate an international speaker i'm a published author and an executive of two different mental health organizations both nationally and globally after having conquered my mental illnesses and surviving the turbulence they bring i pursued mental health activism to be the person to other people that my past self needed i transmuted obtaining my turning my painful past into energy that catalyzes meaningful and impactful change that i want to output into the world ultimately i decided to let the fire within me burn brighter than the fiery turmoil around me i am recovery i owned my power i triumphed but most importantly who i am who i am is not disordered

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 2,205

Keywords: Education, English, Health, Mental health, TEDxTalks

Id: aEf-3QnVsEA

Length: 12min 37sec (757 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021