One in four of us will experience a mental health issue in our lifetime. 19-year-old Siobhán Brady is just one of those people. Battling with depression from the age of 13, Siobhán has experienced the many ups and downs of mental illness and the stigma that sadly comes with it. “I let my depression determine whether or not to let people in and so I bottled everything up, I began self harming and I hid everything” she writes. “I wasn’t ready to turn my life around”. Here in her own words, See Change ambassador Siobhán shares her honest and frank experience of mental illness: At 13 years old I was surrounded by darkness, lost in my own world of negativity, doubting myself, harming myself and contemplating suicide. At the age of 13 I hid my feelings, thoughts and emotions. I allowed society to determine my actions, I allowed myself to believe it was wrong to talk, that it was wrong to feel the way I did and so I kept feeling that way, I kept harming myself and I kept considering suicide. I was ashamed, worried about how the world would see me if they knew, if they knew how much I was hurting inside and I was worried I would be seen as an outcast, a weirdo, a freak and so up until the age of 15 I kept everything bottled up. At the age of 15, still worried about how society would view me if I came clean, if I told them what was really going on, I reached breaking point, I knew I couldn’t go on like that for much longer and so I did it, I followed my plan and I attempted to take my own life. Sadly this only proved to confirm my thoughts about how people would view me. My peers retreated, they no longer wanted to be associated with me, I lost friends and I was struggling to find people who really cared about me and after having little luck I went back to my old ways, I let my depression control me and I let my depression determine whether or not to let people in and so I bottled everything up, I began self harming and I hid everything. For another 2 years I continued to hide everything. I continued down my path of destruction. I did this because I wasn’t ready to ask for help, I was ready to admit that I had been suffering from depression and I wasn’t ready to turn my life around. But one day things changed, things began to look a bit brighter because I found that one good adult, I found that one person who I knew wouldn’t judge me and I found the one person I could talk to. So after years of pretending to talk to the doctors and the counsellors and everybody else who I was put into a room with I had found the one person I knew I could trust, Mrs. L. She supported me, she looked after me, she helped me and most importantly she listened to me. So when I had again reached rock bottom and I was planning to take my life for the second time in 5^th year I spoke up, I found some strength within me and I said “I don’t want to live like this anymore”. Something clicked within me and I knew that no matter how people would react to me knowing I was suffering from a mental illness I told myself that I deserve to be happy and I deserve to control my life again. Things happened pretty quickly after hitting rock bottom for the second time and after speaking to Mrs. L the next day I was admitted into a psychiatric adolescent unit where I spent the next four months. It was far from easy, it was hell. I was 17, away from my friends, stuck in a hospital and my only way of coping was taken away from me, I was no longer in a position to relieve my thoughts and emotions through self-harm and while I did engage in self-harm while I was given leave and allowed home and while I did take more attempts on my life I knew that it wasn’t what I wanted, what I wanted was to get better. It wasn’t until I accepted that I had depression and that I accepted that my way of coping was a negative way I began my long road to recovery, a road which I am still on but with each day I get a bit stronger and a bit further. My mental illness broke me down bit-by-bit but my family and friends built me back up and made me stronger than ever. I’m now 19 and I am open and honest about my past, about myself harm and about my experience with a mental illness because I hope that someday my story will encourage just one person to speak up before it’s too late, before they are too ill to get treatment as an outpatient and before they are too ill to recognizes that they do have a mental health issue. I am now 19 and I have suffered with depression since I was 13 as a result of life experiences and as a result of my depression I have become a stronger person. Looking back over my time in hospital, my experience with stigma, my self-harm and my dark days I see how that has made me who I am today. My actions over the years have although negative have allowed doctors to correctly diagnose me with borderline personality disorder and treat my condition correctly. Do I view my talking as a weakness? No because it took strength and guts to tell people how I really feel, it took courage and bravery for me to open up and risk being judged and most importantly it took time for me to open up. A mental illness isn’t something we should be ashamed of, it is something we should use to teach us how life knows us down but how it also helps us back up, we should use it as an opportunity to become stronger, and more resilient. I’m 19 and I have struggled with a mental illness, I have been addicted to self-harm, I have spend months in hospital and most of all I have become a stronger person. I made it out the other end of my mental health issues, I still have my bad days like everybody else but I have learned to look after my mental health and I have learned ways of being kind to myself when I am having a bad day. Sometimes it takes experiencing something negative to make you aware of things. I hope by sharing my story I will make some people more aware of looking after their mental health without themselves going through a mental illness. I am here today as a result of my friends and family, the doctors and nurses who looked after me in hospital and because others who have shared their stories with a mental illness made me realize I have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide and I have as much a right to speak about my illness/disorder as anyone with a physical illness/disorder. This May I will continue to share my story in the hopes I can get people talking about mental health in a positive way. I’m ready to start a conversation, are you? _________________________________________________________________ See Change, the National Stigma Reduction Partnership and our 90 partner organisations are rolling out a month-long national Green Ribbon campaign to get people talking openly about mental health problems this May.  More than 300,000 green ribbons will be distributed nationwide free of charge to spark a national conversation about mental health in boardrooms, break-rooms, chat rooms, clubhouses, arts venues, college campuses and around kitchen tables throughout Ireland. Aware – Helping to Defeat Depression (www.aware.ie) Helpline: 1890 303 302, E-mail Support: wecanhelp@aware.ie Console – Living with Suicide (www.console.ie) Helpline: 1800 201890 Pieta House – Centre for the Prevention of Suicide or Self-Harm (www.pieta.ie) Phone: 01 601 0000 Samaritans (www.samaritans.org) Helpline: 116 123 (Free Phone Number), Email Support Service: jo@samaritans.org