'I now look forward to the future and I am very thankful for my life and everything in it'

NEIL CONATY from Co Meath is a young “change maker” promoting positive mental health with Headstrong.

At 17, he is now thankful for life and is looking forward but he also reflects on a time when he had no hope and felt he had no future.

Neil feels that “everything changed” when he was 11.

He thought he was “just going through something everyone goes through” and believed the feelings were “normal”.

“At this age I just felt confused and sad. I was very lonely at times when I was feeling very down.

“The only emotion I showed others out of the ordinary was a lot of anger,” he said.

Neil said he became “slightly rebellious and hyper” and was “getting in a lot of trouble” which was not in his character.

Things became more serious by the time he was 15.

“I had developed sort of a fear of crowds . . . I had to stop going to Mass as the amount of people made me so anxious,” he said.

Neil began having panic attacks, and he lost interest in school and hobbies.

At 15 or 16, he decided he needed to do something, even if it did not work out, as he “couldn’t continue any more”.

Neil told his parents about his low mood and agreed to see his GP. He was referred to nearby psychiatric services and was given medication.

However, after Neil had some “dark thoughts”, he was taken to hospital. He was admitted to a psychiatric unit, put on a lot of medication and experienced many forms of therapy.

After six weeks, Neil recalls wanting to “be back at home” in his own bed for more than just the weekend. I wanted to be “back in the real world and not in this artificial place anymore”, he said.

Meeting his doctors in the unit, he tried “to show that I’m much better and ready to take things on again, even though I know it’s not all good”. When he came home, there were still “a lot of breakdowns and a lot of the same feelings and, for a while, I tried to hide it”, he said.

After a while, Neil had more dark thoughts and his mother brought him to hospital again and back to the psychiatric unit.

He was transferred to an adolescent unit where he found the staff “brilliant” and really helpful. He also greatly reduced his reliance on medication.

Looking back, Neil says it was a “very long, very hard journey”.

“From seeing no hope, no future for myself and no point in life, I now look forward to the future and I am very thankful for my life and everything in it.”