Page 50 Daily Mail, Thursday, August 1, 201950 femailMAGAZINE
Daily Mail, Thursday, August 1 , 2019by Antonia
Hoyle
psychologist Fiona Murden. ‘The
education system is putting more
pressure on teachers, who don’t have
time to spot if a teenager is struggling.’
Added to this toxic mix is social
media, which is increasingly thought
not only to spark feelings of isolation
and inadequacy, but also to encourage
‘copycat’ suicide and self-harm.
‘A generation ago, teenagers would
have talked to each other,’ says Fiona.
‘Now, they communicate on Snapchat
or Instagram. This doesn’t promote
the levels of [mood-boosting hormone]
oxytocin in the brain that face-to-face
connection provides.’
Budgets for mental health funding,
meanwhile, have been stretched.
Once inflation is taken into account,
income for mental health trusts was
£105 million lower in 2016-17 than five
years earlier — and, perhaps in con-
sequence, the threshold for gaining
access to CAMHS seems to have risen.N
HS guidelines state that
children who show signs of
anxiety, mild to moderate
self-harm and behavioural
disorders should be seen. But, as I was
told repeatedly by parents in the course
of this investigation, unless a teenager
has actually attempted suicide, they are
likely to be turned away.
As Lucy puts it: ‘I told CAMHS I was
suicidal, but I wasn’t taken seriously.
After my overdose, I thought they would
spring into action, but there is still no
help. I felt they were giving up on me.’
Yet Lucy had had previous intervals
of depression. She was 12 when Gill, an
HR adviser, and her husband, Doug, 49,
a supply chain planner, from Woking,
Surrey, noticed her behaviour change.
‘She had friendship problems at
school,’ says Gill. ‘She became tearful
and refused food.’ After Lucy lost 10lb,
Gill sought help from her GP, who
referred Lucy to the Surrey branch of
CAMHS. She was offered fortnightly
appointments with a therapist, which,
Gill says, helped. She was signed off
from CAMHS in February 2017.
But, by the beginning of last year,
Lucy had grown unhappy again.
Last February, she entered a school
public-speaking competition. When
her team failed to progress, Lucy
blamed herself. ‘She was in tears,’
says Gill. ‘That’s when she said she’d
been swallowing shampoo for months.
That she used this physical pain to
ease her mental pain was horrendous.’
Gill tried watching Lucy showering
and locking away shampoo — neither
of which proved feasible — before reach-
ing a resigned acceptance. ‘She hated
blood, so didn’t cut herself. Shampoo
wasn’t going to kill her as other
substances could. It was a lesser evil.’
After being referred to CAMHS by her
GP that month, Lucy and her parents
had three meetings, during which Lucy’s
level of risk was assessed.
In one of these meetings, Doug
mentioned in passing that he had
private healthcare through his work.
‘They said going private was the
better option or we faced a six to
eight-month wait,’ says Gill. ‘I wanted
to stay on their waiting list, but theysaid that we couldn’t. It felt as if they
washed their hands of us.’
She and Doug were working during
the Easter holidays last year when he
received the text from Lucy saying she
wanted ‘to end it’. Both rushed home
and, finding Lucy had taken an over-
dose, called an ambulance, which took
her to St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey,
Surrey. ‘Part of me wanted to scream
at her not to be selfish,’ says Gill, who
sat by her daughter for two days as
the drugs left her system. ‘Part of me
wanted to wrap her in cotton wool.’
Lucy’s school postponed her exams
and, after starting weekly sessions
with a private psychotherapist, her
mood stabilised. ‘Without that, I don’t
think she’d be alive,’ says Gill.
An articulate A-grade student, Lucy
seemingly has everything going for
her, but Fiona Murden says suicidal
tendencies aren’t always sparked by
catastrophic life events.
‘Mental illness can be caused by
constant niggles that build up, causing
a subtle shift in mood.’
Like most of her friends, Lucy joined
Instagram at the age of 11. Her account
now documents her mental health
struggles, but she admits social media
upsets her. ‘My feed is filled with
beautiful models and reality stars.
There is so much pressure to be
perfect. It’s impossible,’ she says.B
Y LAST December, Lucy, who
dreams of studying history at
Oxbridge, felt so ‘overwhelmed’
by her approaching GCSEs
that she overdosed again, swallowing
pills Gill believes she had siphoned from
her handbag. Gill immediately went
back to her GP. ‘We were in crisis. We
needed more support. We wanted to get
back on CAMHS’ radar.’
By the time Lucy was finally offered
an ‘urgent’ appointment with CAMHS
this April, her private psychiatrist had
prescribed her antidepressants and
recommended medication to help her
sleep. Her parents scrimped to pay for
her to see a hypnotherapist for her
anxiety, and, feeling more positive, she
managed to take her GCSEs.
Justin Wilson, chief medical officer at
Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS
Foundation Trust, said he was ‘very
sorry’ Lucy and her family didn’t feel
‘fully supported’ and that child mental
health care is ‘an absolute priority
for our Trust’. He said that their
children’s services ‘have been underO
NE evening last February,
15-year-old Lucy Waite broke
down in tears in front of her
mother Gill as she admitted
that when she felt unhappy,
she swallowed shampoo.
This was, a shocked Gill learned, a form of
self-harm — the liquid burned Lucy’s throat.
Distraught, Gill took Lucy to her GP,
who referred her to the local Children
and Adolescent Mental Health Services
(CAMHS), the NHS organisation for young
people with emotional difficulties.
Gill assumed Lucy would quickly receive
treatment. Instead, she was told that her
daughter faced a six to eight-month wait. ‘A
nurse apologised and said they knew Lucy
was in a bad way, but they were swamped,’
says Gill, 52. ‘When my husband happened to
mention he had private healthcare through
work, they said we should take that option.’
A month later, while waiting for her first
session with a private psychiatrist, Lucy
took an overdose, before texting her parents
the plaintive message: ‘I’m really sorry. I
can’t do this. I want to end it.’ An ambulance
was called, and the Waite family’s world wasshattered. ‘Lucy apologised, but said she
still wanted to die,’ Gill recalls, tearfully. ‘I felt
I’d failed her.’
A loving mother who frequently breaks down
while discussing her child, it is hard to see how
Gill could have done more to protect her.
What does seem clear is that the authorities
tasked with looking after Lucy, who has since
taken a second overdose, have let her down.
‘I’ve been left trying to manage a suicidal
daughter with no help or support,’ says Gill.
‘We keep knives and medication locked
away. Every morning I walk into her bedroom
wondering if she’s going to be alive.’
Recent figures reveal half of the children
with mental health issues who needed treat-
ment last year waited more than 18 weeks
following their initial assessment, and more
than 500 with severe or complex problemswaited longer than a year. There is one simple
— and deeply concerning — explanation for
this backlog: the astonishing rise in adolescent
mental health problems.
One report found that depression among
teenagers has risen by 50 per cent in the past
decade. Another study revealed the number
of adolescents who have taken their own
lives has risen 67 per cent since 2010.
Last week, the bleak statistic was high-
lighted by Alicia Sidebotham, 19, who, an
inquest heard, marked the date of her death
on a calendar before taking her own life. The
teenager from Greater Manchester had
posted online about the ‘pressure’ her age
group was under.
Girls appear worse affected: one report
found a fifth aged 17 to 19 have self-harmed,
compared to nearly 10 per cent of boys. Hos-
pital admissions for self-harm have more than
doubled in the past six years, with girls five
times more likely to be admitted than boys.
So what is driving this growing crisis and
why aren’t girls getting the help they need?
Experts agree the causes are many and
complex. ‘Parents are far busier and don’t
have the attention to give to their children
they did a generation ago,’ says charteredTroubled: Celtic Meredith Welch
(top) and Riannon Llewellyn