After their assessment I was immediately brought to a counsellor. They told me I had depression, talked to me about my illness and booked me in for an appointment with the psychiatrist. The doctors' wrote me a prescription.
In those two hours spent in UCD's Health Centre my life changed.
Four years on from my diagnosis, it's strange to look back at the exhausted, quivering shell of a person that I was on that day. I was lost and hopeless. I was terrified of what was going on inside my own head. I spent most of my hour with the counsellor in tears, unable to get any words out.
I was recorded as being a suicide risk. But not imminently.
But I went home that evening with my head feeling clear and calm for the first time that I could remember. I text my mum and told her about my diagnosis. I took my tablets and fell asleep almost immediately.
I was given a label that day - 'Depressed', 'Mentally Ill', 'Suicidal'.
