26 and my brain is broken.

The above photo is of me in the midst of my identity disorder. I've already released a book about the experience and my various mental health battles - called Paper Doll, it is available on Amazon, Waterstones online and Barnes and Noble Nook. I was obsessed with being beautiful - it consumed my entire existence. By seventeen I was convinced I needed surgery, for my under eyes. Filler, rather. And as I got older I wanted a breast enlargement, and liposuction. I did my research and made it as far as the first appointment. However the surgeon wasn't keen, as I was so young.

Aside from the battles with how I looked, I was at one point under huge pressure with my physical ailments as due to extreme stress I developed an autoimmune condition called Gut Permeability, with systems consistent with fibromyalgia.

There was a quote I saw once, I love quotes, as I find they often explain my thoughts and feelings better than I possibly could. This one was "when one is pretending, the entire body revolts." I felt that summed it up. My body was protesting. I'd spent years, a decade in fact, contorting it.

The above photo, it had been a long day, but I thought I looked good, so that meant taking multiple photos until I got 'the one'. I often did that, and sometimes I can see my own misery so clearly in the photos.

Growing up I was not beautiful. I was to my family, and my friends. I was fun, outgoing, confident. I wrote my songs, and performed my little plays with friends, to our parents. I had belief in myself, that I have struggled to find since.

At twelve I became conscious of the ever present female urge to diet, and to conform. I couldn't shake it, and it won. It overtook my whole life for the next ten years. I started with my body. It was, inarguably larger than other girls my age, So over the course of one summer, I shrank, until I looked like them. I did my make up the same, bought the same clothes, and straightened my hair.

It was only as I got older I realised what had happened and began analysing the identity disorder, because it was more than simply a makeover. My entire outlook changed, my whole idenity became this girl, rather than the girl I'd been before. A little plain, but with plenty of good worthwhile qualities. Unfortunately it became all about appearances for a while, with little substance behind the pretty face.

I was diagnosed with anorexia when I was sixteen. I was referred by the school nurse to CAMHS (child and adult mental health services) and spent a year working hard at my recovery. The anorexia was brutal at such a young age. These days, while I wish I was slimmer, I am better with food and exercise to celebrate what my body can do rather than to punish it as I once did.

After the anorexia came body dysmorphia, while it sounds similar, it wasn't. They came hand in hand with the same origin story, and the same resurfacing issues. But this time it wasn't body, it was face I wanted fixing. I had to gain weight throughout my recovery from anorexia, I was also doing my A levels at the time that I suffered a nervous breakdown. I took time off school, refusing to go in because of flaws on my face. I obsessively googled remedies, or ways i could cover these imperfections. I took close up photos, and I hid.

Eventually I got back into school before the exams, and miraculously passed, but the trauma stayed with me. To feel like you don't want to be seen, aren't worthy, and can't leave the house because of it i wouldn't wish on anyone. I felt so small and in significant. I can proudly say I now leave the house looking terrible, for the gym, or to pop to the shops, and I feel freedom from it.

At nineteen, I had deferred my uni applications for a year out, when I began to feel ill. I had undiagnosable symptoms, such as leg tremors, headaches, feeling drunk when sober, and getting dizzy. There were so many that I have since tried to block out, at the time I wrote them all down as they appeared. Red dots turned up on my body, my heart raced. They told me it was all anxiety, but I knew my body. Something was badly wrong. I did a lot of solo research and two years later got my diagnosis, but it was the most traumatic part of my journey. It was physically exhausting always being ill, mentally draining not being believed, and emotionally painful in that I felt so lonely.

At one point, I can't recall how old I was, I think twenty one, I lost my memories through a mental disorder called dissociative amnesia. It is common with identity disorders, due to the trauma, confusion, and separate identities, i had my identity at home with no make up, sad, tired, ill. Then I had my identity for the world, who I had carefully crafted over the years. Presentable, pretty, perfect. She didn't even think she was ill.

I pushed my body and brain to the limit trying to be someone I wasn't, and when the inevitable happened and my brain could no longer store all the trauma, it just wiped the slate clean. Luckily over time the trauma has lessened, I have healed, and the memories that felt like they belonged to a stranger now feel as thought they are mine again. I listened to I Remember Me - by Jennifer Hudson a lot as I reclaimed them. I also felt disassociation fro my name and whole identity.

After a few months I was hospitalised voluntarily, for psychosis. I heard voices, had delusions and visions. On the psych ward I discovered I wasn't alone. Then I had two more stays separately, one I was sectioned for, and one voluntary following an overdose attempt. Afterwards I was given the diagnosis schizophrenia, although how permanent this is, we are yet to find out.

On the psychiatric ward, I named the alter identity Baby. It felt fitting. She originated from a twelve year olds brain. She was very simple. Trying to adhere to an ideal feminine archetype I picked up at a young age.

I currently take both an anti psychotic medication and and anti depressant, and they keep me happy, healthy and stable. As I unravel what I went through I often find myself writing about it, simply because I love and enjoy writing, it keeps me sane. I mostly write songs and books, but I also used to keep a blog.

Thank you for reading about my journey, and I hope whatever you're going through, you get through it; another quote: "If you're going through hell, keep going."