Hollie, a member of our Young Campaigners Group, visited the House of Commons for the launch of our You Need To Know campaign. Here she talks about her experience of the day.
It was a really exciting experience being able to go to Parliament, but I really enjoyed the fact that MPs and ministers wanted to talk to me, and when I spoke they were really interested.
I met some people who were really nice and they didn't talk to me like I was stupid or had something wrong with me. There was an MP from Manchester whose son has an ASD and if we get more MPs and ministers who have kids or family members with autism, that would be good to get things made better. Henry, another one of the Young Campaigners’ speech was excellent and the MPs and ministers all said how much they liked hearing his experiences.
I spoke to a lady about what happened to me when I went into hospital and how they didn't understand my Asperger's. The psychiatrist thought I had an attachment disorder and not Asperger's and blamed my mum for how I was feeling. I felt like she was saying I was naughty and had behaviour problems and I left the hospital feeling more confused than when I went in. I hate hospitals now, but the psychiatrist I met in the London hospital afterwards who said I did have Asperger's and anxiety disorder was better. I felt he did understand me. The MPs and ministers didn't make me feel silly about what had happened to me or embarrassed - they really wanted to hear what happened and listened.
They asked me what I wanted to change about the CAMHS service and I told them they needed to make the hospitals better, like painting the rooms calm colours and not bright yellow or something that you can't feel calm in. The doctors need to understand Asperger's better and not make us talk about our feelings in ways that we can't. They need to be there when things happen, because when I went to see the doctor at our local CAMHS I never felt bad and couldn't talk about what had been hard because it wasn't happening then.
They filmed me there one day and there were two people in the room. There was a two-way mirror and after we started I felt really horrible that all these people were looking at me. The people behind the mirror rang the people in the room and asked me to move over because they couldn't see me on the camera and I just ran out and locked myself in the toilet and didn't go back. It was bad enough going, sitting in a horrible room, talking to two people in the room, but to do all that too was too much and not fair.
All the MPs and ministers I talked to made me feel like they cared and wanted to do something about how bad it is in CAMHS and I thought it was a really good day and experience for me. I liked being part of something that could change things and make a real difference and I may like to get into politics more in the future if I can make a real change.