So this week is mental health awareness week - so I thought I'd share my journey: I started suffering the age of sixteen. I started showing symptoms of crohns disease from the age of four; but I wasn't diagnosed until almost eighteen. I was in a room with a gastroenterologist consultant who said I was lying for attention. I was lay naked whilst she checked my body for signs of self harm and asking me questions like 'do you starve yourself to look good?', 'do you get the least amount of attention in your house?', 'have you ever been sexually abused', the list went on. I was crying and begging her to believe there was something wrong with me and I'm not an attention seeker. She agreed to one final colonoscopy as long as I agreed to see a psychiatrist 'when it comes back clear'. As strange as it may seem - being diagnosed the day of that colonoscopy (which was performed by a different consultant) was one of the happiest moments of my life. It ...