30-year-old Dee Mathiesen, from Wollongong, has been battling an eating disorder.
And towards the end of last year, her mental health problems only worsened as she faced more challenges.
She says she was assaulted twice within a few weeks and lost one job after another, sending her to a point where she felt herself slip away.
“It was a quick move back in with Mum and Dad via having to be admitted to hospital via emergency because I was having some suicidal tendencies, just doing some really out-of-character stuff… I just needed some help.”
A few weeks later she was readmitted to the hospital, into the emergency department for one weekend.
After being hospitalised twice, her regular GP tried hard to find her a psychiatrist, but she had to wait four months until she could get an appointment to be diagnosed.
“I didn’t know what to do, you just feel helpless... Honestly in the state that I had been in, and how big my (mood) swings were and how regularly I was seeing my doctor, I was gobsmacked (amazed) I was allowed to walk the streets… I was a danger to myself; I was a danger to other people.”
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says the number of services delivered last year in September 2020 was 14.5 per cent higher than in the same period the previous year, while mental health-related prescriptions dispensed saw an increase of 6 per cent.
Dan Auerbach is the director of up to 40 clinics between the New South Wales Central Coast and Wollongong.
He saw a 20 per cent increase, and he only expects these figures to rise.
“We still don’t know the effects of COVID-19 this year. It’s predicted that mental health consequences are only going to get worse in the coming months due to the cumulative effects of COVID-19.”
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