Hello. My name is Tilde. I live in the Netherlands and have the dream to one day pursue becoming a dancer, wedding officiant and to make friends.

I’ve been a patient in the dutch mental healthcare system for 12 years now. At 12 years old, after years of missing school consistently and oftentimes suffering panic attacks caused by irrational worries, I asked my parents to put me in therapy. With the little knowledge I had, I’d heard of social anxiety disorder and deduced that that must have been what I had.

Fast forward, 12 years later. After what has felt like a fight for answers, I now have the diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, cPTSD, OCD, borderline personality disorder, dependent personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder, panic disorder, selective mutism, dyspraxia, avolition, age regression, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD and intellectual disabilities. I have gone down a road of 8 different mental health facilities, not including non-insured coaches and psychiatrists. I’ve been on every antidepressant, antipsychotic and BDZ you can think of, to no avail. Every single form of treatment has either been deemed ineffective, or has simply been reduced to letting me tell my story and telling me “Wow, that really sucks”, and I have been transferred to the next. Again and again.

I had to quit school at 16, and haven’t been able to consistently follow schooling or work in any way since then. I’ve been forced to live in isolation, since the mental stimulant of not just social interaction, but triggering my intensive compulsive analysis of myself and my every movement makes interacting with the outside world in a normal fashion unbearable. The road of continuous desire to one day be able to psychologically function in a bearable way, and to be told every step of the way that improvement Isn’t possible has been agonizing. Since my first OCD related psychosis in 2016, there has not been a day where I’ve woken up without panic through my whole body and dread filling my brain. For so many years I have so loudly been in crisis, without feeling like I’ve properly been heard by the mental health system to treat me in the ways that I deserved. I have been forced to live in a state of mind and being that no one should live in. To be so painfully aware of how I differ from the rest of the world; socially, mentally, intellectually, in sheer capability, and knowing that my whole life all I ever wanted was to be part of something, has caused me to lose that hope I once had as a 12 year old girl that just wanted to be able to speak to her classmates and experience life like any other.

Last year, I applied to the NVVE to start a trial of assisted euthanasia. I have been met with more compassion, love and understanding from them than any mental health professional I’ve ever spoken to. For one of the first times I have felt heard about my situation. To have the opportunity to be euthanized for mental health issues in the Netherlands, you need to be deemed “uitbehandeld”, finished with treatment. I am now officially deemed “uitbehandeld” in the dutch mental healthcare system.

Earlier this year, as I was having troubles in my, then, relationship, I had found a non-insured psychotherapist that did relationship counseling specifically focused on people with BPD and NPD. After my relationship had ended, I had heard back from this psychotherapist. I don’t know how or why it happened, but from the moment I picked up the phone, I was sobbing through my words and telling him my whole story, to the best of my ability. I was vaguely aware that this therapist was familiar with many other cases not related to relationships, such as specializing in ACT and even hypnotherapy, from what I’d read. I felt the overwhelming desire to see him by myself, even if my goal had shifted to working on something almost entirely out of my control to something that I should have always been focusing on: myself. After meeting with this psychotherapist generously for free twice now, I’ve had conversations I’ve never had before, and have heard insights I’ve never been told. I have never even been close to hearing someone’s understanding in how to help me in any way, or even where to start. I had never been able to be understood before. That treatment exists where It’s recognized that deep issues and ways of thinking needs to be addressed before I’m even able to make the next step. That mental illness doesn’t have to be a case of “just go and do it”. That maybe if I can’t get there by myself, even if I never have been before, even in childhood, it might still be possible. That maybe it isn’t just the case that I haven’t tried hard enough to be okay, and that the fact that I’m not means that I won’t be. That a way exists where they look at and analyze Me. Completely. And not just what a workbook says to do.

Of course I’m aware that not everything in life can be based on hope. But it has gotten me this far. It has forced me to attempt everything I, in actuality, haven’t been ready for; to live. I’ve pushed through in the hopes that one day, it would be worth it. And even if it sometimes feels like life has shown me sign after sign in that I should accept the “reality” that I won’t get there, it doesn’t stop me from wanting to fight. I don’t know if the future I’ve always dreamed of, where I’m fully healed and my brain and soul finally has the opportunity to develop into somebody organically, can exist. I don’t know if what I am and experience right now is it, but I can’t let go of it yet. I don’t want to die. But the idea of it is the only true steady comforting thought anymore for me, and it has been for as long as I can remember. Except for the hope that effective treatment can exist for me, too. Even if life has always shown me one thing, it hasn’t stopped me and my mom hugging each other in tears, night after night for years after I’ve begged her for the thousandth time to help ease my anxiety by telling me this can be over one day, from telling each other that we just know that I, too, can be okay, and maybe even happy one day. That one day I might be rewarded for being so tough, even if I’ve only ever felt weak. That I can feel the payoff for always making sure to stay kind and good no matter the suffering I might be feeling. That life can be for me too, even if I have lost that belief little by little.

I’m not the best with my words. Due to chronic executive dysfunction and, honestly, who knows whatever else it is that might be wrong with me, I haven’t been able to really develop or practice intellectual abilities such as formatting letters. I wish I were better in explaining my situation, and explaining the real crushing mental and physical pain I am in. I have very recently gone through an event that has had an extreme traumatic effect on me, and on top of my OCD and MDD hyper focusing on everything already wrong with me and everything I’m unable to do or be, and never have been able to do or be, I’ve fallen into a state where I’m almost completely unable to function, think straight, and speak. I can feel my brain killing me, and even a week of being completely left alone in this state is an experience of which I don’t even know where I’d begin to explain. I’m so, so alone due to my mind blocking me from being able to freely speak and causing me crushing anxiety when I attempt to. All I’ve known for as long as I can remember has been constant confusion and anxiety and pain. After having a life where, up to now, my disabilities and symptoms only worsen with time, almost as if every day of being conscious is another trauma added, I know there’s only two options left for me now. I’m not in a place anymore where I’m able to distract myself with luxuries or I’m able to maladaptive daydream myself out of it. As I said, it feels as if my brain is killing me, every second, wether I’m awake or asleep. And even if we don’t know if this will ever change, and know nothing is guaranteed, I think a part of me will never want to let go of my mom’s belief that this world can one day be for me, too.

Also; the donation end goal I set is the treatment’s true price subtracted by the amounts I have already been donated to from sharing my story on social media previously. Thank you so much to everyone that has already helped me out in the past. Knowing I’m thought of in times like these means the world to me.

TLDR; Since childhood I have been crushed under the weight of many different mental illnesses and neurological disorders. After 12 years of constant ineffective treatments I’ve been accepted for psychological suffering based euthanasia. Help donate for a mental health treatment that I feel might have a chance to make a change in my life when nothing else has.

Thank you so much for reading my story, and for donating if you can. Love for you all, and remember to treasure every aspect of this beautiful world that you might take for granted sometimes. ♥️

UPDATE: Thank you so much to everyone being so much more generous than I ever could have imagined. Thank you especially to Chloe England for your help, I can’t express my gratitude!

16/02 UPDATE:

By rationing the money I’ve collected so far from these donations I’ve been able to follow treatment in my assessment period and a first few weeks of scoping out how to get started on trauma therapy. In this time I’ve now completely gone through the money raised in this fund. I know reach has been low for a few months now, so I please ask you to share this however you can. I know I’m not entitled to anyone’s money or time, but if you would try to help however you can it could change my life. Please consider sharing and donating, since I don’t know what to do from this point onward. Thank you.