Before you answer, please read my story.

I am 16 years old now but at the age of 15 I was admitted into a local youth mental institution for 4 days for BiPolar disorder and Suicidal tendencies.

While I was there, I did not receive any therapy for my mental illnesses or behavioral disorders. Let me explain this.

Without exaggeration, this is how my day went everyday...

I woke up.
I went to eat breakfast.
I watched TV.
I went to eat lunch.
I went outside or the gym.
I went to eat dinner.
I watched TV.
I went to sleep.

and it repeated.

Then at the end of the 4 days they said I was "cured" or "fully treated." Now does that sound realistic to you?

Also, while I was there another patient close to my age had gotten into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. I was away from the group of kids my age when this had happen and when I heard the sirens go off I immediately locked myself in a room to hide. But I looked out the window and there was the other patient running down the hallway. I was terrified.

Until this very day I still get nightmares sometimes about this event and wake up screaming. I still go to therapy every two weeks, and I go to a pyschiatrist occasionally too.

I am now a generally happy person who can control their mood swings and depression but now I have some form of trauma and I also get panic disorders.

So tell me, why is it when I tell a doctor this they don't seem to care or take me seriously? Not just doctors. But therapists too. This is my 4th therapist and my 3rd psychiatrist. Nobody takes me seriously and I have friends who have similar problems and no one takes them seriously either. What's wrong with this picture?

Please elaborate.

I was admitted to hospital when I was 18. I was suicidal and my mother wanted me properly watched so that I couldn't do anything stupid. This was in summer, so all the "treatments" were closed for the holidays. The only doctor I saw was the one who admitted me. My days looked pretty much like yours, except there was no gym and I was not allowed outside on my own. My parents came to visit for an hour every day. One of my old classmates had a summer job cleaning, and he came by on his break to talk to me. The rest of the time I spent reading, sitting on my bed. I was suicidal when I went in, but my parents got me out again after a week, because they feared for my sanity.

When you say your doctors and therapists don't take you seriously, what do you mean? Do they make little of your problems? What do you think should be done? I was very angry for a long time after my hospital experience and thought that "they" should have fixed me somehow. Now I realise there wasn't much else they could have done for me. For me, there were no quick fixes to be applied to long term problems. Maybe there are, for you. Isn't there medication that works for bipolar disorder?

I hope things work out for you.

There seems to be a common assumption amongst adults that teenagers and children can't possibly suffer things like depression because they apparently don't have reason to feel that way - you're young; you're supposed to be carefree. It's total crap of course; there is no minimum age limit for mental disorders, and whether or not there is a reason for having that disorder is irrelevant.

Admission to hospital is done when there is a risk that someone will harm themself, but not actually receiving any form of treatment whilst in that setting is silly and pointless.

I suggest finding a therapist who specialises in children and adolescents.

A lot of people have the assumption that a teen's problems are stupid, because they're not fully matured. I'm not saying every teenager in the world is shortsighted, but people will generally blanket the kids with serious mental issues along with the ones who tried to slit their wrists after the end of a two week fling.

I imagine that the over-diagnosis of personality and learning disorders has something to do with this. Things like ADD and bipolar do exist, but are diagnosed far more often than they actually happen. This may contribute to apathy and an inability to deal with the real thing in those who are supposed to treat cases such as this.

I've had mental health issues for a few years now. I'm almost seventeen. I used to be depressed but I'm not anymore. I have anxiety issues. I was never suicidal, though if I hadn't got help when I did I think I might have gotten that bad. I never self harmed.

Almost two years ago I was diagnosed with Aspergers and they suspect I have ADD but they haven't officially diagnosed me yet.

I've had varying experiences with the different services I've been referred to. My school counselor recommended that I see someone outside of school and I got put on a waiting list. After about half a year I started attending counselling there. They weren't bad and I think they did help a bit, but I was just getting worse so they referred me to another service nearby. I had a great experience there, all the staff were very nice and friendly, they took my problems seriously and I felt very supported. I improved a lot. After almost a year, they decided I was doing well enough to switch to a different service who weren't as intensive. I was doing okay for a while but then I started to get worse. I didn't feel supported there. They left me waiting about half an hour after my appointment time before I saw someone every single week without fail. Weekly appointments became biweekly, and then monthly. I felt like I was just another patient number, rather than an actual person. I got worse and worse. Eventually they decided to send me back to the other place for six weeks. Within a few days I had improved hugely. The difference was that I felt supported and like the people trying to help me actually cared about me.

I find it interesting that I had a better overall experience than those who were suicidal. You would think that the more extreme the issues, the more seriously they'd be taken.

My brother has a learning disability known as Central-Auditory processing disorder (CAPD). Basically he has problems understanding what he hears (but he can hear it), they also can confuse similar words such as bat and cat, a recent example with my brother (who is 11) was that he couldn't hear the difference between v and f. The problem is that schools are not required to provide support for CAPD like they would with dyslexia or ADD and so they don't. If a child has official documentation that they have this problem then shouldn't they be helping him? Not sure if this relates so much to the topic but most people at school don't treat his issue very seriously.