After her parents found out, her GP referred her to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (Camhs), where Ayla was diagnosed with bulimia, anxiety and depression.
She had counselling but it wasn’t helping and she was eventually prescribed a low-dose anti-depressant.
“When I went to comp, I was in top sets,” she said.
“When I started struggling mentally, all of that just went out of the window. It was hard for my mother to get me to go to school. I was really isolated.”
Then psychosis struck.
“I had paranoia, delusions. I had my first full-on episode when I was 15.”
Ayla thought someone she knew was going to kill her and they were “working with the devil”.
She would hear drilling in the night and believed the person was building a secret passageway into the house.
She became hypomanic, external and had depression and anxiety.
“When I was going to school, I’d be doing my hair and makeup at like three o’clock in the morning, put music on, like literally had no concept of time.”