This news article originally appeared in ABC News online and has been republished with permission.
At 14, Geordie Williamson was faced with a challenge which left him unable to attend school for the next two years.
He didn't know it at the time, but he was living with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), which manifested into a fear of germs and other distressing thoughts.
"I was becoming overwhelmed because everything that I touched was contaminated, so I couldn't even think about going to school," Geordie, now 16, said.
OCD consumed every moment of the day.
"I didn't know what to do because I had kept it in my head for so long, thinking I could manage it," he said.
"But I couldn't, so I just spiralled."
He is also among the many neurodiverse young people who also experience serious mental health difficulties, including depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
Geordie didn't receive his diagnoses until he was 16, and said the moment he was told he had OCD and autism was life-changing.
"It was a glorious moment for me because I had an answer as to why everything was insane and irrational and that it was a disorder and I wasn't a terrible person," he said.
Months sleeping on the shower floor
Clinical psychologist Andrea Wallace said OCD often also coexisted with major depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, or an anxiety disorder.
People with OCD are also more likely than others to also have an eating disorder, Dr Wallace said.
For Geordie, he fell into a deep depression and didn't feel safe in his own bedroom.
"I was pacing back and forth trying to find somewhere to stand or be, my hands were bleeding because I sanitised them so much," he said.
He decided the bathroom was the only safe option as it was the easiest place to wipe down surfaces.
"Retrospectively it probably increased the OCD but it was what I needed at the time."
He didn't leave the bathroom for three months, spending his days drawing to pass the time and keep himself distracted from his thoughts.
During the evenings, he would sleep on the shower floor.
Early intervention crucial, but must be done well
Jac den Houting, a research psychologist at La Trobe University, said being a teenager was a challenging time for anybody, but neurodivergence added a layer of existing in a world that wasn't designed for you.
"You're expending so much extra energy to get through the day … over time that is obviously going to wear on anybody's mental health," Dr den Houting said.
Dr den Houting said early intervention for neurodivergent teenagers was crucial for their mental health, as long as it focused on a path of support.
"In the autism space in particular, early intervention often means intervention aimed at making somebody less autistic or making somebody seem less autistic," they said.
"And in terms of promoting mental health, that's probably a bad thing because you're teaching somebody to pretend to be something that they're not."
Dr den Houting said it was important for families to help their children seek support as soon as their child was diagnosed as being neurodivergent, rather than waiting until they showed signs of mental illness.
"If we treat neurodivergent people from early childhood in ways that are affirming and support their needs, we are going to have a better chance at reducing the need for any sort of mental health intervention down the track," they said.
But it's not that simple.
Long road to help
Living in Woodend, in regional Victoria, Geordie and his family found it extremely difficult to find help.
Geordie's dad Lucas said he called every mental health service he could find that could provide support for OCD, and Geordie was put on multiple waitlists.
"[They would say] there's a 12-month waiting list for that and I'm saying yeah but my child desperately needs help now … please tell us where else we can go," he said.
Catriona Davis-McCabe, director of the Australian Psychological Society, said receiving support in regional Australia was difficult.
"We actually don't have enough psychologists in this country. We know we're only meeting 35 per cent of our workforce target, there's not enough psychologists on the ground, and that's even worse in the regional and remote areas," Dr Davis-McCabe said.
"There's about 28 per cent of our population in regional, rural and remote, but only two in 10 psychologists work there, so it makes it really hard for people to access support."
Dr Davis-McCabe said a diagnosis helped young Australians in all aspects of life.
"If it's a child at school and you're recognising these symptoms, you're wanting to get your child [into therapy] quite quickly because it's their education at stake," she said.
"And it means that they're not going to be there dealing with even poorer mental health further on down the track."
Back to school and art
After six months on a waiting list, Geordie was accepted into a six-week outpatient OCD program in Melbourne.
"It was very hard and very scary, but the results of not only starting [the program] but also being given the strategies to continue healing in the future were really valuable for me," he said.
Geordie returned to school at the start of this year, joining his peers in year 11.
The teen said it was amazing to be back, and that his time away from school and days drawing in his bathroom had allowed him to tap into a talent.
Geordie has recently become an award-winning artist.
One artwork he created, 'A Sticky Situation', has won multiple awards, including Best in Show at last year's Daylesford Rotary Art Show.
"That was really nice because that piece specifically is very reflective of my journey," Geordie said.
He also won a Judge's Prize at The Percivals, a portrait prize competition, this year for his drawing of Daphne the Dalmation.
More recently, Geordie has been shortlisted for the Len Fox Painting Award 2024.
Geordie said his diagnosis of OCD and autism ultimately allowed him to engage in life again.
"It doesn't fix everything but it makes it so much easier to understand yourself and begin to understand why things are happening," he said.
"It also puts you in the right direction for specialised therapies and specific medications."
Dr Wallace said living with undiagnosed OCD could be a scary and isolating experience.
"Clients often feel a flood of relief when they finally receive a diagnosis of OCD," she said.
"Some report that they can finally make sense of their experience, and their sense of isolation diminishes through learning that others suffer from the same kinds of symptoms."
Geordie is still in touch with those who also completed the six-week program in Melbourne, and once a month attends a support group with them.
"Even though it's two hours away, it's worth it because you get to connect with people who are going through the same things as you," he said.
"We're all at different stages and we offer advice to each other and it's just a lovely environment … we all understand what it's like."