A Nova Scotia teen says he battles a range of disorders including depression and after years of self-medicating with marijuana, he is crying out for help.

But so far, he says his cries haven't been answered.

Seventeen-year-old Tyler Fairrae says he has eased the pain of mental health issues with marijuana since he was 12 years old.

"When I was 13 or 14 years old…I climbed over my balcony in Ottawa, leaving police and an ambulance down below, ready for me to let go," says the Wolfville teen.

Since then, he has been in trouble with the law and he and his family say enough is enough.

"I've had to watch him every minute," says his mother, Sherry Hearn. "It's exhausting as a parent, when you're watching and you can't leave your house because of fear."

Hearn asked for her son to have a two-week psychiatric assessment at the IWK Health Centre and she says it helped.

But Fairrae was released four days ago, with the suggestion that he should apply for the IWK's Choices program, which helps teens with mental health and substance abuse issues.

Every day since he was released, Fairrae has landed in the Valley Regional Hospital's emergency department, saying he wants to kill himself.

"They release us, basically giving me and other teens a death sentence to walk out the door and lose complete faith in ourselves," he explains.

In addition to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which Fairrae was diagnosed with as a child, he also has anxiety disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and suffers from depression.

But he says he wasn't diagnosed with any of it until last week.

"Now that I'm seeking for that help, I can't get it," he says.

When a patient lives in an area under another health authority, they have to be referred to the Choices program by a local addictions specialist, but Fairrae says he has had no luck.

"I've been calling these crisis teams and suicidal hot lines and they just keep telling me ‘call the IWK, call your hospital,' which I've been doing, but it's like a revolving door."

The IWK's chief of psychiatry says that should not be happening and that Fairrae should be getting the help he needs.

"When a youth reaches that point of ‘I want help' they should be able to access those services or find out what services they can access," says Kathleen Pajer. "And it sounds like that's where it's broken down a bit."

"They're saying ‘OK, yes, let's talk about it,'" says Hearn. "But where do you go after you finish talking?"

John Campbell, the director of Mental Health and Addiction Services for the Annapolis Valley, says that when someone shows up at the emergency room with suicidal thoughts they are assessed and put into one of three categories based on severity.

Fairrae showed up at the emergency room three days in a row but since Campbell can't talk about specific cases, there has been no explanation as to why he wasn't admitted.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell