Just that it’s easy to tell someone that it’ll be alright and but they’ll be able to, they’ll never be able to know what’s really going on. Like someone could sit there and blurt out well everything, but they will not be able to understand what someone’s been through. it’s alright to sit there and say, You’ll be alright and Keep your chin up but it’s hard to go through that, but for someone to sit there and think I haven’t been through it, but yeah keep your chin up if you know what I mean.

Do you find it like difficult to believe them?

Yeah. Cos it’s like they’ve got a job like, they can do what they’re doing and they’ve got a happy life, they can go home and chill out and I just don’t believe them because, it’s, I’ve still gotta go home thinking the same thing and being depressed.

But you go from some days, like normally I’d go low one day, high the next, low one day, high the next, but now it’s like low for a week, and then a high one day, and then it could be low for another week. I don’t get many highs and lows; just get it all low now. Like nothing’s gonna happen in my life now. But, just need something good to happen.

I’m on high like, I could be, I’m so hyperactive, I could just like, I don’t know I could be so enthusiastic over something, if I wanna go and do something with my friends down the park, I’ll go, Yeah, come on, come to the park, come into the park But then when I’m on a low I just don’t want to talk, I’ll just sit in my room and do my own thing, just have a grump on all day. But I don’t know, when I’m on a hyper, when I’m on a high, I just think of so many good things, but then it just doesn’t last and then I think there’s nothing else I can do.

And how long would it last usually?

I could be, I could be dead enthusiastic in the morning, and then it could just switch in a day. Could go back to just, I got on the bus the other day on the way back from my Mum’s and everything was fine, I’d had a wicked day out with my Mum, just before I, just before I fell out with her and she, she didn’t wanna know, but just had a wicked day with my Mum and then I got on the bus and I just switched to being so depressed, came back here and started self harming again. But I dont know what set me off, I don’t know what triggers it.

But like with my self harming I’ve done well cos that’s one thing that I wanted to start on, I don’t want to self harm anymore. Cos obviously it’s a scar for life really. But you know I stopped doing it, I ain’t done any yet, and I don’t want to do any more.

What do you think has helped you stop that then?

I’ve just put a stop to it. Like I just thought one day look, I’m gonna, cos someone said to me the other day that I didn’t realise I’m going to walk up an aisle one day, getting married, the best day of my life, and then people would look at all these scars on my arms, and I don’t, I didn’t want people to look at me and think, they’re not, they’re not the best things to look at. But
Yeah. So you kind of made a just a conscious decision yourself that I don’t want this. Does it make you feel good to think that you’ve been able to do that?

Yeah, but there’s sometimes I think it’s not gonna last. Like I could still, I could still do it. But I just got to have that, that hope that I’m not gonna do it.

When I was younger I used to do loads of activities, I did dancing and went to scouts, beavers, cubs, I did loads of things, it’s just as life’s got, cos I think as well, I used to be different as well because I used to be like a real girly, girly, but now as I’ve got older I feel insecure so I have to wear like tracksuits and stuff like that and just to make myself feel a bit safer and, a bit more confident. But at the minute I’m just trying to get out of that habit and just start being back to the way I was again.

So what did you used to be like? If you described your personality then?

Funny and bubbly and didn’t care what anybody said, and didn’t let anybody upset me, went to school everyday when I was in Year like 5, 6, 7. And then just leading a normal life really, going out with my friends after school, inviting them round for a sleepover, going out, chilling on the streets, just normal. But now life’s getting on, I’ve just changed. When I’m on a high my personality’s always been the same, I sit there and make them all laugh till they’re crying, they just basically have a laugh, but, I don’t know it’s just changed for some reason. Like I can’t see, I can’t see when it did change cos I’ve always been up and down my whole life really.

I had counselling and I had loads of things, but nothing seemed to actually stick in and help me. I wouldn’t, it’d just be a bar, and I wouldn’t be able to take it all in and, I still do it now really when I go to my counselling sessions, and I go to the hospital, yeah everybody can say things and say look it’s gonna be alright, and try and do this to help you stop, stop the self harm, but, it’s just nothing goes through, I don’t unders-, like I don’t, I listen, I can sit there and listen and that and I can sit there and talk, but I wouldn’t be able to do the things that people have advised me to do. Cos it just won’t go through. And that’s what just depresses me more. But just have to carry on, just have to find something to get better. Like loads of people are willing to help me. Cos they know that I’m a better person than just not being depressed all the time, cos they know I have a laugh, and I do have my laughs and but I don’t know I think it’s just the fact that it depresses me more cos I want to be with my Mum.

I can talk to people but it’s when they say, sit there and say, this is the advice they give you and I try and do it, but nothing helps. it’s like nothing can help. But I’m so negative about things, but I’d like, I’d like to be positive but I just can’t see anything happening.

But and it’s like I get depressed as well when you just sit there and you just want your Mum there. You just want your Mum to be there by your side, cos that’s like one person that knows you well and, you just want that bit of love.

[Going to school] Horrible. I just used to think I used to walk into school and think that everybody would be looking at me and, I just, walking down the hallway and just get really paranoid and self conscious. And when I was at school because I had difficulties in understanding things, it’d just affect me then they used just like play off it in the classes because I couldn’t do the work cos I didn’t understand it. And then I’d get kicked out because I was messing about, but I couldn’t understand the work, so, it was just going around in circles really. And, so I never used to go to school, then I, then I had a meeting with the welfare officer and my Mum about how I could learn to go to school, and then they said that they was gonna put me on a half time timetable at school. I tried to do that and I still didn’t go, I mean I was only going like three times a week to school, I still wouldn’t be able to manage that to go in a group of like people and feel that everybody was looking at me, and, and then I’d, didn’t go to school at all.