A academic, young inspirational young women, early for school everyday, meeting deadlines, head of every organisation in school, was actually unnaturally obsessive with fitness, suffered from depression, anxiety, panic and has been self-harming for 6 years. It was never the same again. This is my story. We all deal with our problems differently, some people choose o cry about it and feel helpless about it, some choose to talk, where as others like me choose to grab the problem by the throat, shove it in a tiny little box, lock it and through away the key. Which is what i did for 6 years of my life, although i was self harming in the process, it was my way of coping, my way of handling things. When ever i was angry or frustrated i would hold a straight face, no one could ever tell anything was wrong, if something had happened in school id act as though id taken it on the chin and continue with my day. Id come home, lock the door and cut, once it was all out of my system and walk away form it, hide the scissors till next time. It became a subconscious routine that everything bad that happened to me was because i was bad luck, and idea fed to em for so long from my family. I was always titles 'The black sheep of the family' because i was different, because i didn't conform to what they thought of as a "perfect daughter"- a "perfect daughter" is one who stays at home and works 24/7 one who wants to become a teacher and is religious who wants marriage and kids. I on the other hand do stay in, but like to go out too, i definitely cant become a teacher i have no patience for it, id like to me come an MP or a lawyer, i don't believe in religion or marriage, you can instantly see where the problem is. So for 6 years i tried conforming to what my family wanted, tried to be everything they wanted me to be, a "perfect daughter" a "perfect student" and a "perfect friend" i had no time to love myself or so what i wanted to do. Then one day i got myself a boyfriend, my first love and he taught me to love myself, he taught me that i no longer need to self-harm because i am beautiful in his eyes, we were together for a couple of months and it was perfect, and then i ran away from home, and we broke up, i left school for months and that was when the rumors began. I still to this day, months onward still don't know what exactly they were, there were just so many. I became involved in what i would call the dark arts of society, i knew nothing of it, id made new friends, it was the norm, and before long the suicide thoughts came flooding in I became depressed and anxious. I knew what people were saying and id become a violent person id lash out on the people closest to me, trying to help me the things i did were unspeakable of and i hate myself for it. Everyday was a struggle, and id curse the fact that i woke up the next morning, id try everything to end it all i just wanted silence, i wanted peace, i wanted to go somewhere where i could be happy and free. Id jump in front of cars, try causing internal bleeding cutting myself, downing tablets, nothing would work. Once day i realized just how strong i am, i'm humble about it still but i like to think of it as, all the greatest people on this earth had a story and a struggle and now i have mine. a quote given to me by a friend to which i still live by today 'God gave this hardest battles to his strongest warrior' and now for my 18th id like to get that tattooed over my scars. I realized that i didn't need to put on this tough girl attitude, believe that love doesn't exist, because it does, believe that emotions and asking for help makes you weak when in actual fact being broken and having the ability to fix yourself and ask for help is where real strength lies. So i went back to school. It was hard, not going to lie, there were time where i just wanted to leave again. it wasn't easy and it took time, but i got there eventually with the help of my deputy head. He was probably the only teacher who as truly there for me there were Councillors etc but that's their job they have to do it. It wasn't his job to take care of me, to motivate me and bring back that spark in me, but he did, and that's what I'm grateful for. He still believed in me, even when id given up on myself. Slowly but surely things got better, their not perfect but their the best of what i can hope them to be. My grades have finally come up again, missing so much school resulted in my grades to drop, but now I'm back up to my As. I received 2 places out of 3 of my collage interviews, my third interview is this week, so hopefully by the end of this week i can say that i have got into 3 of my collages i desired. I have a close group of friends who have been their for me form the start. My family still find it hard to come to terms with the fact that i am not religious and i refuse to get married any time soon. But i know what i want now. I want to finish my A-levels and go on to study Law or Economics, become a lawyer or a banker before going into politics i see a long life a head of me and maybe when i am 35 or 40 i might settle down and start a family, but for now its just me.