She always used to be so happy, Naomie (16)

The story started when I was born. The trauma began the second that I left my mother’s body. But I’ll skip the early years. The story starts when I was 6. When I entered the new school, I felt anxious, as I always do. But I was always my bright self, people didn’t notice the fact that even though I was young, I was already different. I have always been a little overweight, and I was bullied daily for it for 5 years. The last year was the worst. I spent the hole year being alone, after the popular girl had told everyone to stop speaking to me. I didn’t tell anyone, no one even noticed, not even the teachers. When I was 11, I started what we call “college” in france, which is the school you go to after primary school. The first two years were okay. I was liked, the teachers loved me, I had great grades, I had friends. But I always felt like I didn’t fit in. I was insecure about myself, my mind and my body. I used to cry in class for no apparent reason, I just felt down all of the time. When I turned 13, something clicked. I decided to loose weight. It started off okay. I was eating lots of fruit and vegetables, and doing a bit more exercice. But then I learned about calories. And decided to eat as little as possible in the day. In the end, I ended up loosing 20kg in 6 months. During all of that time, without realising it, I was living with a mentally abusing step father, and an alcoholic dad, which really didn’t help. I started seeing a paediatrician and a psychiatrist after being forced by my mother. I was anorexic, had depression and a severe anxiety disorder. The year after that was the hardest. I was really trying to recover from anorexia and couldn’t, I felt like I couldn’t face school and was constantly battling suicidal thoughts. Days were getting darker and darker, I just felt like collapsing at every second. I can’t express how hard it was. One afternoon of September 2019, I tried to commit suicide. I spent a week and a half in the hospital. I was lying to everyone about feeling better just to get out. After that, my days were all black. I refused to go to school, I was depressed, had anxiety attacks and had a binge eating disorder. I starting self harming. I had planned to kill myself at the end of the school year. But I didn’t go through with it. I couldn’t leave my brother alone. I was 15. That was last year. I started a new school, feeling so unconfident. I was mostly struggling with my step father, that got more and more toxic. I was too anxious to attend school every day, felt ugly and unwanted. During quarantine, I was constantly in my room, so scared to face anyone. Now, I am 4 months clean from self harm. I feel better thanks to my antidepressants. I spent quite a good summer when I was with my friends. I haven’t had an anxiety attack in two weeks and can’t wait to start my drama lessons again since I live for singing, acting and dancing. I still have appointments every two weeks with my psychologist. I’m writing this while I’m at my grandparents, where I feel better than at my house, where my step father pushes me down all of the time. I hope I will get better. I hope I will never feel that bad again. Thank you for listen, I am here for anyone who needs it.