I don’t think there is a significant point in my life where my mental health went bad, looking back it’s probably been nearly a decade. I do know for sure that it has only just started to improve over the last year though. As I don't want this to be super long, I'm just going to share my major life events that have shaped who I am today.

So when I was 14 I met a boy and I thought I was 'in love' and after a week of dating him, we slept together and I know for a fact he genuinely cared about me but when my parents found out they weren't happy as you would expect, they handled it terribly, so between that and the fact that I ditched school to see him after I was told to stay away my dad was very angry. I was told they didn't want me anymore and that they should just put me up for adoption or send me to a relative. That hurt! I had my first ever thought of suicide that day and it was the first time I tried to hurt myself, on top of all that I had my father put his hands on my throat. A few days later I organised to sneak out and meet the boy, I told him what had happened and he convinced me to not go home and stay with him. We lasted the day then they found us, the boy yelled at my dad for putting his hands on me. Dad told me if he hadn’t done that he would have knocked me out. Over the next few months I had at least three guys leave me for another woman so my self esteem was already very low at this point and I started self harming. After a few months I went to school one day and my favourite teacher saw, the school told my parents and they were almost angry but they didn’t ask why or anything they just told me I wasn’t allowed to wear my bracelets anymore. Over the next few years I had one boyfriend in particular who didn't help my mental state at all. He cheated on me multiple times, he told one girl that I was dead so that she would find him a girlfriend and he would encourage me to cut myself. In saying that he wanted me to do it made me stop cutting, I then began to scratch myself. At this point I thought I was ugly and fat and that no one wanted me. I would skip meals and I wouldn’t leave the house without makeup, even just to go swimming. Then when I was 17 I met a boy online (Jesse) and he seemed perfect. He took me out and it was amazing, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy and for the first few weeks he was. We started seeing each other more often and then I got sick, I have Crohn’s disease and I was losing weight, I was barely eating, I was in constant severe pain and he was awesome. He helped me and got anything I needed. This to me made him the perfect boyfriend even though my parents thought otherwise, they saw something in his behaviour, looking back now between the constant breaking up, getting back together again and just little things here and there that I should have seen coming too. We were together for almost 3 months when he and my dad had a huge fight and of course I stuck up for my boyfriend and then I made this decision a few weeks later that it would be best for me to move out of home. This was because of multiple things, my dad and me not getting along, me being so quiet and closed off around everyone and the fact that there are more job opportunities in cowra with my boyfriend. Now this was a week or so after I turned 18 so legally they couldn't do anything but they still told me no that they would rather me move to Sydney where I don't know anyone then move to cowra where I had jesses family and my 2 half sisters. Another few weeks go past and I try to push the subject again and tell them I want to leave and instead I end up basically telling dad that I'm not happy there because of him, I was so worried about telling him that I ended up bruising my arm from gripping it so tight. That night I bought a bus ticket and caught the bus to Cooma where my boyfriend's parents picked me up and I left with them. Now I wish I could tell you that it all got better from here but it got so much worse. Let me just start with my boyfriend was an ass and he didn't start showing me just how much until I started living with him and his family. It was just little things at first calling me names when we would fight constantly on and off and then he and his 'best friend' reconnected and he started acting more like she was his girlfriend instead of me. It wasn't like they were making out or anything, it was just things like he would treat me terribly and then go have fun and joke around with her and he was going to buy a house with her. Then after about 6 months of me living with him he told me that he had slept with her and then he kicked me out but as it wasn't his house his mum was going to let me stay until I got somewhere else all while this was happening she was at his house. I just remember feeling so mad and upset at myself, mad because I knew it was happening but every time I brought it up with him he would call me crazy and I was upset because I had gotten myself in that mess and now my world was falling apart. So I scratched my arm to the point of almost scaring myself. About a week later I organised to stay with friends, we went out drinking and actually having fun (Jesse didn’t like me drinking, when I would go he would call me and abuse me to the point of crying in the bathrooms). I went home with a friend who was a boy and I slept with him. Jesse called me in the morning wanting to talk and I felt bad so I told him what happened and he abused me for cheating and called me a slut and a bunch of other stuff. I felt like I had screwed everything up and I hated myself for it (I know now that it wasn’t my fault but at the time I was too blinded by him that I didn’t see that). I attempted to take my life that day, I took every pill I had and it wasn’t until about an hour afterwards that I regretted it. By that point it was too late and I was too scared to say anything to my friend who was now my house mate. Thankfully they didn’t do anything damaging and I was fine physically anyway. I then got back with him (I don’t know why) and at this point he started to not only abuse me verbally and emotionally but on occasion he would get physical. It started small at first he would throw things and then he started grabbing my shirt or arm when we would fight. About 2 months after the cheating incident his sister was getting married and he took the best friend instead of me, that obviously hurt, at this point we were constantly fighting and then a few weeks after the wedding he broke up with me and asked the friend out. She rejected him so he came over to mine. He was so angry he grabbed me by the neck, he soon realised what he was doing, let go and apologised to me and again for some stupid reason I still took him back. After that nothing got better, it was getting to the point where I would get so frustrated with him over the phone that I was hitting myself, I broke one of my phone cases from gripping it too hard and I would just scream and cry when I was on the phone to him, or even worse I would Chanel my emotions again through self harm. Skip to November 2018 I was turning 19 and we were going out to dinner at the club, when we got there he was just being a pain in the ass so I went and got a drink and like I said he doesn’t like me drinking so he was mad and started calling me names like a slut and whore, just being derogatory to the point where my house mate had a go at him for the things he was saying in a restaurant surrounded by people. I didn’t want to be treated like that in front everyone so i walked to a quiet corner and tried to talk to him, he just kept going and I got so frustrated that I slapped his arm a few times, now I know I shouldn’t have but that was the first time I’ve hit anyone that wasn’t in a joking manner not anticipating that he’d retaliate and elbow me in the throat. After that we went back to his place where we broke up and I finally left. Two weeks went by and I’d made no contact with him. I can certainly say now that I wish I’d kept it that way. When I did, instead of an apology he picked me up, drove me out to the bush and tried to sleep with me. I said no because he started seeing some new girl that he claimed he wasn’t with, he kept pushing until eventually I caved. This happened multiple times over the next month or so and every time I would try to say no or push him off he would just try harder, in the end he always got what he wanted. I of course told the girl the first few times it happened and even she stayed with this manipulative, sorry excuse of a man. It was to the point the only way I could get him to leave was to piss him off by telling him the truth, that I didn’t want him anymore and that I didn’t love him. Which unfortunately for me, was kind of a lie. It’s weird how you can love someone but absolutely despise them and their ways at the same time. Things are better now that he has left me alone, he still tries to contact me from time to time but I don’t give him that satisfaction. I am stronger than that now!

As for my parents, my mum is amazing, my relationship with my dad is complicated but we are ok.

My tattoo as shown in the photos are a reminder of everything I’ve overcome and a daily visual reminder of what’s made me the person I am today.