I would constantly argue with my Mum & her husband about small silly things. I would often cry myself to sleep knowing the next day would be the same drama, different day. It sucked a lot. I felt like I had no one to turn to, no one to talk to, no one to trust. Basically I had no one. I counted down the days until I turned 18 so I was an adult & no one could boss me around. I longed for that day but it seemed so far away. Just when I thought things were going to be fine, things went downhill again.

I finally got the courage to go on web counselling at Kids Helpline and then I was encouraged to call them. So I did. It was hard at first but then it got easy. My counsellor asked what had been going on for me and it took a while for me to tell her but I got there in the end. I told her that I had been sexually assaulted by a couple of people, but the main person was my ex-best friend.

After a while it all got out of control. Eventually I made things worse for myself because I was getting so drunk I had no control over what I was doing. I was making mistakes that made me feel worse about myself. My silly solution to make things better and give me confidence to handle social situations was to drink more. Everyone began to know me as a 'party animal’, and 'getting messy' was my thing. Of course the drinking didn't fix anything and when my problems remained I got even more down on myself.

I went on a diet but it soon turned horribly wrong. I stopped eating around others and I started to restrict everything that I ate. I started to feel really bad and only ate dinner each day even though I was doing so much exercise with my Irish dancing, gymnastics and school work.

I then had to move schools and that was so sad as I had to leave my good friends. I am a very shy person - it was so hard for me to make new friends at the new school. This added to the stress in my life and my eating went from bad to worse. We had to do an assignment at school on eating disorders.

At the age of 15 my family was falling apart. I tried sharing it with my two closest friends and instead of being there for me they decided to tell the rest of the school. I shut down, I didn't go to school unless I was forced to. I started self harming and stealing alcohol from my mother's cupboard. At the age of 16, I started smoking pot. Then I met someone who was a little older and they made me realise that I didn't need pot to be happy.