My Crazy Life

Chapter Three: College

I passed my GCSEs, not with flying colours so to speak, but I got three C's and two D's, and that was enough to get me into college. I chose to study Art and Design. I'd always enjoyed being creative so taking an Art course seemed like a good idea. I had dabbled with the idea of Music and even Childcare, but I figured I'd enjoy Art the most.

I did a wide variety of projects in my first year, from painting and textiles to animation. But my favourite subject area was Graphic Design. For my final project in the first year I designed a magazine for autistic students. The people at the college liked it so much that they asked me to produce it for real. So I got a team of my fellow students together and we got started on the first issue.

But while I was at college, I was dealing with a personal issue at home. After being afraid of them for so long, balloons had become a special interest for me. I remember thinking I was weird, that I shouldn't have this fascination for them, at least, not at my age. Another thing I always seemed to have a fascination for was sex. And one day I found myself on a sex education site for teens. There was an article on there about fetishes, and it briefly mentioned balloons. I figured that was what I must have; a balloon fetish.

I didn't think much more about it until I found myself on YouTube one day, and found videos of women - fully clothed - blowing up balloons. I put two and two together and realised I'd stumbled upon my first fetish videos.

Then at the age of fifteen I read an article in my mum's magazine about 'looners'. This was the first time I'd come across the word and it definitely would not be the last. The article featured various women talking about how they liked to play with balloons sexually. They explained that, within the fetish, there were 'poppers' and 'non-poppers'. Pretty self explanatory, I think. I identified myself as a non popper.

At the age of sixteen my parents bought me my own laptop which I was at first allowed to use in my bedroom. And since I was alone for the first time, I decided to Google 'balloon fetish'. To say I found a lot of stuff is an understatement. Among all the porn sites (which freaked me out a bit, if I'm honest), I found a forum called UK Looners, which I instantly signed up to. Even though I was only sixteen and not even allowed. But I was young and naive; I didn't realise.

On the forum there would be discussions about balloons and the latest balloon videos. These would be, as mentioned before, videos of women blowing up balloons. Well, naturally I wanted a piece of the action so to speak, so I posted a few clips of myself onto Youtube. I managed to get some balloons that were kept in with the rest of the party supplies. I turned on my webcam, blew them up and posted the video to Youtube. The comments came in thick and fast. Looking back I think it's all a bit creepy and sick, given the fact I was only sixteen, but back then the attention felt so good.

Then I got a message on Youtube from a guy called Craig. He said he was a 'fan' of mine and asked if we could talk on MSN Messenger. I accepted, and he asked if he could send me some balloons. Now, I'd done the Internet safety lessons at school and knew the dangers of giving out my personal info online.

But on the other hand, I was running out of balloons. So I gave him my address.

Some time later the balloons arrived. My parents found the package and demanded to know what was inside. They already knew I liked balloons but didn't know quite how much. So I said, 'just open it'. I don't know if they were shocked or what but they demanded to know who it was from. There was a note inside the package, of course, and it read something along the lines of, 'I hope you enjoy these balloons as much as I will enjoy watching you with them'. God, why couldn't the ground just swallow me up right there and then?

After they discovered the package my parents insisted that I use the computer in a communal area. So I could hardly do stuff in plain view of them.

The balloon stuff went on for about a year the first time round, and during this time I also had my first boyfriend. Actually, scratch that. I did 'go out' for a bit with a guy online from Birmingham but it didn't work out. But this was my first real boyfriend. It was a blind date set up by my mum and her friend. After our date (I can't remember what we did), we decided to start going out. It was cool because he could drive and that's something that hasn't happened since that relationship.

But unfortunately it didn't work out. He dumped me by text! Said he wanted to spend more time with his friends. Later he admitted that he had been making passes at me but I hadn't noticed. More on that later (again.)

I don't know what made me stop doing the balloon fetish stuff the first time round, but to say that time was eventful is a vast understatement. I was a member of a social group called Out & About, which was a charity for disabled teens. One of the cooler things we did was a project with ITV Fixers, which gives young people the chance to speak out about issues that they feel passionate about. Our project was called 'We Can Do It' and it was all about disabled teens doing the same things able bodied/neurotypical teens can do. We had a film crew come in a film us doing activities like bowling and shopping. And then we had a disabled actor from EastEnders come in and talk to us about... well, being a disabled actor. That was all filmed as well. Part of the mini documentary was shown on the local news, and I got all my friends and family to watch.

That summer my friends Sadie (who's unfortunately no longer with us) and Becca were going to Movie Camp. I wasn't going but of course I wanted to be with my friends. So they managed to get me in on a day pass kind of thing. It was at this camp where I would meet the love of my life, Myron. He asked me out on the first day and I was a little apprehensive at first, but there was something about him that I really liked. We spent the rest of camp getting to know each other, and by the end of camp I had invited him to my eighteenth birthday party. On the night of my party, we started going out for the first time.

Then in November the scariest night of my life. I was due to go to a fireworks display with Myron and before I was due to go my family were having a Chinese takeaway. Up until this point, I hadn't ventured far past chips, but tonight my mum suggested I try a chicken ball. So I did. Big mistake. My throat started to close up. I thought I was choking at first. My parents only live down the road from the hospital so we got straight in the car and drove there. The doctors rushed me into a room and started giving me water etc and when the swelling didn't go down they asked me if I was allergic to anything. My mum said I was allergic to peanuts. So they gave me an adrenaline injection and the swelling went down immediately. I'm usually scared of needles but the allergic reaction was a million times more scary than any injection! I thought I was going to die. I went to college the following Monday because I was adamant I didn't want to miss it, but I ended up having a massive panic attack and had to go home. Since then I've had countless panic attacks, feeling like my throat is closing up again.

The following year I had my first smartphone and I decided to join the balloon forum again. I thought that now that I was eighteen I could handle it. How wrong I was.

This time I was more vocal about my interests and posted a Basil Brush fanfic I had written on the forum. I got a message from a guy who called himself Stealth Dragon, and I don't know how it happened but we started role playing together. Stealth Dragon was American and so didn't know about Basil Brush but I educated him about him.

There were some other new names on the forum. One couple who particularly stood out to me were known as Loon Master and Red Fairy. Loon Master was the one with the fetish and his wife Red would play along. Red also had some videos on Youtube of herself playing with balloons. I don't know why I got obsessed with Loon Master and Red, but I suspect it was because I wanted to be an independent adult like they were, and I wanted a relationship like theirs.