My Story

My Story - Tato

TW - suicidal thoughts, self harm, possible swearing? (I can't remember, I wrote this in two parts, with a five day gap in between)

Hi my name's Tato, and I have no clue how to start this, so that's fun

Basically, from the age of 5-11 was absolutely shit, and really damaged my mental health, how I thought about myself and how I acted around others my age. To the point of me being unable to confidently talk to anyone without them talking to me first. Because my mental health was so bad, I started thinking about killing myself. It wasn't very often at the point, just once every couple of months, but they were still there.

I had to go to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) when i was 11, cause my parents finally figured out I was depressed, but I got dismissed from their services without them telling us, we'd just assumed I was on a waiting list. It was roughly 3 months after that appointment when I cut for the first time. I didn't do it again for ages after that, because it had been a shock and I panicked and showed my mum and she had a go at me. Yay gotta love helpful parents.

In the two years following that I went to two separate therapy things at school, the first of which helped, the second of which made it worse, which is really sad considering the second one was a trained professional. The second lady spent the whole time going it's just a normal thing everyone goes through, your life isn't that bad, there's no reason for you to feel this bad, look how shit these people have it, stuff like that. Considering she's a professional therapist, that's a bit worrying. Up till roughly halfway through those two years was great. Then came The Swimming Tripᵀᴹ. That was a very interesting day. Basically, I went to the pool with my bestfriend, cause it was the summer holidays and way too warm for where we live. When we got there, we were putting our stuff in one of the lockers when I noticed that my friend had scars on her wrist. I didn't mention it at the time, cause I then discovered my first period had started so we were kinda distracted. I didn't bring it up after that, cause apart from that half second she'd been very careful about covering her wrists and the scars, but whenever I went over to her house I'd look for the blade she was using. Eventually she deliberately left a blade out for me to find, we had a huge heart to heart, and we've never really mentioned it since then, except when I've been checking how her mental health is doing. It hasn't been like, a big part of my life or my mental health since then, but it's always been sorta sitting at the back of mind pulling everything down a bit further.

Throughout most the time from about when I was 10+ my dad has been in Uni studying to be a primary school teacher, and apart from having to resit half a year it went well and he graduated in July, which is great. Sadly, however, the fights between everyone were getting worse in that time, and they still are. They aren't like SUPER BAD and are pretty much normal compared to some of what people have probably written about, but they've just dragged my mental health even lower, to the point of me cutting a few times, running away once, creating better plans for running away and coming up with plans to commit suicide almost daily now.

During his time in Uni, however, my dad got diagnosed with ADHD, which he now uses as an excuse, but I have a lot of the same symptoms, so we went BACK to CAMHS cause otherwise we had to go private, and my parents, spend more money than necessary on me? Aw hell naw. So we went to CAMHS and they did a ton of tests and questionnaires. They eventually got back to us and were like, so yeah, she doesn't have ADHD because, although it was present in two areas of my life it wasn't present in school, and I'm calling bull. They decided I have anxiety instead, which I agree with, but when they were doing the question thingies for whether or not I had ADHD they asked my teachers, not me, about how I was doing at school. On the one hand this was great, I now know my mask that I use in school is working perfectly, no one's noticed anything is wrong with me, on the other hand however it hurts, cause like, did they not trust what I would say about how I'm doing in school. Also, why on earth would they think my teachers knew what was happening in my head.

After seeing how shit my friend was doing, and how it affected everyone around her who knew, I promised my self and her that I wouldn't attempt to end my life, which I haven't, but I've come pretty close and there were times when the promise was all that was keeping me alive, still is sometimes, but it's to more people than just that one friend now.

Then, roughly a month into lockdown, the fights were becoming more and more frequent, and eventually I snapped. I borrowed some of my sister's clothes, put on like 4 layers, and ran at roughly 11 30pm. No phone, no money, not even a watch so I knew what time it was. I had a good idea of what I was gonna do, but that was all thrown out the window because I just up and ran. I ended up walking to my school, then where my swimming lessons would have been, then to my old swimming/diving lessons, then the police picked me up. And I lied to them, because no, I didn't feel safe at home, but I would have felt less safe if I'd stayed with them and gone home later with my dad knowing that I'd told the police I wasn't happy there, he's hit me for less after all. But I got home and there they were, my mum, quite upset, she was the real reason I'd even started moving towards the house, my brother ASLEEP IN BED, because they hadn't even bothered to wake him up to tell him his eldest sister was missing, I don't think he even knows it happened, my dad more worried about an injury on his thumb that he had caused with no help two weeks before this happened, and my sister, my lovely demonic sister, was sat there watching jurassic park, happy as can be, eating haribo. And then they decided to ask if I was ok. That was the same night I cut for the first time since I was 10.

Eventually, I managed to convince my parents to let me back on wattpad, cause this is the nicest community I've ever been a part of, and now I have an amazing group of online friends that I trust, and who trust me, and I have such a close group of friends that one of them has decided to call me mum (you know who you are (probably)). I'm still working on everything, and I still get the urge to cut and quite often (as in, every walk to and from school, especially wednesdays) have to physically refrain myself from climbing cliffs and jumping, or just walking into the road, but it is getting better and I am slowly learning that everything does get better, and I will survive (hopefully). I have made plans to get away from my family, cause this isn't even the worst of it, and I have places to go if I don't last till i get out of school. Also, if anyone wants to know, my friend hasn't cut for roughly a year last time i checked, and is doing really well.

Just, please remember, life gets better and you get away from whatever situation you are in.

Also, if you ever need to rant you're welcome to come rant to me at