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I’m not sure what section this fits into. But I am really anxious over something which sounds really stupid. I’m anxious about my clothes and feeling like I can’t find things and that things go missing in the wash. And I wonder how does everyone else have all their clothes? I feel unsatisfied with my room and my stuff and I don’t want to sound ungrateful but this is all making me so anxious. It’s like I have one strapless bra but if I put it out to the wash it’ll go missing and I won’t get it back so how could I risk that? I have an older sister who is similar size to me as well so I feel like we get mixed up often. My parents do the washing and maybe I should help more. I need to tidy my room. I feel like I need to keep buying things as well because I don’t have certain jackets for example. This is really stressing me out. How do people manage this? When I was on holiday I was so anxious about underwear and not knowing what ones to wear under certain clothes and I just can’t keep up with life honestly.

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This post contains topics of: Alcohol - Abuse - water abuse - Domestic violence - sexual assault - eating disorders - self harm - suicide - bullying violence - grief/ death!

Hey I’m river,

I was born in 2006 into a home of 4 children prior to my existence, I was the first daughter to of been born. Both my parents had an alcohol problem, they didn’t work and they were always fighting so as a result they were never home. So in 2007 my mum gave birth to twins and they lived with us for a couple of weeks until the social worker noticed bruises on my brother and his skin was turning blue so an ambulance was called and it was noted down in the files. Social services was first involved in 2002. The twins got removed from our parents care and they were placed in foster care and me and my 4 brothers were all put on respite care together to give our parents a break. They had to take classes on how to look after children, they had to learn to be clean and tidy, they had to stop drinking and they were making good progress so we moved back in except the twins and then we had regular respite on and off.

Then 2009 came my 3rd birthday to be exact, the neighbours called the police because they saw children swinging from the curtains and no adult was home. Police came and initially spoke to my eldest brother through the letter box until they gained entry to the house (not sure how) when police got into the house and saw over 50 cans of beer in the living room where they also found a child unconscious and intoxicated so they phoned an ambulance and he was taken to hospital. That then left us with me and 3 of my siblings in the house with police, we had no clothes on just diapers that weren’t clean and empty moldy milk bottles. As the police walked through the house all they could smell was “feaces” nothing was clean, we were visibly dirty and we had no clothes.

My parents eventually showed up drunk to the house (she was pregnant with the youngest child) and they started fighting and had to be separated. Police gave me and my 3 siblings that were left some pyjamas (idk where they were from) and then we were all removed. Me and 2005 child went together into a foster home and my 3 other brothers went together to another home. I don’t know anything about there homes.

The foster home me and my brother went to was abusive, it was a man and a woman, the man was nice, they owned a sweet shop and we lived at the back of that and above. I’m aware some people know the details so I will keep it simple but basically we would be held under freezing cold water or boiling hot water depending which one she felt giving us, when it was shower days we would be forced to and we would get our hair pulled out and we would have to listen to each other scream. We were only fed one thing and if we didn’t eat it willingly it was being shoved down your throat. Then my youngest sister was born and adopted straight from birth

In 2010/11 I was adopted and moved away and my brother moved into the placement that our brothers was at. I was only allowed to be adopted alone (not sure why) then we stopped contact with them and went separate ways.

When I started primary school, I started being bullied from year 2 till year 7 for being adopted and different, I was in a “special class” I was considered high needs due to my past 🫠 I was called names and left out

Then I moved to high school, the first couple of years was just name calling and rumours, things then progressed. When I was in year 7 I started dating this guy who I ended up meeting up with outside of school and a couple of times things were fine but then the 3rd time he was acting weird and he took me to a secluded place and sexually assaulted me which I had kept hidden for years and me and him stopped contact and avoided each other. Then shortly after I started self harming, at this time I was only 11 and hid it from everyone, a couple of years later my mum found out and school found out and I was placed in counselling however I badly struggled with verbal commuinaction but I kept being safeguarded etc. I then stopped counselling.

I was always in the wrong crowd of friends, So in year 10 I was in a friendship group of 11 people. These were the people that were my "friends", we had:

T, J, O, G, TJ, L, LH, GM, TD, C, RR and MR.

Now T and J were in my tutor along with LH and T and J had always hated me and eventually at the end of year 10 they got kicked out of the tutor group for being caught bullying me in the class. I was always the sensitive one and known as the cry baby so I was easily tormented by everyone. But over time the whole group turned toxic. These are the things they would say and do to me:

1) they would comment on what I ate to the point that eventually I had to eat lunch with a teacher for reasons that im not sure if I can say.

2) they would body shame me

3) call me the freak show and laugh at me and would always leave me out

4) They would throw my stuff around, in one school term they had ruined 4 of my water bottles, I eventually started getting drinks and food from the canteen but they would take my drink and pour it on the ground and throw the bottle at me.

I had 2 true friends in that group TJ and RR, TJ was often bullied like me which I will not go into but the friendship group was nasty towards him but I’d stick up for him. One night TJ messaged me and basically ended his life to simply put it.

Before this though there was an incident, one day the others weren't in and it was just me and MR in that are in the group and who always hated me and I never understood why and I still don't. But we were in PE one lesson and half of the class wasn't in so there was only 5 of us in the changing room. MR was changing with another perosn from our class and MR looked at me and we made eye contact but then a minute later she came over to me and attacked me and i just sat there and let her do it. Im not sure if im allowed to go into detail of what she did but it went on for awhile whilst MR friend just watched. Then after a bit she started screaming and 3 teachers came running in and dragged MR off me. MR ran off and for my safety I was helped to the PE office and was locked in there whilst they could get MR out of school.

They did a first aid call and 2 of the staff came with first aid kits and ice which due to injuries and being in a state of shock I couldn't talk so they had to go off where visible injuries were. I was so scared to move from the chair so I was given ice and they cleaned the areas on me that were bleeding. I stayed in the office all day. They got my mum and she came to see me and I just cried and cried.

Then at the end of the day I was helped up the stairs as I was to shakey still to walk and my body hurt. I went home and the next day I had to stay off school, I couldn't move properly and I was badly bruised and still couldn't speak. My head was hurting so I was taken to hospital where I was properly treated for my injuries.

A week later I had my 8th suicide attempt which got found out because someone phoned police on me and I was taken to hospital where on the way there I got screamed at by family and my mum gave me the silent treatment. I spent the night there and then the next day crisis team came to see me when I was discharged. I spent awhile off school and then when went back I’d most a lot of my English class and my teacher screamed at me for missing class. I got assigned to a support teacher after the head teacher found out what I’d done so I had regular meetings with her until the start of year 11 she left for a bit and I was alone. We had no year leader or anything. One day I’d read my files and my mum contacted the stand in year leader and told her about it and so then I was take out of lesson and she started being my support, I called her gear dog, will forever love that woman, she was rude to everyone except me, she cared about me 🥹

During that time ish I started using beat for help with my eating and they eventually phone social services on me which made things worse, that’s when people found out about the SA, no one believed me at all and I was made to feel crap about it all, people still don’t believe me they never will. That social worker was useless, she saw me once then she left the team and left my case open without seeing me etc and then a couple of months later a bother social worker phoned and closed my case. I was alone again.

Other things that happened that I haven’t mentioned is:

- between 12-18 I’ve lost 15+ friends to suicide
- Had emergency services called on me 8 times
- Have phoned emergency services on friends since the age of 11, 30+ times most of the time every night
- Found out my dad died 2 years after his death through a Facebook post and believe that I caused it
- My grandma passed away just before Christmas
- the abuse I endured from my parents are online for the world to see in 3 different articles and pictures of the house
- Stuck with a fear of water

Sooo yeah that’s the short story 🫠