‘Hello, my name is Sally.
I am very anxious and worried about things all the time. Life is one big worry. I can’t find the words to talk about things and I feel stupid. I think people are criticising me even when part of me knows they are not. I hate school because I can’t concentrate. I feel stressed all the time. Once I was so shaky and stressed that I was taken to A & E because the school nurse thought I was having a heart attack. It was a severe panic attack.
I have a couple of good friends but sometimes they are not my friends and this upsets me when they go off with other people and ignore me. I get very panicky during lessons and my mother has asked the teachers for me to have ‘time out’ and leave the class. It helps sometimes but sometimes it doesn’t. My parents are good parents but they don’t understand how I feel because my older sister didn’t have these problems. I self-harm with a pencil from time to time and often wish I were dead. (Sally H. aged 15)’.
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