Autobiography

I was born in 1991, being the first child I was a happy and content child. I was loved and cared for and I felt secure. My brother was born when I was 15months old and I began to feel left out. He used to cry most of the day whereas I was quite a good baby and I slept about 15hours a day! Nothing much happened during the first 3 years of my life, that I remember at least. I spent a lot of time with a babysitter when I was around 2 years old because my mum has gone back to work part time.

When I was four my uncle died. My cousin and I were 10days apart in age and we were (and still are) closer than sisters. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. Being so young it didn't affect me quite as much as it would if it had happened now but it affected my cousin a great deal. Her sister was 18 months old at the time and doesn't remember him.

Between the ages of four and eight my life was relatively uneventful. My sister was born just before I turned six and I remember feeling more and more left out. Being the oldest of the family I was basically left alone, even though at that time I craved my parents attention. At the age of eight I moved house and schools. I remember being petrified on my first day of school, not sure what to expect. I actually enjoyed it much more than my previous school and made lots of friends.

At the age of 11, just before moving to highschool things started to go wrong at home. My parents were arguing a lot. It started to affect me quite a lot, if anyone shouted at me or around me it would really upset me. I couldn't stand being told off at school. I used to bang my head against the wall in frustration.

At high school I fit in relatively well and had a lot of friends, I was still struggling with stuff at home but only my closest friend at school knew what was going on. I started shutting people out and finding it difficult to trust anyone. Things got worse at home and another family member started to physically abuse me. I was petrified of going home at night. I used to stay out for as long as possible if there were people at home or if I knew there was going to be noone home I would go there just to have peace and quite for a couple of hours.

One of the best experiences of my life happened at the end of year 9 (grade 8) when I went with the youth group from my church to a Christian youth festival called soul survivor. It was 5 days spent camping in freezing cold tents on lumpy ground with 11,000 other young people. We had to queue for half an hour for the showers and they were usually cold by that time! It was an amazing experience though, there were two meetings everydays which were like going to church. I met loads of new people and made new friends and really connected with the people in my youth group
A month after returning from soul survior, I had gone back to school and started my GCSE's. One day my mum said that she wanted to take me and my sister out for a coffee, which is something we'd never done before. It was over the coffee that she told us we were moving to India. I remember being in absolute shock and sitting there with tears streaming down my face. I couldn't accept the fact that I was moving away from everything I had ever known. My friends, my family, my boyfriend.

After that life continued as normal, I attended school, I hung out with my friends but there was like this big shadow hanging over me that I couldn't escape. I would be constantly thinking 'Is this the last time I'm going to this with this friend'. In May we left school even though school didn't end until July. That week was half term week so I spent a lot of time with my friends. At the end of the week we sent the container off with all our things and moved out of out house. We spent two weeks in Florida as a family as a last holiday before we moved. I was emailing and talking to my boyfriend a lot during that time and found it very hard to enjoy myself knowing that I would be moving to India very soon. After getting back to England we had exactly two weeks before we left for India. The time was spent saying goodbyes to all our friends and family. That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do and I cried so much those two weeks. I couldn't stand saying goodbye to all these people knowing that I wouldn't see them again for at least another year.

On arriving in India I hated it. I was desperate to leave and I just couldn't settle. I was struggling to make friends, something that I'd never had a problem with before, and I was so homesick it was just like a constant ache. Gradually it got better and I almost began to consider this as a home. I still refer to England as home and I still get homesick but it is nowhere near as accute as it was before.

We visited England for three weeks last summer and it flew by. We were travelling up and down the country visiting relatives and friends, trying to make time for everyone. It was really hard coming back but it was better knowing that I had friends to come back to. I wasn't going into the unknown.

This year has been quite difficult especially with all the health problems I have had. I had to have around 3 weeks off school which made my school work suffer. The same happened this semester and whilst I'm not doing as badly this semester as I was last time I am still struggling which maks me very stressed. As stress is a sort of trigger for my illness it's almost like a vicious circle!