I remember when I was in year 12 at boarding school.
I was distressed, scared, grieving already for the prospect of leaving Kenya and all I knew.
I was angry one night, when a friend, I wanted so much to care for me, didn't come and find me to ask me to walk to the movie with her.
I rubbed my knuckle against the concrete plastered wall next to my bed until it bled.
That was the start of the cutting - a blunt swiss army knife, my tool... so I never did too much damage.
A couple of my friends knew - and one went with me to a teacher to tell him I was feeling suicidal and cutting.
He gave me a form to fill out.....
I gave it back, filled out...
It was in the last week of term and we left with our families for holidays.
I was petrified my parents would find out how distressed I was.
I wrote a story about my pain.
There was something cathartic about that.
I've never shown it to anyone.
When I went back to school, I met that teacher walking around the school grounds.
I said, "I'm okay now".
He never followed anything through.
My isolation was increased even more.
I was a model student.
High grades
Active in sports
Quiet and well behaved
No one listened.
I wonder what difference it would have made to my life if there had been some intervention then???
I still cut sometimes.
There was a rumour that you should never put a chameleon onto red as trying to turn red would make it burst. This was never proven. We used to put the up on the curtain rods of our house sometimes to eat the flies that came in.
