My name’s Tania Anthony and I’m 16 years young at present :D Let me tell you a bit about my story first…

Life for me hasn’t always been easy. Luckily for me I’ve been blessed with a good number of genuine friends, but things have happened in my family that I would never even dream of telling them.

From a very young age I’ve witnessed horrible domestic abuse… My mum and dad have been fighting for as long as I can remember and it culminated when I was in Year 8 with some horrific accidents and a trip to the police… It was one of the worst times in my life - our family seemed to be broken beyond repair… In the months or so that followed, my parents split up and I stayed with my mum. But she was nowhere near in the right state of mind to be a single mother and I went from being neglected to emotionally abused… And that’s when I started cutting.

It became an addiction, a hideaway. I would sit in my room, my mother completely unaware of what was going on, and cut away. I lost all sense of hope, ambition… I lost all my emotions. At school I had a completely different personality. I was the cheerful, friendly girl - not one of the ‘popular’ girls but the one who had a lot of friends and could brighten anyone’s day. Not one of my friends knew what was going on. 

In the months that followed I could feel myself wasting away, becoming incresingly depressed and losing my will to live. I was hurt, haunted by what had happened and terrified of the future. I really believed I was ready to die… And that’s when I met Joe, my current boyfriend.

He joined my music school halfway through the term (which rarely happened) and turned out to be the most genuine and lovely boy I had ever met. I had no intentions whatsoever of a relationship at this stage of my life, but he made me smile. And I hadn’t smiled genuinely for a long long time. As I got to know him better over the weeks, I felt myself becoming increasingly cheerful and soon he was the thing in my life I looked forward to. He didn’t know it but he gave me hope.

My newfound cheeriness made the cutting stop and I opened my eyes to the fact that I was only causing myself more, unnecessary pain. I realised that it was time for me to be strong, to be thankful for what I have in life and be ready to seize any opportunity that came my way. It struck me here that happiness could be found in the most unexpected ways…

As for Joe and I, we started going out 3 years after we first met. It seems like a long time, but this is the first relationship for both of us, and in those years we got to know each other so so well and I couldn’t be happier now. ♥ 

But don’t get me wrong. The situation at home hasn’t changed one bit. In fact it’s probably got worse. My parents are back together again and they’re still fighting and often my mum takes her anger out on me. There are times when I feel down, times when I cry… but now I know that there will always be someone there for me.

It was this that inspired me to help other out there and to start this blog. It terrifies me now when I think of how close I was to giving up and ending my life. I’m still haunted by the memories and I won’t deny that I fear the future but I’m happy with myself and I’m a more confident person.

Nobody has to go through such horrible experiences. The thought of depression and suicide therefore is something close to my heart now and it’s something I want to put a stop to altogether. For that reason I decided to take my feelings and my experiences and put it to good use and help others :) That’s what this blog is all about… I’d be ecstatic knowing that I’ve made someone’s life better, that I’ve had a positive impact on someone ♥ And that’s really all I have to say… I just really hope that I can help at least some of you out there ♥