Living with Neurodivergence

The high school I ended up at was because my granny, who lived near the meadows in Edinburgh wrote a letter saying I would be staying with her sometimes and that’s why I should go to that school. From what I had heard it sounded better than the other one in the area and it had a swimming pool, which was a bonus too.

My first day I met up with my friend by the commonwealth pool, which was our regular meeting place we linked arms and we walked to school together. We sometimes caught the no 5 bus when we couldn’t be bothered walking. I liked it at first, it was different to primary school and we got a timetable and a diary and things and we had to go into the main hall sometimes if the head wanted to talk to us all about anything. I got assigned classes. I wasn’t in very many with my friend but we always met in between and after school to walk home together. It was in history class where I met another girl. She sat next to me as I was sitting on my own, I didn’t really get a good feeling about some of the others in that class but we got talking and were laughing about the same things so we just started going about together. We would go to the canteen and about the playground together and we started going to each others houses. My other friend didn’t seem that impressed with her but I knew what she was threatened by and she had made some friends. I went to her house. Her mum was a nurse and had an extension built onto it for residential adults with special needs. They hadn’t moved into it yet so we had some fun in it before they did. We played hide and seek where we jumped out at each other. I can see now we were a bit old for that but we were just getting something out of our systems. We sometimes went shopping or out for lunch and things. We had a day out at lazerquest aswell and the trampoline centre for birthdays and things. She would sometimes come swimming with me too as I couldn’t always get friends to do that. She was friends with an Asian girl, I tried to like her but I just didn’t. She was in all the top sets for everything and I thought she was a bit stuck up. I didn’t get the feeling she really liked me either but she was quite busy anyway as she worked in her dad’s shop so I never really seen that much of her outside of school. My friend and I were mostly the same in class and kept up with the same workload but she ended up in some higher sets than me. I believe it was to do with my number dyslexia that I couldn’t be in the same set as her. We liked some of the same music like boyzone and we would sit in her room and discuss who was our favourite. We still had things like Scottish country dancing in PE and basketball and things (which I liked) but we didn’t seem to use the pool very much which was strange as I thought that was part of what the school was. I didn’t mind SCD but I would get embarrassed having to pick a partner and I would usually just go for a tall guy as it wasn’t as embarrassing and some of the boys in the class weren’t that nice and I didn’t want to dance with them. I still always used to meet my friend from primary and walk home together and we would meet up every morning to go to school together. We would do things outside of school too like going to the childhood museum, which was a trip we did in primary school and we knew we could use their computers so we went sometimes and wrote up short stories. Sometimes we would go for a walk around holyrood park and things but there were times I would go in for her and she just wouldn’t answer, sometimes her younger sister would answer and said she wasn’t in the mood or something and she would come out and wander round Edinburgh with me for a while. We would sometimes go and sit in the skate park for a while as you could see everything going on and sometimes we got talking to some boys there. There was another girl I met in french class that I became friends with. She wasn’t just about hanging round the street like some of them were and she sometimes went to the sports centre near her so I went with her one day and we joined in with some sort of exercise class there. I felt better after doing it and we did some other things together. We had dinner at my dad’s work for free and we got a mini bus to the Gateshead shopping centre organised by her mum as they liked to do a trip there now and again. It was a good day and we both bought some nice things. This was about 2nd year now so I was about 13. Groups were starting to form in school and people would talk about the popular girls and things. I couldn’t really be bothered with it as I didn’t think some of them were all that anyway. I was doing okay at English and Biology made sense to me. I didn’t mind computing either but we had an eccentric teacher and sometimes we just had a carry on in there. My friend from primary was in there with me too. I sometimes liked the classes I had with her but neither of us really took them that seriously. My other friends were slightly more academic and got some work done but it was difficult with the stuff going on. A lot of it was boys having a carry on but there were some girls too. There were some Asian twins who started out quite nice but they would sometimes start a carry on and say things that they knew people would start having a carry on about. They were in my science classes but they were also in high sets and were doing quite well. Normally I would just go into school in jeans and a sweater. We didn’t have an actual uniform, though I think I would’ve preferred that we did as some of the bullying was about what people had on. For example one day I decided to wear a cream coloured denim skirt with black tights, I didn’t like not wearing tights. I knew people would say things but I was feeling brave. There was some sniggering and things and I felt some of the people I knew weren’t really talking to me the same and I overheard my friend from french class saying something about what people were going to say if I kept wearing things like that. I didn’t bother wearing it again. Another occasion I had a bit of make up on, other girls in the class were wearing it so I put a bit just round my eyes and foundation. Again there was sniggering and things. Eventually one of them said something to me about it maybe being a bit much but others had a lot on too. Maths classes were the most disruptive as I wasn’t in a good set there were people who were disruptive and loud. It was nearly impossible to get on with any work. I tried but they got worse and then they would laugh at me for zoning out and not saying much. Other classes were controlled more but I remember a boy pulling the band on my wrist, I told him to stop but he kept doing it and flicked it really hard. I didn’t mean to but I shouted fuck off and got sent out the class. They were all laughing that I had got sent out but when she came out she knew it had been provoked, she just told me to watch my language. One day at my friend’s house she said she would dye my hair. At first I was like no I dont think so but I thought it might look nice and there was a boy I liked and I thought it might get his attention. She said she had a blonde colour and I thought well i will give it a go, so she put the colour on while we were listening to boyzone as usual. When she took the dye off and dried my hair I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I was peroxide blonde. I hated it. I went home covering my head with something, which didn’t help because everyone knew there was a reason I was covering my head. I bought dark brown L’Oréal on the way home and got straight down to dying it back but when I had finished it was just this Goldie colour. I knew it was bearable though I would still be able to go to school. I would have to get another packet and go over it again. I forgave her but I never let her dye my hair again and there were a few jokes made in class relating to it. In home economics one day we were making drop scones. I was sure I had followed the ingredients but they deflated and then I took them out the oven and dropped them. The teacher and everyone else found it really funny including the guy I liked in class. The teacher helped me fix them but I never really lived it down. My friend who I met in first year had a sleepover. She invited quite a few people, I wasn’t sure if I liked them all and some of them weren’t even from the same school but we still had a good time, listening to music and talking all night. One of the girls said to my friend I was touching her feet with mine. I didn’t really know what to say when she asked me about it. I knew I sometimes rubbed my feet together but I wasn’t intentionally touching anyone’s feet. I just thought of her as quite a geeky girl I didn’t expect her to say anything like that. There was some stuff going on in school  afterwards and people saying things to me. I just thought it was quite funny. A few months later I managed to get hold of some boyzone tickets together. I had already been once with 2 girls  two years below me, one of them being my friends sister but this one was different and I was really looking forward to it. News got round the school that we had tickets. There was another girl who was also a fan but for some reason couldn’t get tickets. There was a carry on for a few days about her not being able to get tickets and she believed she was their no 1 fan as she had bought a lot of memorabilia. I knew I was a fan too, just because I hadn’t bought loads of memorabilia didn’t make me any less of a fan. I heard people saying I should give her my ticket. I wasn’t giving away my ticket. I put my foot down. I ignored them. I think one of them came to me and said she would give me money for the ticket. I didn’t even want the money, I wanted to go and see boyzone with my friend. Anyway, I spoke to my friend about it, expecting her to say don’t give her it but she was like maybe you should just give it to her, saying she didn’t mind. I was really annoyed, if she wasn’t bothered who she was going with then I wasn’t bothered either. I just gave her the tickets and she paid me for them. I was really angry as I had been bullied into giving them away but she could have them.

At home I had decided to sign up to do a paper round at my local post office. I was about 14 by now and felt I could do it. I sometimes did dish washing at my dad’s work for some cash but I wanted to do something myself. They phoned me to get me in to do a round and gave me a map and the papers. I found some of the streets okay but I had problems with some of them and it was starting getting dark. I didn’t want to not deliver. I seen my dad’s car driving along the road and I told him I couldn’t find the places. It was raining a bit too, so he drove me round and I delivered them all and got some money for it at least. I got my favourite dinner chicken tikka masala from Sainsbury’s that night and a glass of coke. I had put a bit of distance between me and my friend since the boyzone incident as I wasn’t that happy with her response but we were still friends and did things together like going to each others houses. Our music tastes widened a little bit as we couldn’t just listen to boyzone anymore. We liked some Madonna sometimes or Total Eclipse of the Heart was one we liked to indulge in. One day after staying the night at her house we went down for some food her mum had made us. There were tuna rolls out for us. We were eating them and just having a laugh when I took one of the hermasitas tablets on the table into my hand and before I knew it I had sniffed it up my nose. We were always joking about and daring each other to do things so I just did it. She was on the floor laughing and then she asked me where did that go and I was like up there pointing to my nose. She went and told her mum and she came and asked me if I was okay and to let her know if I felt funny. I didn’t and my mum picked me up later as usual. She had to ask me later on what I had done though because although my friends mum hadn’t mentioned it specifically she knew I had done something. As far as I know it hasn’t caused me any major problems.

We still quite often visited my granny and she would take us to the nearby market and things. I still enjoyed doing things like that at my grans. We still sometimes seen the neighbours kids but it wasn’t quite the same as most of us were in high school. I seen the two girls I went to school with there near where my gran lived but we didn’t go over to each other, we just waved. I was glad I had seen them again. Around this time I went over to see my cousin through in Peterhead. We quite often kept in touch and I liked when they came through to Edinburgh. I was having some problems sharing a room with my sister. Sometimes I liked to read a bit in bed before I went to sleep. I liked the babysitter books and Roald Dahl but she wanted the light off and there were other differences in how we wanted the room and at one point my mum suggested a room divider but it never happened. I ended up staying over there about 3 weeks. It was during their Scottish week where they have lots of things on for kids and music and highland dancing and things. My mum had given me some money and I had some from the occasional kitchen shift I did at my dad’s work so I had quite a good time and got a bit of shopping in. My cousin was about 17 and was going out by then and things and she sometimes did while I was there. She wanted to take me out but her mum said no, that I was still too young. I was glad she did but we went through to Aberdeen with her friends to Codonas (the shows there) and went on most of the rides. There was a local fair too which had some waltzers and things which were known for being the fastest ones around. We had quite a good time and I came home feeling more mature and less likely to respond to provocation. I didn’t for a while but my sister liked pushing my buttons and after a while it just got back to normal. My friend and I went trick or treating one Halloween as we didn’t live too far from each other. We went to the posh bit of town as we thought we would make more money. We went round the houses singing our little song about Halloween coming. We were doing quite well getting sweets and some money too. There was one house we went to and the guy who opened the door was a bit strange. He seemed to have learning difficulties and he wanted us to come in. We said no we would wait there and he went downstairs to get someone, at which point we both decided to run! We ran into a guy on our way back who said something about a guy looking for us but we didn’t know if it was him or not so we both just decided to share our what we had which was quite decent anyway.

At school there was another bomb scare, there had been one early on that was taken quite seriously but it just turned out to be one of the Asians. They didn’t really tell us who was behind it. We just got a break from classes when it happened. There was another incident that they called us into the hall for and they told us there had been reports of a man in a car outside the school hanging round. I don’t know if he had tried talking to any pupils but we were all just told to be careful walking home and staying together and things and not to talk to him. I don’t think they could actually prevent him parking his car there, so that was all they could do. We did walk home together, some of us walked part the way. Me and my friend always walked home together or got the bus so we were very rarely on our own but some of the other girls we walked out of school with sometimes shouted something over to him. There was a new girl who joined the school, she came from a private school so I was a bit surprised when my friend from primary school befriended her. I wasn’t sure of something and any time I tried to talk to her she just wasn’t that friendly. She said she just felt a bit sorry for her. We just all met up for lunch and things sometimes either going to Gregg’s or the pasta shop. Sometimes we would go to the chippy. I just had to tolerate her sometimes. She had a problem being moved schools but before everyone knew it she was talking like them and joining in with what was going on. In the summer of third year we got the option to do a watersports holiday to the south of France.It was a bit expensive but you could pay in installments so I managed to convince my mum and dad to let me go. It was for 10 days and my friend was going so they paid it and I got to go. It was one of the best trips I had been on but I knew the new girl was really jealous. I knew she would have been on trips before but there were some sly digs about going to France and stuff. I wasn’t bothered I wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it for me.

When the day of our trip came I was so excited. My mum dropped me off at school and there was a bus waiting for us. There was me and my friend and there were some others there from my year and the year below as I think it was for S2 and S3. I think one of the science teachers was there with us and the bus drivers were friendly. It took us a while to get to France as we had to drive to Dover first and we also had to pick up some other passengers from Northern Ireland at Gretna green. We made quite a few stops on the way at stations to let us get off and get drinks or whatever we needed. It was a nice drive there and me and my friend were just having a carry on. I felt a bit sick at one point though and had to sit at the front with one of the teachers. The driver made a joke about how it was fine as long as I wasn’t sick on his head and said it had happened before. I just had to sit there taking sips of water until I felt well enough to go back to my seat. We boarded the ferry and got over to France but there was still a way to drive. I liked the station stops in France though. It was different things you could buy like little pastries and cheeses and things. I liked something about it. We. were going to 2 different locations, one where we did canoeing and all that kind of thing and the next was beside the Mediterranean to do windsurfing and body boarding. The second place sounded like more fun so a few of us were just looking forward to that. We eventually got to the place and it was dorms we were in. We got to know another girl there who had a heart condition. There were some things she wasn’t supposed to be doing but she joined in with us on most things. The accomodation in the first place was basic dorms and bunkbeds. We got training in canoeing. There were sometimes still long drives to the places we could canoe from and they got us singing funny songs like yogi bear. It kept us going. The first time we got in the river was quite scary. We had been shown how to get in and out of the canoe, what to do if it capsized, how to turn etc but actually doing it was another matter. We got in the canoes in a line and set off down the river. My friend was a few canoes behind me and I heard a noise and a splash, I realised she had capsized. I shouted for the instructor to help her and I was panicking a bit. He shouted back to do what he had shown us. I seen she was trying but it wasn’t working. He realised and went back to get her. I was relieved. We just went back to our dorms after that but there were other times we had to get back in them. My friend was a bit funny with me later on but we went back to normal again. Sometimes on the journeys to the river they said something about a big drop we had to prepare for. I didn’t realise they were just kidding and actually approached one of them, saying that I wasn’t sure I wanted to do a big drop. They were just laughing and I realised it was a joke. At night there were nice dinners and a nice area for sitting. I got to know some of the people in school who I didn’t really know there. The 2nd part of our trip was to the med. That’s what we were all looking forward to. The accomodation there was like little huts. I remember them being quite cute and I think it was single beds. I was in there with my friend and one other girl. We learned how to windsurf and bodyboatd, but we never did surfing. The bodyboarding was fun and we did a banana boat ride, which I came off of and one of the northern Irish guys had to pull me out of the water. We set up camp one night too with just one sheet under and one sheet over. There were some older English guys about who some of the girls were flirting with and stuff. One of them approached me in our camp, lay down beside me and tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t have minded kissing him back but I wasn’t prepared for anything else. My friend swore at him and he went away. I was relieved. We went to the teacher and told her. There was another night when we went into the city because we got tickets for a street party. We thought it would just be a few people but there were loads there and we all had a really good time, despite having to go to the toilet over a hole! We did a day trip to a water park too which was amazing and then on the last night we had sports down on the beach which was just meant to be a bit of fun. The girl with the heart condition had to talk to the teacher sometimes about what she could do and she didn’t want to join in with the sports and games, even though we tried convincing her but she didn’t want to do too much and just came and watched us down there. When we went home it was sad in a way but we were glad to be going home. I cried a little bit on the bus because some of them were playing stay another day by east 17 and I got emotional because I’d had such a good time. The teacher who was supervising the trip forgot the packed lunch that was made up for us so we just had to stop at a service station and get lunch. We got sandwiches and muffins all round.

When we got back to the school we said our goodbyes and I think there was a bit of time before returning to school but I knew there was something a bit wrong with my friend from primary school. She was still talking to me but she was funny. I asked her what was wrong and it took her a while to tell me but she said the other girl she was friends with had said some things about me that she didn’t like. I got it out of her that she had said she hoped that the ferry crashed on my trip and that she had told her that wasn’t a very nice thing to say. I knew why I hadn’t liked her but she was still going about with my friend so it was quite awkward for a while. I didn’t want to stop talking to my friend but I knew I had to avoid that girl but she just drifted towards some other girls in the end. At some point in the year I got German measles. I just woke up one morning and went to watch TV and my sister said what’s wrong with your face, I went to the bathroom and I had spots all over it. I went to the doctor’s and he confirmed it was the German measles. Not sure why I got the German ones but it was some time off school and I got a bit of attention when I returned from other kids who had it before. After that I just got on with my classes and had the same problems as usual with maths in particular. One particular report day my maths teacher told my mum that I wasn’t as streetwise as some of the other kids in the class. I didn’t really see what that had to do with maths or my problems with numeracy but I remember my mum talking to  people about it. There wasn’t a lot I could do about it, I lived in the city and went about with my friend about the city and into shops and things and didn’t really understand how I could be more like them or if I even wanted to as I didn’t even like most of them or how they spoke. My friend I met in french class and went on the shopping trip with was being weird too and telling some big lies that a few people in the year weren’t happy with. I wasn’t sure I could be friends with her anymore as I didn’t trust her. We had a bit of a go at her but she wasn’t worth it anymore. I seen her about but didn’t really talk that much to her. My sister and I went to some drama workshops during the summer holidays. They were separate from the school and it was divided into different skills. We had to do some chair dancing, some circus skills and other things. By the end of it we had to put on a show to hundreds of people. I was nervous but I couldn’t really see anyone in the audience because of the lights. I had quite a decent part and remembered everything. There were people there that had a lot more experience so I felt good to have done it. I met a few people there too but didn’t keep in contact. It was different to drama in school where all the extroverts got the main parts and they got attention for doing silly voices and things, whereas this was more about building confidence and learning different skills which I preferred. I wanted to go back to the next one but it wasn’t worth the money because my sister didn’t want to. She liked horse riding but I didn’t after a bad experience where one took off with me on it. Luckily I had managed to stop it but I wasn’t getting back on one.

Some of the kids in my year started going out some nights to an underage disco in town. We would hear them all talking about it, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go but I mentioned it to my friends and they weren’t really interested in going and thought it wouldn’t be that good anyway. I was about 15 now and some of them were drinking alcohol by this stage. Me and my friend bought a four pack of hooch and had 2 each in the park but it only got us tipsy. It was a start though. There was another occasion where we went to a different park, there was a few of us and we had some alcohol but we just got the giggles and some of us started rolling down a hill for fun. There were a couple of parties that I went to, some mutual friends and things and there were drinks involved but I hadn’t really started going out yet. My other friend was now hanging round with a different girl in our year so we all went about together sometimes and walked home together. I sometimes just liked going to see a film though and would quite often go to the pictures with someone. I think cool runnings was one of the films out at the time that we went to see.

At school we sometimes got to use the pool. My guidance teacher was also a PE teacher and he helped me with swimming, although I could swim he helped me get my swimming technique a bit better. I also had to speak to him about some of the comments I was getting in maths class, some of which were sexual and some threats that were made towards me and even in the queue at the chip shop at lunch there were comments made by boys and name calling in front of staff and things. They were saying who knew I was good at swimming and at least there was something I was good at and I remember 2 girls in my year telling them they were out of order and that it didn’t make sense to make fun of someone because of what they were good at and telling me that it wasn’t normal and they shouldn’t be saying things like that. He said he would try and deal with it. There was something he arranged and I think he did try but there wasn’t much that changed.

It was around this time my dad started getting funny about who I was hanging round with. I didn’t really see anything wrong with them except for one wasn’t always that reliable but we did always walk to and from school and I didn’t really understand who he wanted me to hang around. All the groups and things had formed. He was annoyed with me when I hung around the house but then when I started becoming more active he was annoyed by that. I got to know a girl down the street, she was friends with my sister too but I got on well with her and we went about a bit together with some other people too. There was one occasion where I got grounded for some bad behaviour at home but he wouldn’t lift it, I thought maybe it would be for a week, then 2 but weeks had went past and a few people had came in for me. They said it wasn’t right and nobody got grounded for that long. I knew they were right but I didn’t know how to get him to unground me. One day the girl down the road came in for me, I just decided to go for it. Nobody was in and they wouldn’t notice for a while. We went about the local area as usual just having a good time, there was no alcohol involved but after an hour or so I heard from someone that my dad was looking for me. I panicked and hid in someone’s garden. He stopped the car and was looking around for me. He said it wouldn’t be as bad if I came out. I had to and I got in the car and went home.

After the grounding incident I avoided being in as much as possible. I went out to meet my friend quite a bit, mostly it was the 2 girls from school, sometimes I went about with the girl down the street or sometimes my other friend at school when I went to her house. I just tried to find as much to do as possible. I wasn’t about to get grounded again. He undid it once I apologised for disobeying him which I did.  We would go to the skatepark and things and talk to some of them on skateboards or the meadows or near holyrood park, there were a few locations we chose. Sometimes we drank when we had money. We would split it and get some 20/20 vodka drink. It just made us merry usually and we would go about seeing what we could get up to. I still sometimes went to my friends house from school, she drank sometimes but wasn’t so much about going about the street. Once while at her house we were daring each other to do stuff and she dared me to phone the Asian girl she was friends with and ask her why she didn’t like me. I laughed, I wasn’t sure I could do it but I pressed the numbers anyway. It was her dad that answered and put me over to her, anyway I ended up having a 20 minute conversation with her about what it was she had against me and why she was funny around me. My friend was laughing in the background, while she was trying to defend herself saying she didn’t have any problem with me. I knew she was lying.

When I went out with my other friends we would just go and hang around places, sometimes we would go to someone’s house and have some lunch but mostly we just hung round. One night at the skatepark we were chatting to some guys, they were all a bit older than us and before we knew it we had hooked up a bit with them. The guy I got to know was 22 years old with ginger hair and stubble. I was just kissing with him and he was pushing himself up against me but there was no sexual activity. My friends got up to some stuff aswell but they said when they spoke to my guy he said I was alright but he didn’t want to take it further as I was dodgy (whatever that meant) I wasn’t bothered, I could still feel his stubble about my face but I could say I’d kissed someone.

I had a dental appointment coming up and while there I got told some of the teeth at the back of my mouth needed taken out. Fillings wouldn’t fix them. I thought I had been brushing my teeth but sometimes it was quite chaotic at home with people demanding to get in the toilet. So, I got an appointment. I was scared but tried not to think about it. When it came round I could hardly eat, I felt sick to my stomach. My mum took me there but I kept having to go to the toilet and try to throw up but nothing would come up. While I had my head over the bowl a woman came in saying are you okay in there, you’re not having a baby on there. This made me laugh. I came out and we were standing talking for a while. I told her what I was having done and how scared I was. She was there with her daughter. I stood there with her for a while as I felt a bit lightheaded and I remember her standing behind me a bit and we both laughed then I went back to my mum and she went back to her daughter. I seen her just before I went into the operating theatre and I waved at her and said hello. I got put to sleep to get my teeth out but I was petrified of needles and it took a few of them around me to do it but next thing I knew I was waking up and my mum was there. I lay for a while and then I got sent home. I decided it wasn’t going to happen again so made sure I brushed my teeth regularly. I’ve not had any taken out since.

Because of the problems I was having in maths my mum was advised to get me some extra help. The school was all about maths and sciences so if you weren’t that good at that you were just left behind. She found me a tutor but it was a student at one of the universities. He shared a flat with some other students so I had to go into his room and sit at a desk with him. I went a couple of times and then I quit because I didn’t feel comfortable with it and I wasn’t sure he was really helping me. At home I was falling out with my dad a bit. He wasn’t happy with anything I chose and the only thing that made him happy was me working shifts beside him. At some point during the year my guidance teacher committed suicide. There were rumours he was having a relationship with a student from the new school he had moved to and it was something to do with that. We were all really upset and were offered counselling but I didn’t need that. I kept a diary and I wrote some things in that about what I felt but my privacy wasn’t respected at home and sometimes it went missing. There was one occasion when my dad was going about  like a bear with a sore head and I knew it was something I had done and when I realised my diary was missing I knew it was something I had written. I couldn’t remember it all but I remember expressing feelings upset about him and how there were things I couldn’t express in school. I remember the ceremony in the hall where we were all told what had happened and some people showed up to do with him and we were all just told to be respectful as there were rumours circulating and to just remember who he was as a teacher. I tried to go over and talk to a group of girls who were in a few of my classes, they weren’t my best friends but I sometimes spoke to them and one of them told me to fuck off (quite aggressively) I didn’t know what it was about but they were acting strange. The other guidance teacher in the school told me to leave them alone. I was getting tears in my eyes and was visibly upset by this stage. My friend took my arm and we went away somewhere away from them. It was during this year my granny died too, she had cancer and was in hospital a while. I remember going to see the body and walking in, looking at her lying there and then running out into the main street. My mum and sister were still in there. I just stood in the middle of the street and a woman with a child came over and asked if I was okay, I said I’d been in there, pointing at the funeral parlour and she knew why I was upset. I said my mum and sister were in there. She said I should go and sit near it so I did I just perched on the little seating  space beside it. My mum and sister came out shortly afterwards, my sister was crying. I was upset but I didn’t need to stare at her body for ages to know she was dead. There were some problems at home in between seeing her body and the funeral. I fell out with my sister a bit and was accused of not doing much to help around the house and to remember my granny had just died. I knew she had just died I was upset about it too. I just didn’t feel the need to go about crying every 5 minutes. When the funeral came I wore a black dress and jacket. I thought I was okay until the music came on and then I was overwhelmed and burst into tears. My cousin put his arm around me a bit as I was sitting next to other family members. My mum and sister were at the front. She came to see me when it was finished though. The reception afterwards was good and it was good to see other relatives.

Back at school things were much the same, I had to try to avoid certain groups when we went for lunch. Sometimes we would walk to bruntsfield but usually we just went to one of the chippys. After a while I started to gain weight. My friends didn’t really. One of them was bigger anyway but I didn’t notice her putting any on but I did. It was still quite gradual though and I still walked a bit and went to the pool sometimes. One day when me and my friend were walking home we went to the park area across from the school first. There was a girl we knew walking towards us. She went to the other main school in the area and she was known for fighting people who did things or said things about her or her family. They were well known in the area and her younger cousin was in my sister’s year. She came towards us and said she wanted to ask us something. Naturally we were scared and clung to each other a bit as we didn’t know what she wanted. She said she had heard that I had called her a Lesbian. We had had a bit of conversation that we had heard around the school but we both knew we didn’t start it so after defending ourselves a bit she said she knew it wasn’t us but she wanted to know who it was. I didn’t know but my friend said it was the ginger twins. She wanted to know which way they came out of school so she told her they should be out the same way as us. I was nervous as I knew what was about to happen but my friend said they deserved it. They came out and seen her. She walked over to them and confronted them. She got it out of them who it was and then she whacked her about the head and kicked her a few times. They stumbled away together. We went over and sat on a bench. We could  see she was high as a kite and maybe still looking for a fight but she had said we were fine. There was a woman who had seen it all and knew who she was. She told us we should go home to avoid anything else happening so we did.

The next few months I just got through the rest of school. I knew I wasn’t going to do that well in my exams as I couldn’t keep up with the workload. I sometimes went about with my friend from primary and another girl in my year. She lived in the grass market. We would get drinks if we could get someone to serve us or someone older to buy it for us and we would sit at the skatepark or holyrood park and drink it. One night we got some cider between us and went to holyrood park. We were just having a good time sitting drinking our cider but I got carried away with things and downed a bit too much. Suddenly I needed something to eat so we walked back towards town and split the cost of a pizza. I think it was chicken and sweetcorn and we ate it at the bus stop. All of a sudden I started feeling sick and before I knew it I was vomiting everywhere and I lost control of my legs. There was a young couple walking past that asked if I was okay and said to my friends that they needed to take me home. They huffed a bit because they knew they’d be late back in but they took me by each arm and walked me the 20 minutes walk back to my house. I seen my mum standing at the window and she buzzed me in. They threw me in the stairwell and said they had to go. I crawled upstairs and said to my mum not to shout at me as I couldn’t deal with it. I got into my room and laid on my back on the bed. She pulled my arm to sit up and then I vomited everywhere. I got into the toilet and locked the door. She banged on it and told me to unlock it so I did and then I finished being sick and crawled into bed. The next day I wasn’t actually that bad. I’d gotten a bit of sleep and wasn’t sick again during the night. My mum made me a sausage roll for breakfast and they went a walk round the park later. I tried to decline but my dad said it would be good for me. Later my friend phoned me to see how I was and we were just laughing about it and I decided I wasn’t drinking that much for a while. Other times I went out with my friend i had been to France with. She knew some people who had house parties but they were controlled so we didn’t drink too much, just a few drinks before. There was a girl who was in all the top sets at school and we were invited to hers for a party. It was a really nice house and we all just had a good time. She said something to me about not understanding what some of them in school said to me and how it didn’t make sense which made me feel a bit better because I knew she wasn’t stupid. Other times I would just go to my friend’s house still. She had some other girls round aswell. One of them I wasn’t really sure of. She could make some bitchy comments and I thought she was quite immature but  I had been in the same primary as her so I tried a bit. She wanted to do a ouija board. We were all a bit nervous but we did it. At first nothing was happening but then it started moving a little bit. I said someone was moving it so they lifted their hands up and it still moved. We all screamed and then we stopped playing because it was freaking us all out.

Following  the phone prank I made to the Asian girl she was being a bit friendlier with me and although we weren’t the best of friends we sometimes walked to class together and things as we had a mutual friend and we were in the same home economics class.  One day we were walking to class and a girl I knew in the year above who one of my friends knew quite well was walking towards us. She was with a guy and she started having a go at the girl, she was blocking her way and I knew what that felt like from primary school so I told her to stop but she said it had nothing to do with me and started saying things about what she was up to. She came up close to her and she was backing away and she fell. She was quite a big girl so she hit the ground quite hard. As much as she wasn’t my favourite person I did feel a little bit sorry for her, I wasn’t pulling her back up but I bent down a bit and tried to help but she got up by herself. She was in tears and didn’t really want to talk, we just went to class. There was a lot going on in school so I was glad to get away for a while to my cousin’s again in Peterhead. This time I was a bit older and I went out with her and her friends. It was fun at first, we went to a few pubs. She had put makeup on me so I looked older and we got in. Most of them were 18 anyway. I was getting some drinks bought for me and I was the youngest there so her friends were being quite nice to me. We went to a few pubs and then started on the nightclubs. Somehow I got separated from my cousin and I was going about with one of her friends who was quite annoyed at her for leaving me. We went into a few places and eventually found her again and she said she had been looking everywhere and had phoned her mum. She phoned her again to say she had found me and we would be back later. We stayed out quite a bit and I started to feel a bit sick so they had to take me home and she put me to my bed. I heard her downstairs with some guys she had invited back for drinks. The next day I think her mum told her off for losing me and bringing me back in that state. For the rest of the time we just went to the shows, and around the shops and to her friends houses.

When I got back I told my friends all about getting into pubs and things, we didn’t quite do that yet, although we sometimes had some alcohol we didn’t really get into pubs yet in Edinburgh. We just went to parks and peoples houses. I sometimes did some work at my dad’s work to save some money and I managed to put away 100 pounds in pounds coins which I used to get some new shoes and things. The end of year disco was coming up which was held at a nightclub in the town. There was a guy I liked and I was hoping to see him there. I had already tried going to McDonald’s on a night we knew he would be there. My friend had known so we went along. I had more make up on and he looked at me but nothing else happened. On the night I wore a white skirt and a short red top. We got ready at mine, we didn’t really have much to drink beforehand because it was a no alcohol policy and we wouldn’t have got in. We had quite a good time and we’re dancing to all our favourite songs but I didn’t see the guy. I seen his friends but not him. I also seen my friend that I had fallen out with at primary and she said I looked nice. I knew we wouldn’t be friends again but it was nice to speak again. Later I found out the guy had gotten drunk and fallen and hit his head, which was why he wasn’t there.

Back at school I just had to get on with trying to revise for exams but I knew it wasn’t looking good. I had went to my mum’s work at a community care home for severely disabled adults for work experience and that was okay but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it. The other maths teacher we got sometimes complimented me on how I worked some of the questions out in my head. I didn’t necessarily do it the way it was supposed to be done but I knew some of my classmates heard it so that made me feel better. There was an incident with an Asian guy in the year below when I was standing in the main corridor looking at a post on the wall and he came over and stood over me so I was backed up against the wall and threatened me. I didn’t know what it was about as I didn’t recognise him, he was quite a big guy and I was intimidated. I went over to my friends again, visibly upset and a guy in one of the senior years who had witnessed it went after him and said something but I don’t really know what was said. I seen the careers advisor about my choices and I said I was interested in working with kids. She advised me on which colleges  i could apply to and things which helped get my mind clearer. I didn’t want to be a hairdresser or anything like that so social care was my only option. One day some of my friends had a little bit of alcohol that someone had brought in. We were standing by the tennis courts passing it round. None of us were drunk but just getting a bit loud and things. My sister’s friends came over and they seemed friendly towards us, they knew we were drinking a bit but we didn’t think they would report us. Next thing the head teacher was marching towards us. We got the fright of their lives and we all got letters home. There was a 3 day events programme at the end of each year where we got to do sports like tennis in the school grounds or some arts and crafts and things. There was usually a longer trip too and this year it was to Granada studios in Manchester to see the coronation Street set. My friend who I had went to France with thought she might go but wasn’t sure yet. I was trying to convince one of my other friends in maths class to go as there was a hotel stay and I knew we would have fun. We had a bit of a carry on together in class, making paper aeroplanes and flying them towards the teachers desk She said she would try and come to Manchester. I knew she wanted to but nothing came of it and my other friend decided to do it so we did that together too for 3 days. My exams were coming up and my cousin who had moved from Peterhead to somewhere else in Scotland to work in a navy barracks came to stay with us for a while. My mum and dad had split up for a while and he had went to live elsewhere and my cousin had given up her job at the barracks and didn’t have anywhere else to go as she didn’t want To  go back home, so my mum let her move in. We got in each others way sometimes but I sometimes went out with her. I got through most of my exams okay but the maths one I was particularly worried about so I just went out the night before with her. We went to a student place where we met a couple of guys. They were okay, they were clearly students and we went back to their house and had a few beers then they were smoking hash so we joined in. A few minutes later we were falling about the floor in hysterics. Neither of us could control it and I had sore stomach from laughing.  The next day we realised we didn’t even know where we were but we got them to tell us and we got a taxi back, getting sausage rolls from Greggs on the way. I went into my exam later but I knew I wasn’t going to perform that well.

On the last 3 days of term after exams I went away to Manchester with my friend I had been to the south of France with. We would sometimes get annoyed with each other but I was glad she was going too. The other girl I didn’t hear anything from again. We stayed at quite a nice hotel and we shared a room. There were some girls there that sometimes had a bit of a carry on so we just seen them sometimes such as at dinner. There was one occasion where we were all sitting together and having a laugh and my friend got up to leave the room and one of the girls replaced her chair with a dodgy one. I told her it wasn’t a good idea and she would go mad but she just continued laughing. My friend came back in, excited about something and sat down, falling to the ground as she did. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her. She went storming back up to the room, I followed her, explaining that I hadn’t had the chance to tell her. We just avoided them a bit for the rest of the trip. We seen the coronation Street set and had a good time getting photos taken at different places including the rovers return pub and outside the shop. We seen each other a few times after school to go shopping and things but we drifted apart a bit.

My dad had moved back by this point after coming back and leaving again several times. There had been one incident where a group of us including an Australian girl I was friends with went to the place we knew he was staying with another woman and my Australian friend kept shouting up at his window. He appeared but didn’t come down. He had sent my mum a letter not long after asking to see his 2 children when as far as I know he has 3. I wasn’t that happy that she took him back in the house and sometimes I made it clear as he just strolled back in, thinking he could just act the same as before and tell me what to do. It got out of hand and there were a few blazing arguments, one of them I said I was going to the council. I got an appointment and spoke to a woman for about half an hour to 40 minutes about my situation and how I didn’t get along with my dad. They phoned my mother who confirmed it and I got into a B&B near Leith. It was okay but I felt a bit out of my depth as I was only 16 and there were grown men around me. I was there for a few days when my cousin turned up in her car, trying to convince me to go home. I put up a little bit of resistance but I wasn’t sure I was ready for it so I just spoke to the woman and I think she was glad I was leaving. I got home and everything thing was fine for a while.