Let it out.

On September 21st I'll be flying the nest and leaving my mama bear and daddy for the first time in my life. I've never spent a long time away from my parents, maybe once or twice while one was gone but the other was always there, so it's going to be hard to leave them. I've always been close to my parents since I was a kid; there were times that I'd stay in and watch TV with my mum or play PlayStation1 with my dad rather than play out with friends. At times I feel like I'm really grown up, I look at how far I've come over the last few years and how much I've had to change along with my friends in order to deal with the pressures of society; do your A-Levels, pass them, apply for university, get into university, move away from your parents, get a job and start making your way in the world. It's hard being 16 and being asked what you want to do for the rest of your life, who knows that?

At the age of 14/15 I wanted to be a social worker. I was dead set on it. I guess growing up in a council estate and seeing the struggle of daily life for a lot of people gives you this sense of understanding because hell, you've been through that too. I wanted to help people. When my sister applied for university and got in to do social work I was so proud of her, even if I never told her. She graduated this year as a social worker and she came up from what everyone told her would bring her down; a teenage mother who dropped out of school to be a hairdresser. She has done so well for herself and she wanted to be a hairdresser at 16. So when my time came, I wanted to be like my big sister. I wanted to be as good as her, make my parents as proud of me as she has made them, even if she doesn't see it. She's been my role model since day 1 and even if she doesn't realise it, she's made me who I am today. I just wanted to make everyone else happy and proud.

Life has a way of throwing shitty things at you when you are already struggling enough with the weight you carry around on your shoulders day-in day-out. But what life also does is it makes you exercise those back muscles, makes you strong. You can't help it if sometimes you fall down because it all becomes too much to hold in. What does matter is that you pick yourself up again and start over, bit by bit, at your own pace, back to strength. That's what I'm doing. At the age of 17 I was determined I was going to fail my A Levels, never become what I want and be stuck by myself with my depression and my anxiety, with all the subconscious thoughts telling me I would never be good enough for anything in life. Last year I did what I had deemed to myself the impossible given the previous year and I passed my A Levels and got into my firm choice, Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge to study Philosophy & English Literature (I know, where's that gonna get me?). I then want to do my PGCE and become a secondary school teacher. I made a promise to myself last year that I would never let myself feel that way again. So today, to all and any of you who may read this, I make a promise. Selfish as it is, it's not to not be better, not to be prettier or skinnier or less anxious or less scared, but just for one thing: to be happy for me, not for anyone else. I will.