«I built a lot of shit together with my friends»

"I'm the youngest of three siblings and was a total mummy-daddy for a long time, maybe until I was twelve or thirteen. If I were to describe myself, I would say I was nice, helpful and fun-loving, I had goals. I'm still all that today, but there was a difficult time in between. When I hit puberty, I wanted to be cool more and more, try out lots of things, alcohol, cigarettes. A lot of it. I did a lot of shit with my friends and I didn't think teachers had anything to say to me. If someone came across as stupid, I just snapped. It was so bad that I wasn't allowed to go to class camp because a teacher didn't want to take responsibility for it.

It was also difficult with my parents, but I didn't care, I always said to myself: let them do what they want, I'm not interested. I hardly spoke to them during this phase. I was expelled from school twice. The first time I thought it was really cool, I wasn't allowed to come to school for several days and was supposed to work in a centre for people with disabilities. I thought, great, I can enjoy life a bit there. However, they were even stricter there than at school. The second expulsion didn't really happen, because that's when corona came.

Socialising is important, I needed it, we needed it. So we met up and celebrated.

The pandemic was the worst time in my life so far. We tried to meet up with friends and party anyway because the bans seemed so pointless. Everyone said different things about what was right and wrong, you just didn't know what was right any more. Socialising is important, I needed it, we needed it. So we got together and celebrated. Some of us also got corona. The fact that I had to spend so much time at home with my parents and siblings was bad for me, there were so many emotions involved. I was often sad, but also very often outraged and angry.

I've become a bit calmer again today. I think things through before I do anything rash. I get on quite well with my parents again, even if I don't talk to them about everything that's on my mind. The school social worker helped me a lot and I can still talk to her about a lot of things that are bothering me. I would love to become a police psychologist."