Dear Stranger

' June 19th, 2018 Dear Stranger, I don't know who you are, where you live, or if you are a boy or a girl. But you must listen to what I write in this letter. I live in an ordinary house, with an ordinary family. At least, they're all ordinary. I'm not. But they don't know that. They don't know how lonely I am. The people I mention in this letter and letters to come will all have different names, so that you can't trace them back to me. But why would you? Maybe this letter will get into the wrong hands, or maybe a pair of hands that don't care about my life. Who knows. I just hope that it falls into the right hands, who may understand my world. I am 15, I am in year 10 and I tell you this, it sucks. So much homework and work and essays, it's painful. Do you go to school? You may even go to my school. I don't expect you to write back, you don't have a return address so it's impossible. Here's a hint, I am a girl. But that's all I'm saying. There are over a thousand girls in my town so you wouldn't be able to spot me even if you asked us all to line up. I would lie and you wouldn't find me. So do not try. Please. Ever since I was 8, I was bullied. I don't know why, at first I thought it was because I'm black but then some of the people being mean were also black, so it couldn't be that. In year 8, I dropped out of school, for some depressing reasons that you will find out in another letter. I thought, back in year 9 when I returned, that no-one would be mean to me. But I was wrong. If anything, its become worse. I transferred after year 8, but somehow word got out around town that I was moving and somehow the mean people decided to bully me in another school. It's hard for me. I have what I call these "mood swings," which is when I can feel upset and then it turns into a panic attack. I stop breathing and I have to go outside or otherwise I collapse and that draws even more attention than just going outside to calm down. Sometimes these mood swings can make me feel happy, but not normal happy. The kind of happy that makes you too excitable and you can't calm down. The kind that makes you look like a psychopath and people start to walk away slowly, which then makes you dissolve into tears. Yeah, that kind of happy. I feel better writing everything down on a piece of paper and sending it to a random person who will never find me. I will keep sending letters, so if you don't want to receive them, give them to your next door neighbour, or to someone who gives a s**t. Please. It would mean so much. Love, Anonymous Lottie'