When you can hardly leave the house, you have no friends, you live with your mother who you tread on eggshells around, you are cripplingly depressed, it takes you all night to go to bed because of these crazy rituals you've suddenly found yourself doing, and worst of all, the internet hasn't been invented yet you have to look elsewhere for solace.

I turned inwards. I clung to James because James was all I had. My friends from school drifted away. They had their own lives and whilst they tried to stay in touch they were moving on and I didn't blame them, not really. I missed them desperately as time moved so slowly it felt like it was moving backwards. Or sideways.

James was always there, arms open wide. He loved me. He challenged me. He inspired me. He lifted me up out of all of this mess. I did the same for him. I would spend all of my time on my room with my red binder open, poring over my pictures and articles about James. One time my mum came into my room and asked what the red folder was that I always had open. I just shrugged and said, 'Nothing.' I never told her anything. She was the last person I would confide in. She never took me or my brother seriously, never saw us as people. We were toys she made for her to play and do as she pleased with. She had never had power over anything in her entire life and boy, was she ever going to wield her power over us. I wish she'd just gotten an eating disorder instead.

You wouldn't believe who she was outside the house. Still is. Complete and utter doormat. Wears a sign saying 'Do Not Respect Me'. She spends her life worrying about people thinking she is nice and a good girl. She's seventy years of age and she's still buying into that crap. She's all timid lip biting and hand wringing. I'm not criticising her for being nervous and shy around people, god knows I am too. It's her constant need to debase herself, to willing throw herself to the bottom of the social pile everywhere she goes. People will say anything they like to her at work, all kinds of meanness, and she will just laugh along with them even though they are humiliating her. It makes me despise her to witness it. And the people doing it.

She just doesn't have an ounce of self respect. When I've asked her why she lets people walk all over her she just says, 'Well, I don't want to start a fight.' Standing up for herself would be starting a fight. She is so afraid of any kind of conflict that she will take any kind of bullying with a fixed grin on her face and them come home and tell me all about it. I want to tell her if she isn't prepared to do anything about it, I'm not prepared to listen to her complain about it, but I'm not brave enough to talk to her like that. Whilst I'm under her roof she can treat me how she wants. I have very little money and nowhere to go. She holds all the cards. And I honestly don't think she even knows what she's doing is wrong. And I doubt myself every day.