So somebody who I've talked to a few times here did something similar to this, just talking about her life and introducing herself and I feel like doing the same in the hopes that maybe it'll help me and perhaps somebody else who reads it, like my friend's post did for me.

My name is Julia. I can't say my last name publically anywhere, and to be honest I'm even afraid to have it on my private facebook. Every time I see a Swedish person add me I fear for my life as it is now, but I'll get to that later.

Honestly, from the very moment I was born, my life has been at best a rollercoaster, and at worst a downwards spiral. In Sweden in 1996, I was born by planned c-section, and promptly stopped breathing. After staying in nicu for months, my parents who had just turned 40 were allowed to take me home with the general consensus that I was just strange and would most likely be fine. I'm the youngest of all my cousins, and I have no siblings, although I was about to have one around age 10 or so. My family was well off because of my dad, who had his own luxury travel agency and also worked high up in large business communication management. I was actually born before my parents got married, and thus lived in a tiny place with my mum until they did, when I was around three.

At that age was when my life properly begain it's incredibly long downwards spiral. Of course I didn't even know it then, because at that age, who knows anything other than their name, their age, and who their parents are? My parents noticed that I fell over an awful lot, and took me to a doctor because they thought I might be flat-footed. The doctor realised I had no deep tendon reflexes anywhere, (think the knee-jerk test) and promptly panicked. By the time I had turned four, some of the best doctors in Europe had visited me, and we had a couple of fancy titles to put to two very different, but badly interacting medical conditions: pseudohypoparathyroidism and Charcot-Marie Tooth disease. I had to take medicine for life unless I wanted to die, and the cherry on top of the pie was my parents finding out half a year later that I had such bad eyesight that I had to wear an eyepatch over my good eye to have any hope of my bad eye improving enough that it wouldn't be impossible to get lenses for it.

Then my grandmother, not content with having ruined her own daughters life, tried to ruin mine by calling child protective services on my parents. I was pulled away from a kindy visit my international school was having with the local kindy (yes I was four at the time and not at kindy, bear with me) by two really nice ladies who asked me all kinds of questions in a really bright room. Now, my parents were born in 1956, and as thus brought me up a little old school. They would smack me on the hand if I was touching something I shouldn't, and I'd get a smack on the if I was misbehaving. I was so young that I saw no need to lie, so when the ladies asked me whether my parents had ever hit me, I said yes. After that the investigation went crazy and I made mis-step after mis-step. Now, at age 20, I don't blame my 4-year-old self, but up until I was around 15 or so, I did.

My parents names were eventually cleared, but they never looked at me - or treated me - the same. What was once just a tap on the hand became... well, not that. We went on a year-long trip around the world for 'family bonding' after the incident, and they were so nice to everybody else, but for every time I stepped one toe out of line, my fear of my parents grew. When I was in school and hurt myself, I cried not because it hurt, but because I was scared of what my parents would do and say when I got home or - god forbid - the teachers called them to leave work and come pick me up.

You may ask why I never told anybody anything, but essentially my parents had brainwashed me to think that it really was my fault, that nobody would believe me, that nobody would help me, that they were the ones who should be pitied for having such a disgusting child. I was told that I couldn't tell anybody anything, I couldn't tell my teachers, my friends, even pets. I wasn't even allowed to talk to myself about it, because I wasn't allowed to trust anybody but them.

When I was nine and broke my ankle, I cried when the paramedic had to cut my sock off my foot because I was so scared that my parents would get mad at me for it. But still, I loved them. Because what child doesn't love their parents? All children are meant to blindly love and trust their parents, to steal, die and kill for their parents, or at least that's what I was taught by mine.

I don't know how, but up until age ten, I was still pretty happy. We lived in New Zealand, far away from our problems with our extended family, we had secret identities so they couldn't find us, we were well off with a nice house, a dog, and a new kitten, and I did well in school. Sure, I was being bullied at school, and was yet even more afraid to get home lest my parents were angry that day or I had done something I didn't yet know about, but I thought things were okay.

First of December, 2006 came around, and the day was going to be pretty awesome. Sure, my dad and I snapped at each other in the morning because I had forgotten my jumper, but it was the first day of december, it was a beautiful summer day, and we were going to have our first school disco the next day! After lunch our teacher even decided we were going to do arts and crafts for the rest of the day, and I was in the middle of that when the deputy principal knocked on our door and called me out of class. She told me to bring all my things and brought me to reception, where she told me to wait. I had a heavy lump in my throat and a feeling that something bad had happened. I heard the deputy principal whispering to the receptionist, who, thinking I couldn't hear them, told her that she had heard my dad had gotten into an accident or something. The principal then comes out, and she and the deputy take me out to the principal's own car, this small yellow or golden buggy sorta thing.

Although they were probably trying to make me feel happy with that - since I got to go in the principal's car and all - I just felt worse every second. We weren't exactly the biggest primary school, but we were big and fancy enough that the principal wouldn't drive you home personally just because your dad had broken his leg or something, like the receptionist had theorised. The car ride was pretty short, only a couple of minutes or so, but it felt like an eternity. The whole way there I could tell they were trying to distract me, but I gave them short answers and they eventually gave up. In truth I was only giving them short answers so that I wouldn't break the iron grip I had on my tears, a habit I keep to this day. When we rounded the corner of my street and I saw an ambulance in our driveway, I almost broke. What did it was getting out of the car and seeing my mum walk down the path to our house to greet me. I knew that there was no way she would look the way she did if my dad was okay to any extent - as in, alive.

My dad had been to a work convention until late the night before, and had worked his off as he always did, because he knew that his coworkers didn't respect him and thought little of him. He worked day and night to try and prove himself to them, getting home and into bed in the wee hours. In the morning, after I had left for school and my mum had left for work, my dad went back to bed in his night gown to rest before taking his morning shower. My mum was meant to have lunch together with him that day, but when she got home she found my dad still in bed, cold and not breathing. She tried CPR but it was too late. She called the ambulance but they couldn't do anything. Days later, the coroner told us that he'd had a heart attack in his sleep and died.

The last words I said to my dad were snapping at him for making me run back down the street to get my jumper.