Transcript

(boy) I reckon i can chat to anyone about anything. Well, almost anything. My mum says I could talk the hind leg off a donkey, whatever that means. But I had this problem. I couldn't talk about it because I didn't think anyone I knew would understand. It just seemed to keep getting bigger and bigger in my head.

So I thought I might speak to ChildLine. I'd heard you could talk to them about anything. My mate Chris said his cousin had called them about bullying. He reckons talking to them really helped, plus it was completely free. But it's not like I could chat to him for myself, so how was I gonna find out? I mean, who would I be talking to, what would happen and would anyone else get to know about it?

I didn't want the whole world knowing my business, least of all my mum. So I went on the ChildLine site again and found loads of information. Like I saw that you can talk to ChildLine online as well as call them. It works the same way as on the phone, it's just that you're typing instead of talking. Either way, I'd be in charge of what was said and what would happen next. They weren't going to go passing it on, so I could trust them with as much or as little as I wanted to say, whatever I preferred. I could even give them a different name if it made it easier. I thought about chatting online, but I guess I find it easier to talk about stuff, so I decided to phone.

I checked when I could call, and it said anytime, so I just went for it. After I dialled the number, I felt really sick. I was thinking about hanging up, but I'd come this far, so what did I have to lose? Then someone answered. This man said, Hi. You're through to ChildLine. I've got this problem, I said, and I don't think anyone will understand.
Would you like to talk to someone about it? he said. Yeah, I said, but I don't want my mum to find out. He said that was fine. The call would just be between me and the counsellor, unless they thought someone's life was in real danger. That was the only bit that might change things. That seemed fair enough.

So he said he'd put me in a queue to talk to a counsellor.All I had to do was stay on the line for a bit. So I waited, and I was starting to feel, How can I do this? After a while, this women, the counsellor, came on the line. I couldn't get my words out at first. That's not like me. But she said, Don't worry, take your time. So I told her all about it. She was great. She didn't talk too much to start off. She just let me say everything. Then she asked if it had been hard to call. Yeah, I said, but this has helped. I asked her, So what do you reckon I should do? She asked me if I had any ideas, so we started talking again. We figured out that I had some choices and they could all work out in different ways.

I could see there was something I could do to change stuff after all. That was amazing, just doing that. All of a sudden, it felt like I had a plan. It wasn't like I'd made an idiot of myself and I hadn't blabbed to the entire world. The call wouldn't even appear on the phone bill. It felt like I was in charge and that I could really trust them. They just listened and helped me decide what I wanted to do. It felt great.