Ask Sam letter

Hi there,

I’m glad that you decided to get in touch to tell me about what’s happening. There are a lot of difficult things going on for you right now and I can hear that the anniversary of your mum’s death was a particularly tough day.

It was wrong of anyone to do what you have called ‘fraping’ and it sounds really frustrating for you that your adoptive parents thought it was your fault somehow, I want you to know that I do not believe that it was your fault. It was very wrong of them to kick you out and I can imagine you might feel very let down by them right now. I can hear that you’re also feeling let down by friends when you need them the most.

Losing your adoptive family and not having your friends around right now might also have brought up a lot of difficult feelings of loss from the past too. It sounds like you were only just turned 3 when your mum died, losing someone so close to you is very difficult. Sometimes those feeling can all come to you many years later. When someone you love dies it can make you feel all kind of difficult feelings like anger, sadness, frustration and so many more. This can be more difficult for us when we never really had much of a chance to get to know that person who was still an important part of our life.

You’ve told me that the set up in your new place is a lot to take in and it’s important to let staff know how you are feeling so that they can try to support you better.

It sounds like you’re struggling to cope at the moment with all the changes and loss that you have been through. I sounds like you feel quite out of control with where you're living. It also sounds like you are doing things to yourself that could make you quite unsafe and unwell like not eating and using cannabis. It is important that you look after yourself especially when times are stressful. I would never suggest that using drugs, including cannabis, is a good idea.

I’m concerned to hear that you’ve not being eating. Our bodies need food in order to function and survive. At 15 you are still growing and developing. You need the nutrients from your food in order for that process to happen properly. When we starve our bodies of food it can also make everything feel emotionally worse too since the chemicals in our bodies go all out of sync.

You might want to think about talking to or writing a letter to your friends about what’s happened and how it’s all been affecting you recently. It sounds like you miss them.  All of the changes that have happened for you seem to have affected the way you’re behaving right now and perhaps your friends might feel shocked to see their friend unconscious in the school car park or passing out. They might not understand what’s causing you to behave this way if they are not fully aware of all your feelings.

Writing this letter was a good first step towards getting support to be able to cope better with things over time. You are welcome to talk to a ChildLine counsellor anytime about everything that’s going on and how its making you feel. You can call ChildLine free on 0800 1111 or have a 1-2-1 chat. A lot of young people also find support from other young people on the message boards helpful.

Cruse bereavement specialises in supporting people after someone has died, you might want to check out their page for young people called RD4U. I wanted to also include a link to The Who Cares Trust on this website you can find out about being in care and your rights. Remember that ChildLine can also support you to talk to your social worker whenever you need to.

Take care,

Sam