HEART-WRENCHING REAL LIFE
Kathleen Firth, 36, from Clitheroe, thought she’d got her daughter back, until a discovery revealed the truth.
Letting out apiercing scream, Iran as fast as I possibly could.
My partner Chris, now 35, and children Daniella, now 16, Jenson, now 13, and Poppy, now 10, all had the same idea, too.
As picking up an injured bumble bee, my daughter Alyssa, then 13, cupped it up in her bare hands.
She wasn’t fazed by insects, even though the rest of us were all petrified.
‘Bumble bees don’t sting you, Mum, it’s wasps you have to be scared of,’ Alyssa chuckled.
And ever since she was tiny, she’d always had the same affinity for all animals.
Which meant as afamily we’d often go to farms and petting zoos, so the kids could hold and cuddle ducks.
As well as that, we’d head to Hersham Beach often in the school holidays, where both Alyssa and Daniella would go swimming, as the rest of us played on the shore.
And after along day at school, both Jenson and Alyssa would beg to go to Brungerley Park together, building dens until dinner was ready.
Bubbly and funny, Alyssa also had different personalities for different people.
She wasn’t the biggest fan of being around noise.
And as she got older, Ihad suspected that she was on the autistic spectrum, too.
She struggled with social cues and making friends.
However, Alyssa did have a select couple of friends who she’d made in primary school.
Yet, when it came to attending secondary school, she wasn’t particularly excited.
After just afew months in Year 7, Iknew that she’d struggled at times with some nasty comments from other children at school.
They didn’t understand Alyssa’s sexuality –she’d come out as gay when she was 11.
‘I can try and help you,’ I reassured her, something that Chris did, too.
However, despite all our efforts, Alyssa didn’t want to go into any more detail. And that was the same reaction that she had when we discovered Alyssa had turned to self-harm.
Always in big, woolly jumpers, even in the peak of summer, I didn’t catch on that Alyssa was hiding anything.
But after noticing scars, I felt heartbroken. Chris was the type of man who didn’t worry about anything, but even he felt completely helpless, too. We tried to ask her why, but Alyssa didn’t see it as an issue.
She wanted to put all of her efforts into drawing, painting, making friends via online gaming and aspiring to be a florist, instead.
Even though she was struggling, she tried her best not to let anything get her down.
With access to her phone, tracking the apps that she was using, too, it was a way for me to
