I don't have a lot of pictures from my childhood, my mum mainly has them. I have a few and these are some of my favourites that I picked out of my box, how hilarious was I?! Me and a friend have just said by looking at these photos you can actually see I've never been a normal person in my life. I just find that I was a bit of an ugly kid, but cute ugly if that makes any sense; especially the bottom one look at the little smooshy face!















 These are a few bits from my school years that stood out the most; at the top is the card I received when I did my work experience at school. I got to go and help teach kids which is something I've always been VERY passionate about and I can honestly say I've never enjoyed myself more then when I was working with those kids. This one particular class I got very attached to and I came into the classroom and they gave me this card and some chocolate and I honestly stood and cried because I was so touched (they were all very confused). The second photo is from my prom, I can honestly say I hated prom but that was my personal opinion! This was my ticket and corsage from the night. At the bottom when before I went to high school we all got to make these little booklets and it just makes me laugh reading through them because the comments are just such a giggle!
























At the top is a little perfume bottle that my mum brought me back from her honeymoon to Prague and I love it because it's just so beautiful and it's one thing I see myself keeping until I die, maybe I'll even pass it down. It's not financially valuable, but personally it means a hell of a lot! The second is a letter that I received when I was younger from someone who was very important in my life, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever received and one day when I was extremely emotional over something I actually ripped up the whole letter and regretted it immediately. I gathered up all the pieces and put them back in the envelope and they are still in there to this day! (I luckily didn't rip the drawing with it thank GOD) although it's all in the past, I still like to keep the letter as it means a lot to me. In the next photo is one of the first presents my younger sister ever chose for me herself; there doesn't really need to be an explanation as to why that's special. Lastly is a picture I have of my uncle who my family unfortunately lost a few years back, I'd experienced loss and death before this but this hit me especially hard and I honestly still struggle a lot of the time with it now, but that's life for you.

I've seen quite a few bloggers do posts like this, and it really appeals to me. I always found at school, I was a bit of a recluse. I was one of the kids that was basically invisible or people knew about me for the wrong reasons, and so I always felt very alone and lost. This sounds like a sob story when in actual fact that's not what this is at all, I was your typical average kid in school- I got by. I just put my head down and got on with it, but I think that if I could go back to when I was 13/14 and have a conversation with myself I definitely would and this is some of the stuff I'd tell myself.

Spread your wings more- Throughout school I basically stuck with the same group of friends from year 5 until I finished school and this in itself caused quite a few falling's out and issues for everyone, but especially me because I always want to please people and I am very easily upset by what people say. So I'd tell myself to branch out and make new friends and not be scared, when I got to high school I did this on a very miniature scale and there are a lot of people I'm so happy I'm friends with now and some I wish I would have been friends with at the time. The true friends I have, I wouldn't swap for anything.

Don't let them see you're hurting and don't care what others think- This leads back to the fact that I'm very easily upset and so it always meant people knew that they were hurting me and so it made me an easy target. If I would have been stronger and not cared what others thought about me, I would have probably had a much easier time through school.

Be honest with your parents- As a person, I struggle greatly in being honest with how I feel and I am extremely stubborn in that no matter how much I am suffering, I won't tell anyone how I'm feeling. I only have one person I have in life that knows everything about me and this is because we went through a lot of dark stuff together so she knows everything because she lived it with me. I wish when I was hurting in school and suffering that I would have been honest with my mum because it makes life so much easier and I know she'll help me with anything that she can.

Needing help DOES NOT mean you're weak- This is pretty self explanatory, I always felt the need to suffer in silence throughout school because I felt other peoples problems were more important than mine and I hate when people fuss or worry over me and so I just dealt with it. If I ever really needed help I always felt so ashamed of myself, but after personal growth I realise needing help probably makes you a stronger person.

It gets better and results and school isn't everything- I constantly need to remind myself that whenever I'm feeling really low, it will eventually get better. It may take months or years, but it will get better. Until I finished my a-levels this year, I believed that my results were everything and when I didn't do as well on my a-levels as I had hoped I was so angry and disappointed in myself. I felt like the biggest failure and I didn't see anything ever progressing for me (I am a HUGE drama queen in some ways if you haven't already guessed) but it is only recently that I have realized that doing my a-levels hasn't really helped me in anyway. Yet I have managed to bag myself a job that I absolutely love, all because of my personality as I had no proper experience for the job. So never give up!

I kind of rambled on a bit too much with this and I didn't actually expect to think of as many pointers as I did, so go me! I hope for any of you still in school this helps you in some way or another, because I know how tough school can be and if any of you need to ramble, chat or moan about your school life or life in general. Then my email is in an info box at the side and I also have a twitter (AshleighRhiane) and I'm honestly happy to chat!
Have any of you got anything you'd tell your younger self?

Have the only photo from my prom that I can tolerate!