I am 13 years old and I struggled a lot in primary school.
I find it really difficult to go out to a lot of places because I find it really overwhelming
and I get really anxious and I have panic attacks.
You feel quite alone when you can't do a lot of things that you want to do.
"Her worries seemed to change daily, a lot about her own health and about how she's going to manage things,
a lot about the state of the world, terrorism
and her anxieties that think about her own future and how she feels in herself."
I think anxiety definitely makes you sad and you seem very helpless and it's really hard
and with friends, when they don't understand, and they kind of just think you're doing it to be annoying
or you just can't be bothered. I think that's really, really difficult.
In my eyes anxiety is basically just your brain overthinking and you're just worrying about too much.
My name is Jack, and I'm 10 years old and I go to Cranborne Primary School.
I didn't really know what it was at first until my mum explained to me.
My granddad had it. My mum has it.
I get like butterflies in my stomach. Sometimes I get very hot.
I shake. I get angry. All different people feel different things but that's what happens to me.
"Certainly the profile of mental health issues has been risen.
Our children are becoming quite astute at recognising when other children are suffering
and when they have something on their mind and actually,
our children have become very caring in that they will say: "Are you okay? Would you like to come and play?
Is there anything I can do to help you?"
Or sometimes they'll come over to us and say: "I think so-and-so is having a particularly bad day today.
Is there anything we can do to help him?"
My experience with anxiety issues and things like that started when I was in primary school.
I felt like every morning I woke up,
I was just absolutely dreading the day.
I was, you know, I was very, very upset. I would cry before school. I would be absolutely shaking.
"Obviously you want your children going off skipping and happy
but it wasn't a very good experience for us or for Zara mainly."
I had very bad problems with my eating and the teachers were not trained to deal with me, with that aspect of things.
So they'd hold me down. They put food in my mouth and they put me in separate rooms.
They wouldn't allow me to go in the dining hall with my friends.
They would force-feed me and they'd just constantly tell me,
it's kind of stuck in my head now, "You're like a car, you've got to put fuel in to keep going".
"She is today suffering where she's got an eating disorder
because, you know, that wasn't dealt with correctly."
I am so terrified of eating, it makes me feel nauseous. I'm Scared.
The teachers, they weren't experienced enough to deal, with, and understand her needs.
It was okay saying to her, you know:
"You're feeling upset today Zara. We'll sit with you. We'll do whatever"
But it was a lot deeper than that.
She needed professional help".
I know I was too young.
I just really, really wished that someone would have maybe spoke up for me
and they would have saw what was going on. I wish someone would have spoken for me
because I don't feel like I had that. Even though my mum did everthing.
Like my mum took me to school every day. She would stay until maybe lunchtime with me.
"She's now 15 and she can't even attend school.
She's homeschooled and the problem never went away."
My experience at primary school was horrible.
They don't know much about, they don't really care, I'm not saying that they need to treat you differently,
but they didn't treat you right, the same as other people. They would treat your worse.
"They just never understood her and,
unfortunately, the way that they treated her,
caused detrimental damage to her mental health and how she is today."
So I get a bit nuts and then people think I'm a bit weird,
and then they won't want to be friends with me.
"I'm very lucky, I've got fantastic family and friends.
There are people less fortunate than me.
I've got fantastic daughter who will achieve everything she wants to achieve but it's hard,
it's really, really hard."
I started off and I was really upset going into school,
worried about my mum and I was ringing her twice a day. It's all fine she was still there.
She picked me up at the same time every single day.
She still does now and I'm not doing any phone calls.
"If we can see there are circumstances or situations that make certain children anxious,
we've got provision here to discuss those with them,
help put them at ease and give them a platform ready to talk about it,
so they feel safe doing so."
I have plenty of techniques.
There's the Havening Technique.
You start by rubbing your arms up and down, count to ten, pretend you're walking down stairs
and it just distracts your mind from what you're really feeling.
"What we would say as professionals,
is that it's very important to seek appropriate help as soon as possible.
Even if parents and teachers aren't sure whether the child needs an intervention,
it is much better to get an assessment,
to have the discussion with somebody who has the necessary knowledge and background,
who can then give advice as to whether something actually needs to be offered to the child as an individual,
or to the family. Or whether this is something that actually may get better on its own."
"Early intervention is key.
If you don't treat the children in primary school then it's just going to escalate,
which is sadly what happened with us."
I do hope at one point I'll be back at school
and be able to catch up with my work and do all the things I want to do.
I know that I didn't ask for help which meant now I'm struggling more.
If you identify the problems when you're younger it's easier
because then you have more time to work on them,
which means you won't get to a point when you're older, when you're kind of stuck because no one helped you.
And I think if I had had that, it would be very, very different now.
Primary schools should talk about mental issues and stuff.
I'm really proud of myself, really because I come such a long way from when I started.