Tressa – The 12-Year-Old Mum: My True Story

from Dad as possible. ‘I’d really like to go to my mum’s. Please!’
So he got his keys and we took the short drive to where my mum was living. She had recently moved into a flat in Livingston where her boyfriend Billy had been living for many years. I rang the bell and banged on the door but despite seeing all the lights were on, nobody came to answer. We waited around for a while, hugging ourselves against the cold, but nothing happened.
‘I know,’ I told him. ‘I could go to my aunty Joanne’s and get the key from her.’
So that’s what I did. It turned out that Aunty Joanne was out for the night but Alex and his girlfriend Vanessa were there and they had Mum’s front door key.
Phil and I went back to Billy’s and I let myself in the front door. I walked through the dirty living room to the bedroom, where I saw Mum and her new

‘I mean, you’ve been through a lot and look at you! You’ve coped so well. You’ve got a lot more strength than you give yourself credit for.’
I thought about this. In some ways, I could see she was right. I was stronger than I thought. I always thought that I needed my family, that I couldn’t cope without them. Well, that wasn’t true. I could stand on my own two feet and here, in Roselands, I was given the confidence and freedom to build up that strength.
Before I started at Dumfries High School in January 2009, Maggie and I went out a lot. Sometimes another member of staff would come if Maggie was off that day. We went to the cinema, swimming and ice-skating, and took long trips in to the countryside. But best of all, I started horse riding at the local stables. I’d always adored animals but I’d never visited stables before. I loved being around the horses – they were

I knew that he deserved it but I didn’t want him to go to jail. He was still my brother after all. I found it so hard to explain how I felt to all the social workers and counsellors. They all expected me to be pleased, to hate Jason. But I couldn’t.

It was a horrible realisation, but at the same time, I felt the tension in my body easing. I knew in that moment that none of the kids wanted to hurt me. Like me, they only wanted to hurt themselves.

Part of coming to terms with my past was learning to accept the fact that I couldn’t run her life for her, that I had to look after myself instead of protecting her all the time. If she messed up, she would have to live with the consequences.