"Nobody wanted to know..."

"NOBODY WANTED TO KNOW”

After suffering PTSD, following two years of bullying at primary school, ten-year-old Ava Lilly was determined to share her mental health story to help children like her.

Trigger warning: contains themes of self-harm and suicidal feelings which some readers may find triggering. If you need support at any time, call The Samaritans free on 116 123.

Ava-Lilly Sterland smiles shyly at the camera as she lifts a sheet of paper bearing a rainbow-coloured message.

‘My name is Ava-Lilly,’ it reads ‘and this is my mental health story.’

For ten-year-old Ava, we learn the world was once a very dark place.

‘A few years ago, I was bullied,’ she reveals, holding up another page.

‘My brain started to feel weird. I had a voice in my head that was not my own.

‘The voice would tell me nobody likes me. The voice would tell me to hurt myself. So I tried."

This two-minute video has been shared all over the world since being published by Ava’s family last month, on Children’s Mental Health Week.

“I was reluctant when Ava first told me she wanted to make the video,” says her mum, Sophie.

“I was worried, and wanted to protect her, but she was so insistent.

“She looked me straight in the eye, and said: “What if I can save a child’s life?”

“I knew then I had to let her do it.”

Ava was just six-years-old when her parents noticed a change.

“She went from a happy kid to being angry all the time,” recalls Sophie.

“School kept saying everything was fine, but as time went on, she became more and more withdrawn.

“One day she just fell to the floor, and told us she was being bullied, and that it had been going on for years. This weight that had been burying her for so long all came pouring out.”

Sophie and her husband Chris moved Ava to a new school where she settled well, and quickly made new friends.

For eight months things seemed better, and then they noticed Ava becoming withdrawn again.

Sophie says: “Ava was only eight-yearsold, but she seemed to carry this dark cloud with her everywhere she went.”

As months went by, things got worse.

“It became clear that Ava was talking to somebody in her head," says Sophie.

“She told us she could hear a man’s voice, and we’d find her sitting in the corner of a room banging her head.

“Then she began scratching herself, creating wounds all over her body.”

Desperate to get her some help, Ava’s parents reached out to anyone they could think of - 111, and several GPs and psychiatrists. Eventually they took Ava to a walk-in centre, where a doctor admitted her, and called the crisis team.

“I thought ‘finally, somebody’s going to help us’,” says Sophie.

“The woman from the crisis team made it very clear we were taking away from her personal time, even as I sobbed recounting Ava’s behaviour to her, begging her to help us.

“She concluded that Ava was just a child looking for attention.”

Two nights later, with all three kids in bed, Sophie remembered she’d left something upstairs in her bedroom.

“It was 9.20pm on a Sunday - I’ll never forget it,” she says, her eyes shining.

“We thought Ava was asleep, and as I passed her room, I glanced in. My eyes met Ava’s, and we both froze.”

What she saw, she says, will stay with her forever. The voice in Ava's head had told her to end her life that night. Sophie arrived just in time to stop her.

“My husband and I didn’t know where to turn. We were so terrified Ava would try to hurt herself again, we couldn’t take our eyes off her for a second, but we’d also exhausted every avenue we could think of, trying to get help.”

Weeks later, during parents evening at school with Ava’s teacher, Sophie broke down in tears, and everything the family had been going through came pouring out.

“She was the first person to really help us,” says Sophie.

“She put us in touch with a family support worker, and that person changed our lives.

“She forced people to pay attention to the reality of what was happening to us, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“She wouldn't let Ava's problem be ignored any longer. It meant so much to have somebody fighting for us."

The real turning point came when Ava began seeing a cognitive behavioural therapist. He worked with Ava to start helping her make sense of what was happening to her.

“He diagnosed Ava with PTSD, explaining her brain hadn’t been able

to cope with the trauma of the constant negativity and fear she’d lived with while she was being bullied.

“He was able to really understand her in a way we couldn’t.”

18 months on, Sophie explains Ava is like a completely different girl.

“We always knew our child was still in there somewhere, but it’s so wonderful to see her now, playing and happy.”

The idea for the video about her mental health story came from Ava herself.

“I said no the first time she asked,” explains Sophie.

“A year later, she asked again.

“I could see that it was still important to her, and began to realise it genuinely could make a difference to other families out there.

“She was insistent she wanted to make the video; she knew exactly what she wanted to say, and how."

And while it’s been fantastic for the family to see so many people sharing Ava’s story, Sophie says they’ve been most excited by the likes and shares from people like Chief Social Worker Isabelle Trowler, and the NSPCC.

“We believe these are the people that can make a real difference to a system that left us feeling so alone.

“For the longest time, nobody wanted to help us, nobody wanted to know.

“I’m proud of how far Ava has come, and of her determination to share her story. After so much pain, I hope something good can come out of this.”

Today, Ava is a happy and healthy little girl, and keen to share her story, to help other children who may feel as she did.