Hiya,

Welcome to yc.net Bloggs- for those of you that dont already know me, im Ceinwen also known as Kiwi. Im 17 and i help to care for my dad who has schizophernia. Im the youngest of 3 children, my two sisters are 25 and 21. Im currently at 6th form i only take three subjects this year- I take Music, Art and Drama, all of which i love by the way.

Im really pleased that i have been asked to blog 4 yc.net- only thing is i dont know where to start. I suppose that the start is normally a good place to begin so i might try and go from there. I havent been a young carer all my life, but on the 18th August 2005 my life turned upside down. When we had been away on holiday a few days before dad had been acting weird but we just put it down to him acting up (he'd always had a slightly bazar side to him). But this was different- this was big, I was at my best mates birthday, but i didnt wanna go home something wasnt right. That night dad didnt come home- at 11pm we had a phone call from a hospital about 20-25 miles away, dad had arrived at the fire station near to where he used to work saying he needed a place to stay cuz hed lost the house and all of the family cuz he didnt make it home by five. That phone call was torcher- we all knew it was about dad but it wasnt untill the next morning at 2am when my mum came home from the hospital that we knew he hadnt been in a car accident or something. The next morning i woke up with my best mates mum in my room- mum had gone to the hospital again. For the next few months dad spent time in hospital with us visiting him every day- at the same time to set a new routine to the man who believed i wasnt his.

Then came the start of term at school, i was just going into the most important year of school- Thats when things started to hit the fan. I couldnt cope, i wasnt sleeping at home because i was so worried about dad and the pile of courework was flung at me. Lucky the teachers knew what was going on with my life so things were slightly easier for me. But then the news came that i had been dreading- Dad was coming home. I suppose i should have been excited about it- but i wasnt, i hated the idea simply because he still wasnt back to dad. It was really hard to cope with him at home because my life completly changed, i actually had to do things for myself, i learnt to cook, clean, wash, iron and all the things that all the yc's are so use to doing. But to me at this point was something i would have never dreamed of doing.

School was tough, I was sleepingin english because i was just far too tired. French i would flip at the teacher because she would say something that would irritate me. Basically i wasnt doing to well, this was ovious to my head of year who decided that to get me back on track i needed to go onto report- this actually helped me loads, because she was able to work out where i was struggling and why. as the year went on things did become easier, but my results did show that i struggle through, but i got my grades to get into 6th form and for me that was all that really mattered.

So that brings me to now. I am now a much better person thanks to being a young carer- i've grown up. Im helpful and care about those arround me- something that a few years ago i wouldnt have been. That's my story of becoming a yc. Bit long winded i know but at least you know where ive come from- and you can all know who i am before you get into my blog.

So what do you think of my very first blog? let me know

Kiwi