Hello,
It has been over a month since I last updated this site, which is a shame to me because I quite enjoy this project of mine. Within that time, many things have happened.
First and foremost, my stepmother bore a beautiful son (hitherto referred to as H) on 08/06. My new younger brother is a happy little cherub who cries quietly and loves cuddles. I have dearly enjoyed holding him and playing with him. He is also adored by our other brother, who, despite being a boisterous 2 year old to whom 'quiet and gentle' do not come easy, loves to stroke H, help with feeding and offer to share with him. He is, however, prone to occasionally awaking H with squeals of glee after realising his presence, and I suspect that he still has yet to learn H's name, as he is normally referred to simply as 'baby brudda'.
The second most important thing is that I have completed my GCSE exams. Results are not due until 20/08 but I think they went well. I am predicted 9s in every subject save biology and classical greek, so I will be more than pleased if I fulfill this.
Unfortunately, the lack of structure provided by exams has led to an outburst of depression. Although I have very recently started therapy, I have fully convinced myself that I would commit suicide on at least 2 separate occasions since I last wrote, and still wouldn't completely rule it out in the remainder of this week. My father is away on business and my closest friend is off on a family vacation, leaving me with less support than I would like in an already trying time. I want desperately to stay alive and watch my brothers grow up, but I have been assaulted from dawn until dusk each day with emotional pain for reasons largely unexplained. It has deteriorated to the point where I can barely step out of others' direct line of sight before breaking into tears. On the bright side, I have mostly quit self harm, but without this (undesirable) coping mechanism, the only relief I have received from these bouts of anguish have been from the renewal of my Catholic faith.
Although I have yet to attend mass or confession, praying the Rosary has given me comfort and strength. I do not own a Rosary, so I count on my fingers, and I use the website rosarycenter.org to aid me in my meditations and to remember prayers that I never properly learned (i.e. Oh my Jesus and Hail Holy Queen). I decided at 10 or 11 that I would be an atheist, but since then I have come to realise that if you do not insist on the juvenile (and heretical) interpretation of God as a personal figure and instead view Him as the government of the universe (i.e. the laws of physics), faith becomes easier. I still struggle to believe in an afterlife, or the literal truth of Jesus's resurrection, but it moves me endlessly.
Most prominent in my negative feelings is regret for the way that I have treated W. I feel worry about her becoming closer to her other friends while not providing her anything except laments about my own life. I cannot muster anything else to share with her, and I am afraid to let our friendship die out. I have expressly rejected her claims that she loves and cares for me, something which would break my heart if the roles were reversed, simply because I could not conceive of any sane person enjoying my presence in this state. It seems so clear to me now that this is the most hurtful way I could repay her for her unwaivering support, yet when I am in pain and receive the slightest hint of rejection, I can scarcely contain myself. She must be exhausted of my constant suicidal ideation, but this week I begged her for help out of the most sincere concern for my own life I have ever held, and in each moment it felt as if she cared not one bit. I don't know if this was because she thought I was lying (I am something of a boy-crying-wolf in this regard I'm afraid) or attempting to ignore the idea so as to keep her composure or genuinely too busy/tired to meaningfully engage, but it hurt.
I have taken up going to the gym and am searching for a job. For 2 weeks following the end of my exams i completed an enriching work experience at a fintech firm which was enjoyable if somewhat intimidating and occasionally boring, however I should now like to get some paid work, potentially continuing into the new academic year.
-L, 13/07/26

Hello,
On Wednesday of this week I sat an A-level maths paper so terrible that it has since accrued coverage from multiple news outlets and a petition with thousands of signatures whose goal I cannot quite decipher. I am a grade-A student (although one who is prone to stupid mistakes that have nothing to do with my mathematical capacities), so I did manage to complete most of this paper with the exception of the integration question 10c. I attempted integration by parts and got nowhere. I attempted a substitution and got nowhere. It at no point occurred to me to use the definite integrals button on my calculator to at least get an answer mark, but I doubt it would have made a difference. Being a grade A student, I moved on, answered the rest of the paper, and corrected most of my other answers before returning to this, but this well-practiced exam technique did not save me from spending a good 0.4/2 hours pursuing these 5/100 marks. I mention this because I came home, exhausted and disheartened, with little else to do but refresh r/alevelmaths repeatedly and pray that others found it worse.
For the hour or so that I sat immobile, the thought that came most to my mind was images of gore, and so I decided eventually to embark on a pilgrimage to hobbycraft to shoplift blades for a craft knife (they were actually out of replacement blades so I ended up nicking a whole knife with 5 extras included). This should not have been as big a deal as it was, but I made the mistake of telling my infinitely kind friend, W, my intention, and as such spent a good 20 minutes reading her genuinely begging me not to continue self-harm as I walked to the shop. The author is the sort of monster who can look at a woman he loves, promising him, quote, ‘literally anything’ if he does a simple task, which she only asks out of care, and completely ignore her. Why this angel chooses to care so much about the (genuinely very mild and unworrying) scratches I inflict on myself is genuinely unbeknownst to me, but I did feel a guilt that overwhelmed me until long after she went to sleep. I hope that I do not hurt her as much as she claims. Besides, she has been growing distant, closer with online friends; I cannot fault her for this as they do not treat her like dirt, but I will miss her if she decides to cease our communications.
Yesterday was dead space and I won’t reflect on it, but I will say that I’ve been feeling terrible physically. Today though, exciting progress was made: My stepmother would appear to be in labour as we speak. Although I doubt I shall be able to meet my new brother until next week, and I doubt he will be born before tomorrow, I am still extremely excited. This afternoon I had the pleasure of picking up my existing brother from nursery, giving him a bath, and watching bullshit children’s TV with him (under my dad’s supervision of course, but he was mainly preoccupied with texting his wife) until the time came for the wee one to be transported to our neighbours’ house, where he will stay until his parents are ready to come home. I suspect my brother (the toddler, not the soon-to-not-be-a-foetus) is blue-yellow colourblind, although he may just be ragebaiting and/or a little bit slow in that area. I’m back at my mum’s now, which is far from ideal, but in all my strength I shall push through.
-L, 05/06/26

Hello,
Yesterday, I went to see a friend. I nicked some gin from the bottle on my dad's counter (scandalous, I know, I truly never do such things and I still haven't quite gotten over the guilt) and she had done the same so that between us we had a quantity enough for me to feel dizzy for the 3 hours that we sat together on that picnic blanket, in the shade of a tree to protect us from the hot sun. She goes to my school but, it being exam season, I haven't seen much of her recently. We discussed her love of horses, our mutual friends, music, the struggle of teenage social circles, the works. What stood out to me even in my ever-so-slightly hazy memory was her saying of her self-harm habit (which is far more serious than mine, although we were relating) that she has so many people trying to help her, assuming that she wants to get better, but that realistically, the fact that she goes so far out of her way to continue, even after all these years, is due to the fact that she doesn't particularly want to stop. I told her how emasculated I feel both for doing it in the first place, and for doing it as lightly as I do, to which she said that once you start going deep it is hard not to. This somewhat put me off it, honestly.
In moments like that, pouring hard spirits into rapidly warming cans of Coke Zero, I finally feel as though I am a teenager. A human. The first half of my teenhood was taken from me, written off. It spelt out a warning for my life. Maybe, if I was lucky and thorough, my intellect would carry me into material riches, but the true riches of personhood were only to be looked on from afar. I still worry that that may be true, but as I age and come to enjoy the fullness of life, other explanations seem more likely.
After a difficult conversation with my mother last night, i was soothed from anxiety and suicidal ideation into joy and gratitude by my closest friend, whom I shall henceforward refer to as W. Then, for the first time in a while, we discussed at length the petty matters of guns in video games which she so loves. I fear always that I mar this relationship by overshadowing W with my depression. How many nights have I spent panicking without internalising her efforts to calm me down? How many threats of suicide have I sent her? How many snaps of my blood? She claims she doesn't mind, and certainly it was wonderful to read her empassioned rants and have a lighthearted argument with her regarding the lethality of bullets. I spent all of my childhood longing to be somebody's best friend, and finally I am. I love her.
Today, I went to a shopping center. These places are, quite honestly, Hell. I walked through row after row of garbage polyester clothing in the higher end sort of fast fashion brands, while my mother picked out for me clothes that could hardly fulfill my need of 'professional trousers' for my work experience. The only pair which did not fit me like a clown made my hips and thighs look genuinely like a woman. Nonetheless, I truly could not bear to stay in that outlet for a minute longer, so I took it home, along with the same pair in a different colour. A reader may be forgiven for thinking I am exaggerating for comic effect when I say that I would have needed an hour in a padded room to recover from the trauma of the experience. The reader would be wrong. Instead, I sat in a coffee shop and drank an iced americano, barely able to speak as the horror washed over me, while my mum attempted to make conversation. The coffee gave me a persisting headache.
My attempts at revision today have been hardly more than satisfactory, which does not bode well for my (admittedly unimportant) exam tomorrow. I have managed to somehow misplace the tiny box of blades, so I have been forced to man up and face my emotions. No opportunity has yet arisen for me to go and shoplift new ones. In honesty I'm not sure whether I shall; I hate the appearance of my scars.
-L, 31/05/26

Hello,
Shockingly, in the 5 days that have elapsed since the last time I wrote have not been hellish. On Tuesday, I went to visit my best friend. I was honestly ashamed at my behaviour at her house: too unable to pull myself from the pit of my self loathing even to enjoy her presence. A dutiful friend though, she took me downstairs to watch TV together and take my mind off it. I sat by her side with my arms around her, and it should be noted that while my friend enjoys the affection I smother her in, she herself has certain touch aversions due to autism, and finds it somewhat difficult to receive, let alone reciprocate, my incessant and somewhat emasculating urge to cuddle her. At all times. On Tuesday however, she put her arm around my shoulders, in a never-before-seen return of my physical admissions of love. I cannot overstate the instant bettering effect this had on my mood (and I daresay she liked it too). We sat like that for the next hour or so while we watched Disenchanted (mid show), and it managed to abate my depression ever since.
Other than seeing her, I haven't done much in these past few days aside from revise. I wish I could say that I've done a lot of that but it wouldn't be true, my motivation is in the toilet. Yesterday and today I have struggled hugely with maths (I am taking early maths A-level), though I hope that this is an anomaly. I was very upset yesterday to see another friend inviting me to a skate show only after it had finished, although I will be seeing them tomorrow. In other news, I ordered some shorts on vinted that are long enough to cover my cuts! It has been boiling where I live so I am grateful.

-L, 29/05/26

I am here once more to scream into the void. A few days ago (Thursday 21/05/26) I completed the 2nd, final, and only* paper of my GCSE English. In the thick of exam season, this is hardly news, except for the fact that the first question heavily concerned the issue of published online diaries. The irony.
I have had a bad few days (and months but this is beside the point). In fact, if you asked me yesterday, I would have told you that I likely wouldn't live to witness the end of half term a week from now. We had a barbecue today, wherein my dad made the delicious shoulder of lamb that caused yesterday's controversies (don't ask). I enjoyed the food, and I enjoyed seeing our neighbours and their young children. Ever the pessimist however, there were a few negative takeaways which dwell in my mind now that they have gone home and my darling brother (age 2) has gone to sleep. My sister irks me enormously. Firstly, She decided to mock me for my height. I will admit to being below average for a boy of 16 -curse my south Asian genes- but I am still far taller than her. She went on to point out my lack of body hair, seemingly without even realising that this might hurt me, and then decided to imply to all our guests that i was poorly behaved and drinking mischeviously even though I had my dad's explicit consent. I am not as whiny a bitch as I may appear on this post, so i took this in good spirit and elbowed her in the side, and she marched off in a strop to go back to our mum's houce from whence she came.
I honestly couldn't tell you why this all got to me as much as it did, besides the fact that I'm pathetic. Of course, I am as susceptible as the next person to a few sips of the gin my friends bring to school, and recently, I've even been invited to a few parties, but I am on the whole a well behaved child and a straight A student, who pays all due attention to his GCSEs and sets a good example for his brother and sister. This upset aside, it really was very nice to indulge in good food and wine while aforementioned brother played with our neighbour's child (a 5 year old whom he adores) and to hold a newborn-sized 3 month old. Any day now, there will be an even tinier child in our own home. I can't wait to meet him. -L, 24/05/26
*I was ill during paper 1, luckily my teachers arranged so that they would essentially double my paper 2 mark to derive my grade.

Hello, World. You will excuse the dead links on my site, which remains a work in progress. I am hardly a master programmer, and this world is somewhat new to me (Some may tell me that I should not leave links to unfinished sites lying around, to which I say 'piss off'). I had the first paper of my chemistry GCSE this morning, which went exceedingly well. I have proceeded to do absolutely no revision since (I write at 21:30). My activities for the remainder of the day (not to be confused with the brilliant novel by Kazuo Ishiguro: 'Remains of the Day') included

On the subject of the penultimate activity, I've decided that my friend (and my father, and my school) may perhaps be correct in their proposition that I am depressed. I feel mostly upset for the degree to which this affects her; I have become accustomed to ranting to her about my (often seemingly baseless) feelings of self hatred and defying any attempt she makes to comfort me while positing that she hates me, all while completely ignoring any words coming from her mouth (or rather thumbs, as i speak to her via mobile phone aside from the occasions a couple of times a month where we meet up). I have realised that this may hurt her feelings. One would think I cared very little about her; this could not be further from the truth: she has all of my love in her chest, however that counts for nothing, as I can do nothing to prove it or benefit her except tell her that. What does it say about my worth if even the feelings of love that consume me have only these feeble and inconsequential outlets. I sat today for almost an hour looking through subreddits that I knew would make me miserable, in spite of yesterdays promise that 'I'm trying to get better'. These ruminations do nothing to aid my feelings of self hatred. - L, 18/05/26