Dear whoever,

I would like to congratulate you for opening this letter, as it is not from someone you have previously gotten mail from. Well done, my friend. You have done well.

Well, I know that you'll be thinking 'why on earth are you writing to me?', or even 'how on earth did you get my address?', so I'll explain:

First off, I apologize for this being your address. I made it up, you see, and now you just happen to be the recipient of this letter. I ask you to please not put this down, as I am now going to explain why I sent this.

Well, I've been seeing a therapist recently. Personally, I think that he's totally loopy but he told me to write to a perfect stranger about myself. I did ask him why, and he said something about getting to know myself better.

Well, I thought, how can I find a stranger to write to? I couldn't with someone at school because they all have the wrong impression and would be biased. I didn't want to walk up to a perfect stranger on the street and give them a letter. I didn't want the recipient of this letter to know it was I who wrote it.

My therapist gave me the assignment just over a week ago. For many nights I tossed and turned, wondering how to do this, and got the idea from a book. A character stole some things, and a friend of theirs got blamed, so they sent them away to a made-up address. Though why they couldn't have sent the things to CAFOD or something, I really don't know. But anyway, it gave me the idea for this. 'Ah, why don't I mail it to a made-up address?' I think, so I do.

Anyway, at this rate I'm going to forget why I was originally meant to mail this, so.

Hi! I'm called Annie, and I'm nine years old. An incredibly literate nine year old, my English teacher calls me, but the other teachers say I'm a very slow nine year old. English is my strongest subject at school, I'm not very good at the others they say, but I don't mind. I like being good at English.

I don't know why I see a therapist, so don't ask. Not many people know anyway, so shhh. Don't tell anyone.

I'm a girl (I think you noticed that by now) and I have a brother and sister. My brother is eleven and he's called Michael. My sister is called Eve, and she's five. Michael plays lots of football, and I read lots and Eve plays with her dolls a lot. I don't like them. She's forever playing with Barbies and Sindys. One day it really annoyed me and I picked up a mermaid Barbie (it's her favourite) and tore off its head. She started screaming. She's a real crybaby.

She's had barbies since she was three. I've never liked them. I coloured them all really neatly in purple felt tip once, but she just started whinging so I got annoyed and tore off their heads (if they didn't want their heads to be torn off they wouldn't be able to be reattached) and hurled them at the walls. Mum yelled at me. It wasn't fair.

Michael and his friends played dares with me once. They didn't want to, he told me he's not meant to play with his kid sister. He was only ten then, and I was just turned eight. I was gonna scream at him, but then he decided to let me play. I don't know why. One of his friends dared me to cut off Sindys hair so I did and mum told me off and I got really upset and cried. I just got ignored. I was annoyed then because Eve and Michael were never ignored when they cried, so I threw Eve's plastic chair at the wall and got locked in my bedroom. I kicked the cabinet over and broke a vase and screamed and when mum came to see why I wouldn't be quite she saw blood and glass on the floor and I had to go to hospital to have some glass taken out of my foot. It hurt.

Mum won't let me keep glass things in my room now.

I like hanging around with Michael and his friends but now they always play football and it's really boring. And I played with them once and the ball hit me in the head. I jumped at his friend who did it and scratched his face. I was six at the time and his friend was about eight and now that he's eleven he still has the scar down his face. It was bloody and Michael and mum wouldn't go near me to calm me down so dad had to and I scratched him to. They locked me in my room again after that.

At school the other pupils don't like me since I kicked Jane for giving me chicken pox and jumping on my toy dinosaur. I like dinosaurs. I collect them and always play fights with them and it was my best dinosaur and she jumped on it because she said dinosaurs were icky. She got told off for it but I kicked her anyway for jumping on it. I was meant to stay outside the headmasters office but I kicked his door so he put me in a big empty room. I got mad and kicked things but there was nothing to throw or anything so I started banging my head against the wall.

After that the headmaster had to talk to my parents. Then Dr Fahre (my therapist, or psychiatrist as he prefers his title to be) came into the picture, and a woman called Rachel. Rachel comes to school with me everyday. She's in every class with me and on the playground with me and I asked her why I couldn't be alone. She called it 'constant supervision' and said it was so I didn't hurt anyone or myself. I got annoyed then and she had to restrain me from kicking her. She was strong and I couldn't free myself from her grip so now I'm stuck with her. She told me I was ill in the head and had to be looked after all the time.

Mum and dad hardly ever let me near Eve and Michael and I don't know why. I don't have Rachel at home, but mum and dad are always watching me and when I'm 'naughty' I get locked in my room. I broke the window once and got glass in my hands so then they had to get indoor metal shutters on the window that I can't break. Only they can seem to open them and I need a key and a lot of strength to open them and I don't have a key.

Michael's very sporty now. He's in his last year of little school. He says he's glad to get out because I embarrass him. I hit him when he said that and got locked in my room. But about Michael and sport, he started playing baseball. He practises in the garden. When I was about seven I wanted to play to and he let me and I was winning but then mum wanted me to come in and I refused and Eve (she was only about three then) went to tell mum I was being naughty and I hit her with the bat and she started screaming so I hit her some more. Mum prized her off me and I got taken to a hospital for about a month. Mum took me out because she said that she couldn't bear to see me so unhappy and I'm still out now.

I didn't like the hospital. It had a really big white room that you got put in a straitjacket in if you were bad. It was horrible and I got worse and started screaming. I stole a knife there once and threatened to hit them with it and screamed and showed I was serious by cutting my arm showing them that the knife was real and cut. But they didn't seem to see what I meant and they took it off me, bandaged my arm and put me in the white padded room that I hated. I don't know what they thought I was doing. They said I revolted because I refused to eat and said I wouldn't until I was out of there. But I fainted and ended up being forcefed soup and hit the person who fed me as I was trying not to eat and they made me.

My family are always horrible and locking me in my room. I used to keep knocking the cabinet over so it's fastened to the wall. It has metal things on the window to stop me breaking it. My bed is nailed to the floor and to the wall. I can't get under the bed but I don't know what they've done. My wardrobe is locked all the time. And it's like a cage.

Well, I did my homework and told about myself to a stranger, but I didn't learn anything. I still think everyone's mean and that my family can be annoying. I think I've learnt though that my psychiatrist set me a meaningless assignment.

Thanks for listening to me.

Yours whatever,

Annie.