Who am I? A grand question, let’s be honest. Does anyone truly know exactly who they are? Are we just continuously pursuing some sort of meaning and identity in life?

Well, my answer would be that it depends on who you ask. If you ask my parents, I’m a second year Literature and Creative Writing Student, I want to be a teacher and I also play in a successful band. If you ask my friends, they might call me some real select words, or perhaps tell you I’m someone who puts everyone else’s needs before my own, and that I should probably start looking after myself too. If you ask me? Well, that opens a whole new complex situation.

You see, identity has always been a difficult thing for me. It was always very confusing why some days I felt like El, the outgoing, funny, ironic rockstar, yet other days, I felt like Elliot; intrinsic, scared and lonely. These conflicting identities in my head are amongst a great deal of others, some terrifying, some more desirable. This didn’t make sense until I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder and realised what I am is a collective of shards or pieces jammed together to resemble the shape of a human boy.

I am a writer. I write poetry, music and short stories.

My poetry and short stories exist in a sphere of melancholia, focussing on love, heartbreak and depression — you know, the holy trinity. — I have written love songs and poems about my now, as of yesterday, ex-girlfriend, I’ve written short stories about sadness and grief, I’ve written about my own experiences in life and how they’ve shaped me. I guess when writing, I focus on emotion. I feel writing should be a spontaneous outburst of emotion, perhaps cathartic, perhaps to tell someone how much you love them.

Who I am, today, whilst writing this, is a 22 year old boy who has just had his heart broken. I don’t want to write or talk about this but here I am, trying my hardest to create something worthwhile that maybe someone will look at and think “maybe I’m not alone” or to make sure I don’t miss my deadline or whatever.

I’m so many fucking things. I’m obsessive and bipolar, I’m depressive and fucking suicidal. I am ashamed of myself, I am ashamed to write these things down knowing my classmates and my tutor will read them, but I now have nothing left to lose.

I’m on this course because writing is the one thing that will always be here for me. I love to write, I love creating work and I love expressing myself. I’m not on this course to further my career, I am studying my career course alongside this with the hope of become a teacher.

I have no dream job, per se, my only dream is to be happy. I dream of a loving relationship, a couple of kids, maybe a dog. Yes, the stereotypical, simple, in the box lifestyle. But I am scared. I am scared of being hurt again. I am scared of loving someone and giving them my life for them to just throw it away. I am scared of the statistics that tell me 42% of marriages in this country end in divorce.

So, really, what has this course done for me so far? I’ve made some friends, I’ve found out my happy place is in a classroom at uni. I’ve started writing again after years of neglecting it. I’ve got something so far, for sure, but I don’t know what I want, I don’t know what I expect and I don’t truly know who I am.

All I know is that I am a child, wondering around adult life, attempting to gain a hold of something tangible to help me through