CHAPTER 1: EARLY LIFE

On the surface my childhood looked ordinary, even fortunate. I believed my family was loving and that I’d been given every opportunity. But beneath the surface something was off.

When my mother left our family home just before my A-levels, my relationship with my siblings began to change. Over time I was painted as not just a problem, but the problem — and I tried harder and harder to be the person my family wanted me to be. That pressure taught me to shrink, to please, and to minimise my own experience.

CHAPTER 2: LIVING DISCONNECTED

Twenty years later, those old patterns were still threading through my life. Family tensions persisted — mediation sessions that fell apart, plans that collapsed, and a constant sense of being “othered.” And then I had my second child, a little girl.

Holding her, I had a crystal-clear thought: I could never, ever treat her the way I had been treated. That moment gave me a new perspective. I began to recognise a painful truth: I wasn’t the problem. I was the scapegoat — the person my family projected their issues onto. I had been living in the shadow of narcissistic abuse, and the wounds were deep.