I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s on a council estate in a small, picturesque village on the outskirts of Guildford. From the outside, it looked like a peaceful place — the kind of village you’d see on a postcard. But growing up on a council estate back then meant living with both the good and the bad that came with it. Behind the closed doors of our modest home, there was chaos, sadness, and silence — the kind that echoes louder than words.
At first, everything seemed okay. But slowly, cracks began to appear in my parents’ marriage. My dad became distant, aggressive, and violent. He was an alcoholic more interested in drinking, chaos and having affairs than being a father. My mum, once vibrant, disappeared into herself. Depression wrapped itself around her like a fog — she’d sit chain-smoking, staring blankly into space, unreachable until her death in 2023. My older brother grew angry and physically violent towards me. Home no longer felt safe.
By the age of eight, I was left completely alone at night, every night with my barbie dolls to keep me company. My mum worked as a cleaner at Surrey Police Station. My Dad was a carpenter who was usually out drinking at the British Legion, and my brother did as he pleased. The house was dark, cold, and silent. I would sit still for hours, every creak and shadow feeding the growing fear in my chest. I was terrified of the dark. I was terrified of being forgotten. But more than anything, I was terrified of how normal it had all started to feel.
There were no warm goodnight kisses, no one checking if I’d brushed my teeth or tucked in safe. Just me — a little girl in a dressing gown, listening intently for the sound of keys in the lock. That was the sound I clung to: the jangle of keys and the creak of the door at 9:30pm when Mum finally came home. It meant I had survived another night.
I was a very lonely child. There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes from being emotionally invisible in your own home — not because people are gone, but because even when they’re there, they aren’t really there. That absence shaped me deeply. I learned early on how to be small, how to stay quiet, how to cope and survive.
As I got older I would frequently stay over at a friend’s houses to avoid everything at home. I would breathe in their family dinners, the noise, the gentle arguments, the laughter. I soaked it up like a sponge — that warmth, that normality. I clung to those moments and those families, because for a few hours, I could pretend I was part of something safe. Something whole.
That childhood fear — of abandonment, of being unloved, of being alone in the world — became the soundtrack of my early life. And it would take decades before I began to rewrite it.
At 15, my world cracked open for good. By then, I’d had enough of the secrets, the silence, and the aching tension that filled every corner of our home. I began investigating my dad’s affairs — quietly, carefully, piecing together the lies that no one dared talk about. I followed my instincts, noticed the patterns, the unexplained absences, the late nights, the strange phone calls. I gathered the truth, because I had to know. I needed something real in a world that felt like it was constantly shifting under my feet.
When I finally told my mum what I’d uncovered — that Dad was having affairs — I thought maybe, just maybe, something would change. That she’d hear me. That she’d stand up for me, or at the very least, for herself. That somehow, this confession would bring us closer, or stop the slow unraveling of everything.
But two days later, my mum went out on a “Singles Night” — the first time she’d been out in years — and met Brian, the man who would later become her husband. The very next day, she moved in with him. Just like that. No discussion. No hug goodbye. No asking me if I was okay. One moment she was there, the next, she was gone. The house, already cold and cracked, became something else entirely — a hollow shell.
When my dad found out what I’d told my mum, he exploded. Furious and cruel, he threw me down the stairs. It happened in an instant — violence doesn’t pause. My body hit the steps hard, over and over, but it wasn’t the physical pain I remember most. It was the moment I realised that nothing in that house was safe. Nothing had ever really been safe.
I picked myself up and ran. Out the door, down the lane, through the village I had once called home. I reached the red telephone box — trembling, breathless, half in shock — and I called my boyfriend. I remember my voice shaking as I spoke. His dad drove out to get me.
I left with nothing but the clothes on my back and my purse in my hand. No bag, no belongings. Just the sting of truth and the quiet fire of knowing I was never going back. Ever.
That walk away from the house wasn’t just an escape — it was a liberation away from that house and the people in it. It was the first time in my life I felt something close to power. I had lost everything — my family, my home, my sense of belonging — but I had also left behind something far heavier: fear . I knew from that day forward I would live life as an orphan, my friends would become my family.
I wasn’t afraid anymore. Not in that moment. Because even though I had nothing, I had myself — my truth, my will, and my refusal to keep living like that.
And that was the beginning of my freedom.
Also at 15, I discovered the rave scene. The rave scene wasn’t about breaking the rules or chasing the thrill of sneaking into clubs or illegal parties — it was never about going against society. For me, it was about finding a place in it. A space where I felt safe, accepted, and connected. A space where no one judged me for where I came from, what my family looked like, or what pain I carried. It was about love. Pure, unfiltered connection.
I found myself at illegal raves and clubs like Sterns, Bagleys, Club UK, and Ministry of Sound — still underage, but not for the rush. I went because in the middle of the music, I finally felt alive. Among strangers who danced like family, I found something I’d longed for my whole life: belonging.
The beat, the bass, the rhythm of hundreds of bodies moving together — it made me feel held, seen, and free. There were no questions, no roles to play, no need to hide the scared little girl I had been. The music didn’t just fill the room, it filled the empty spaces inside me. In those moments, I wasn’t broken. I was whole.
Those nights are sacred to me. The rave spirit still lives in me today — not just the joy and energy, but the reminder that I once found light in the darkest of places. That I was never truly alone.
Yes, the lifestyle came with a cost. I drank too much, smoked too much, and sometimes loved too recklessly. I brought my childhood wounds with me, and they shaped my choices more than I knew. But for a few hours, under flashing lights and a sky of sound, I could let go. And I’m still grateful for every tune and hazy conversation that carried me through.
After those hedonistic nights, my escape shifted from dancefloors to desks. Gone were the chaotic nights of noise and neon — replaced by early mornings, ambitious deadlines, and an obsession with achievement. With no family relationships to fall back on, I became utterly addicted to work.
Work wasn’t just a job. It became my sanctuary, my armour, my distraction, and in many ways, my identity. I poured myself into it completely because the constant busyness gave me somewhere to put all the pain. It filled the silence that surrounded me when I had no one to call, no home to return to for Sunday lunch, no warm voice at the end of the day asking, “How are you, really?”
Without family, I often felt cut off, like I was moving through life without roots. It was more than loneliness — it was a kind of invisibility. I wasn’t someone’s daughter in a network of care. I wasn’t part of a close-knit clan or a loud, messy family group. I was just… me. Alone.
And because I felt so different, I became fiercely determined to reinvent myself — to be someone people had to take seriously. I didn’t want to be seen through the lens of my trauma or background. So I pushed harder, climbed faster, and expected more from myself than anyone ever had.
I softened my accent — the working-class lilt that made people underestimate me. I swapped out my vocabulary for something more polished, more ‘professional’. I learnt to carry myself with the confidence I didn’t feel inside. I watched how educated people moved and spoke, soaking up their habits like oxygen. It was as if I was learning a whole new language — not just how to speak, but how to belong.
I studied everything. Books. Podcasts. Conversations. People. I surrounded myself with those who knew more and quietly studied them like a blueprint. Every meeting, every project, every email was an opportunity to prove to the world — and to myself — that I wasn’t broken. That I wasn’t some girl without a family, without a past worth mentioning.
Work gave me structure. It gave me purpose and something to obsess over. Something to replace the gaping absence where love and belonging should have been. It gave me status, yes — but it also gave me a way to hide.
Because behind the spreadsheets, the presentations, the carefully crafted emails, I was still that girl who felt different, alone, and unseen.
After my son was born in 2004, and following the breakdown of my relationship with his father, I entered one of the darkest chapters of my life — a relationship with a man from Tunbridge Wells. On the surface, he seemed like everything I thought I wanted. He had the cars — Bentleys, Range Rovers. He had the lifestyle — the country house, the villa in Marbella, the skiing holidays in Klosters. It all looked so perfect. It felt like I’d finally made it. But beneath that glamorous exterior was something sinister — and I couldn’t see it, not at first.
The relationship quickly became emotionally abusive, and I began to unravel. Slowly, piece by piece, I lost myself. I went down from 12 stone to 7 stone in weight. I lost my voice. I lost my sense of reality. I was walking on eggshells, anxious, always waiting for the next emotional blow. I was being gaslit, manipulated, and broken down — and I didn’t understand how it had happened.
How could one man dismantle everything I had built? My career. My confidence. My friendships. My life. I was intelligent, successful, and independent — and yet I was trapped in a relationship that was destroying me. And I couldn’t make sense of why I had let it happen. Why I had chosen him.
But the truth is, I didn’t choose him — my childhood trauma did.
That terrified, abandoned little girl inside me was still trying to be loved, still trying to fix the chaos, still trying to be enough. I had never truly healed from the emotional neglect and instability of my early years, so when chaos knocked again — this time wearing a nice suit and driving a Bentley — I didn’t recognise it as danger. I mistook it for love. And by the time I realised the truth, I was too deep.
Eventually, my body gave up before I could. One day, I started shaking uncontrollably — and I couldn’t stop. Not for hours. Not for days. I shook for seven days straight. My nervous system had completely crashed. That shaking was my body’s final scream: enough.
Thanks to private health insurance, I was admitted to The Priory. I was mentally, emotionally, and physically spent. But I was still clinging to hope.
When I emerged from treatment, I thought things would get better. But then came another blow. I found out he had forced me into bankruptcy. He had manipulated everything — even my finances. And as if that wasn’t enough, he spread lies to my closest friends, destroying the bonds that mattered most to me.
I was left with nothing. No money. No job. No home. No support. From a high-flying role and a life full of friends, plans and prestige — I had fallen off the edge of my own life.
I couldn’t understand how it had happened. I was humiliated. Ashamed. Furious. But underneath all of that was something more painful: I was grieving for the woman I could have been, had I not been carrying the broken patterns of my childhood.
That relationship didn’t just break me — it forced me to confront the parts of myself I had spent decades trying to ignore.
That stay at The Priory was nothing short of life-changing. It wasn’t just about treating a breakdown — it was the moment everything stopped so I could finally start again. I completed the full 28-day Programme for Addiction, and it opened my eyes in ways I never imagined. My addiction wasn’t just to substances — it was to feelings, to chaos, to fear. I was a feeling addict — addicted to anxiety, to stress, to dysfunction, because it’s all I’d ever known. Peace felt unnatural. Calm felt threatening. But in that safe space, for the first time, I began to see the patterns — and where they began.
The Priory helped me gather up the shattered pieces of my life and make sense of them. I’d been living in survival mode for so long, I didn’t even know there was another way to live. But there was. And I was ready to find it.
When I left, the outside world hadn’t changed — I still had no job, no home, and my life was in tatters — but I had changed. I had found the tiniest spark of self-worth buried under all the rubble. And I wasn’t going to let it go out.
I made a decision that would change everything: I left work, and I enrolled in a degree in counselling. It wasn’t just a career move — it was a healing journey. Studying counselling helped me understand why I’d ended up where I had. It gave me the tools and life changing connections to rebuild myself — not just for me, but for my son. He deserved a different story, a safer home, a happier mum. I was determined to give that to him.
Along the way, I met Ingrid — a remarkable woman on my counselling course who taught me how to truly be myself and helped me set myself free from the chains of the past. Her kindness and wisdom were like a guiding light, showing me that healing wasn’t just possible, but necessary.
The years that followed weren’t easy, but they were full of growth. I kept my circle small. I chose relationships with care. I surrounded myself with healthy, kind, emotionally intelligent people — people who saw me, held space for me, and helped me continue to heal.
I completed over 200 hours of personal counselling — and another 40 more in recent years — working through the layers of pain, shame, fear, and grief. Slowly, that inner child who had been so scared, so lost, so desperate to be loved, began to feel safe.
And somewhere in the middle of that journey, I met him. The man who would become my husband. A man who doesn’t just love me — he cherishes me. A man who sees me not as someone broken, but as someone whole. For the first time in my life, I have a relationship based on mutual love, respect, and emotional safety. It still takes my breath away sometimes.
These days, I live differently. Entirely differently. I don’t just survive — I choose peace. I protect it fiercely. The chaos that once felt so familiar now feels repulsive to me. I no longer invite it in. I no longer chase it. I walk away from drama. I walk away from lies. I walk away from anything that threatens the hard-earned serenity I’ve built from the ground up.
I surround myself with emotionally healthy people. People who are open, kind, self-aware — who take ownership of their lives and their feelings. I’ve learned that peace doesn’t come from what you have, it comes from who you are around. So I keep my circle small, intentional, and authentic. I choose connection that nourishes me, not drains me.
These days, I feel solid. Clear. Grounded. I know who I am. I no longer need to be liked, to be accepted, to be approved of. I have nothing to prove. I know my truth — and I speak it. That alone scares people.
Because here’s the thing: people who are still living in denial, still tangled in their own lies, their own stories, often don’t know what to do with someone like me. Someone who has faced her shadows. Someone who no longer plays small to make others comfortable. Someone who says what they mean and means what they say. Someone who is comfortable in their own skin, free from people’s lies, manipulation and being that person people put down to make themselves feel better.
And I’m okay with that. Actually proud of that.
Truth has become my compass. Integrity, my guide. I help others now — through my work, through listening, through being honest about what healing really looks like. I hold space for people the way I wish someone had held space for me when I was small and scared and lost. That is my calling. That is my power.
I don’t crave the highs anymore. I don’t seek the rush. I’m not addicted to anxiety, to being busy, or to pleasing others. I rest. I breathe. I feel safe. That’s everything.
I laugh more. I dance. I still rave — just in a different way now. One that feels joyful and connected, not escapist. The music still lives in me, but it no longer needs to drown anything out.
Looking back, I see now how every struggle, every breakdown, every sleepless night led me to this place — not of perfection, but of peace.
Today, I’m deeply grateful. Grateful for my son, who became my greatest motivation to break the cycle and give him the stable, loving childhood I never had. He is my reason and my reward.
I’m grateful for my husband, a man who truly sees me, cherishes me, and walks beside me with compassion and love. He showed me what a safe relationship feels like.
I’m grateful for my home — my own space, built not from bricks and mortar alone, but with resilience, healing, and hard work. A sanctuary that is mine.
I’m grateful for my small, trusted circle of friends (my adopted family) — those who walk with me, laugh with me, hold space for me, and never ask me to be anything other than myself.
I’m grateful for the rave community — the music, the people, the energy, the connection. It gave me belonging when I had nothing else, and even now, it reminds me that joy and freedom are mine to claim.
But most of all, I’m grateful that I now live a life free from the past. The trauma no longer defines me. The pain no longer controls me. I did the work. I faced the darkest parts of myself. I found light again.
Freedom isn’t something that happens overnight — it’s something you fight for, grow into, and protect. And today, I protect it fiercely.
I am finally free. And I am finally me.
2 responses
So moving and inspirational
What an incredible, beautiful, honest, inspirational piece of prose. So proud of you JoJo xx