When I felt sad, unhappy, angry, confused, bewildered, lonely, bullied, who did I speak to? Who did I tell? Who could I confide in?

The Myth Of Normal, Gabor Maté, page 443

I realised that I didn’t tell anybody. Not unless it impacted so much that I could not hide it.

Once, when I was in the middle of the single figure ages, I ran away from home because my dad was always angry and I’d been hit again.

I packed a little suitcase and walked to my Nan’s flat. It was a few miles away, which is a long way for a kid aged 5 or 6 to walk in their own.

I’d packed what was important to me: paper and pens. Clothes never crossed my mind.

I image that nan was surprised, but she let me and popped me at the kitchen table and listened while I told her how horrible dad was. She let me talk.

I remember that I was still at the table, bit I was drawing, when mum finally came to pick me up.

Nothing was said about what had happened.

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In high school, I think I might have been thirteen or fourteen, a friend and I were bullied for being gay. “Bum chums” and “bummers” were often used, alongside “gay”. I might have known that I was different in some way, but I had no idea what “gay” actually meant. At first, I didn’t even know that it was a word for somebody who fancies guys! I just knew that it was being used cruelly.

It got to the point where the bullying became utterly unbearable and somehow my mum found out. I don’t remember telling her.

She went to the school and saw the headteacher. At that time, schools were hobbled in how they could support LGBTQ+ pupils by “Section 28”, which terrified teachers by threatening their livelihood if they were in any way positive towards LGBTQ+ issues.

I do not know how the headteacher did it, but the bullying decreased significantly.

Incidentally, this friend who was bullied with me has never come out as gay and I believe it’s straight.

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I felt close to my mum. I’m felt safe with her.

She confided in me about how sad she was on her marriage and that she regretted marrying my father. We were both victims of his unpredictable anger.

Looking back, I wonder if her confiding in me meant I instinctively held back my own struggles. She needed protection, and I felt like I had to be the one to give it to her.

I always felt that I needed to protect her from “bad things”, including my husband’s illness and the fact that my husband and I had difficulties. She knew anyway.

Coming out to her at twenty-one was difficult, but she was amazing. She cried because she thought that I would be lonely. She lived my husband because he meant that I want lonely – and they were friends for most of the time (they fell out for a while, but made up).

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So I never really confided in anybody as a child.

I never questioned why I never confided in anybody until I read the “Myth of Normal” and the author asked the question. Now I wonder if my reluctance to confide in others was a survival strategy – one I never questioned until now.

It’s an interesting realisation, and I wonder whether that is normal?

If it’s not normal, what effect would that have had on me?

I had friends, but often felt a bit of an outsider.

I thought, aside from problems with my dad, that I was a happy child and loved spending time on my own playing.

Perhaps that’s what trauma does – it teaches you to hold things in, even when you don’t have to anymore.