Feeling rejected. When I first got to China, it was weird that my family in Britain didn’t really get in touch. They sort-of just left me to it in this wild hinterland. It was always my job to keep the peace, but the adults in my life never offered themselves to me.
Most of the time it felt like I didn’t have a life. And I never believed it when I was loved.
My stepfather beat my mother, and my dad married a woman who could not love me.
Children grow up believing whatever it is you tell them, and for me, I was told that I was unlovable.
It was a strange combination of being overprotected (which meant I didn’t know how I felt) and being underprotected from all that was happening around me.