Afterwards – after Eighteen Seconds

In the three years since my memoir was published I’ve received so many messages from readers. Some found that my account resonated with them. Some identified with small aspects. Some, sadly, with larger parts. Some said they had, because of my words, ended ties with hurtful family members. Many apologised for oversharing or ‘bothering me’ but I felt honoured that they could do so. It was why I eventually shared my story with the world. But so much has happened since then. So much. In the book’s Afterword, I shared that – aged fifty – I had ended the relationship with my mother. Since then – not in the afterword but in the afterwards – I revisited that decision in a small way. And this is fine too. I’ve had readers ask what I thought they should do, and told them that isn’t for me to say. Only they know what’s right for them. And only they know if changes mean they rethink. Life changes. And we make decisions accordingly. Let me tell you about it…

At the end of 2024, Christmas Day in the UK, we lost Uncle Edwin. Very suddenly. Those who read Eighteen Seconds will recall what a support he was during my mother’s bridge jump, even from afar, in Tasmania. In the months before he died, once again, he was a rock. This time for my husband Joe and me. We were experiencing the most hideous trauma, and he had such wise, calming words about how we navigate it. I won’t share here the details of this ordeal – perhaps one day in the far, far future, I might speak, but for now I can’t put my children and husband through any more by possibly inviting further aggravation. I got the call to say that Edwin had gone on Boxing Day. It was a shock. A devastating shock. And one of the first people I thought of was … my mother. His only sister. I felt so sad at the thought of her loss. Having not seen her then for three years, I wasn’t sure it was even my place to say anything. Do anything. But I was awake all night thinking of her, alone in her flat, with that kind of loss. Despite all that she has done – and readers of the memoir will know the details – I still ache at the thought of her suffering. So the next day … I went to visit her.

I knew I didn’t want to resume a relationship with her. That was too complex and difficult, and I had begun healing a little in her absence; recovering from narcissistic abuse is an immense undertaking, and I’d recently endured the aftershock of another narcissist too. But, also, my heart hurt at the thought of her being sad. It’s always been that way. I can back away physically, but the little girl in me is always yearning for the mother she’ll never have, and is weak at the thought of her being unhappy. So I took some flowers and visited her. She was surprised, understandably. It was awkward. But I told her I was sorry for her loss, and we chatted a while. When I left, I was distressed. The whole thing had been a lot. As I left, I tried to hide it. Feared the usual lack of care for my vulnerability. She called me back. Said she could see I was upset. Told me to hug her. I did. And then left. A few days later, I took some flowers to my grandma’s grave, to honour Edwin in England, and sent a picture to my mother. She said thank you. And that was it. For then…

In the afterwards of Eighteen Seconds I finally left Hessle, where I had lived more or less my whole life. It felt like exactly the right moment to do so. There’s nothing there for me any more. I also, finally, had some counselling. I knew it was needed when I was turned down following interviews to become a Childline volunteer because, they said, it was clear ‘I was in a bad way, and needed some help.’ That’s what it took. I had wanted to give back after the horror of 2024, and couldn’t even do that. Counselling was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Because my main problem is that I can’t be vulnerable. (Abject fear, from childhood, of it being stamped on.) The first session, I simply cried for half an hour. A release. In that safe place. And then the work began. I don’t think it’s only because of that work – though it may have contributed – but when I was very ill recently with salmonella poisoning, and hadn’t slept or eaten for days, and was almost hallucinating, I had a flashback. A dream that I knew was more. It was a memory. Of my childhood abuse. And it was grim. So grim, I can’t write it here. And I began, once again, to question if my mother knew that had happened to me…

Just less than a year after Edwin died, my brother told me that our mother was deteriorating. Living alone probably didn’t help. Once again, it was hard for me to know this. Even though I was navigating the trauma of my childhood in therapy, and even though I had recently learned what really happened to my abuser from those years (thanks to my sister Claire’s history sleuthing – and it was quite shocking), I felt sad over my mother’s distress. I guess I could have just felt that, and done nothing. Maybe that was the right thing to do. But instead, I visited again, with Joe. She seemed more delighted to see him, which was amusing. To be fair, she’d always had a bit of a soft spot for him, often making him pizza in the past, complete with dog hairs. She was indeed very thin, very frail, and not anything like the vibrant woman she had once been. It wasn’t easy to witness. A fall put her in the hospital, so Joe and I went on Christmas Day. And then, more recently, when she was finally housed in a care home – the best thing in light of her declining health – I went there, and was glad to see it was a lovely place, and she seemed to be doing better. Does that mean I’ve ended the no contact decision? I guess it does. But I made a determination based on new developments. Does this mean I’ll have a full relationship again? No, probably not. It’s so hard to balance surfacing abuse memories with seeing a mother who likely knew, and let it happen. She lied to me about what happened to my abuser, saying a few years ago that she had done some research and that he had died recently of a heart attack. Now I know a lot different. That simply didn’t happen. Why do people lie? To hide something. So how do I deal with that? A narcissist mother can’t change. She may now be frail, and you may still yearn for the love you never had, but the damage has been done. And yet, I hate to think of her being unhappy. That’s the hardest part of all. That’s on me. I can’t change it. Will I visit again? I don’t know. I don’t have to know right now. If I do, I do. If I don’t, I don’t. When I was there last, she said to Joe and me, ‘I wish you could be here all the time, with your grins.’ We can’t, even if life had been different, because the care home isn’t near us. But she had our grins for that afternoon.