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You come from a good family, Alice
‘You come from a good family Alice’, my 90-year-old neighbour from our childhood street said in 2019. I looked at her blankly and thought: A good family. What does that even mean? I was eight when my big brother began sexually abusing me. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn’t the only sibling he was abusing in one way or another. None of us knew that. We didn’t disclose it to each other until we were in our 20s and 40s. How could that have been? How did my mum, dad, grandparents or neighbours not see that? From the outside, we looked like a good family, a happy Catholic family, living in…
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‘Holding my own book in my hand, I’ll feel…’
I brought in the brown postage box I'd collected from our post office box and could feel the emotions tumbling around in my chest.
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When it comes to my book, I’m ready to…
When it comes to my book, I'm ready to crack myself open right down the middle and let all the words and feelings leave my body. I'll do it first in writing.
