I was very young when my parents split up, and my mum and I moved into council housing, the same kind of place my mum had grown up and didn’t want to raise me in (some local children actually stole my swing, and I would watch from the window saying ‘look mum, a child’ as I saw one walk by, but I wasn’t allowed to play with them).

At 3 years old I started having night terrors – the kind where you’re awake but dreaming, or hallucinating, and I would run away from my mum (who looked like a big purple monster) crying, screaming, and locking myself in the bathroom. The doctor said I was stressed, not something a child should feel at 3 years old, that I was feeling what she was feeling. So he advised my mum to do whatever she needed to do to stop herself being stressed, which for her meant leaving our home (and the night terrors stopped).

But we mostly stayed with friends or boyfriends. She would pick me up from school and I wouldn’t always know where we were going. Life felt chaotic and unstable. On top of that I was bullied for being poor, and not having the right school uniform. I remember a day when I went to school wearing blue ankle socks, instead of the long white patterned socks that all of the other girls wore, and it felt like the worst day of my life. I never felt good enough or like I belonged.

When I was 7 years old, we finally had our own home, which felt like a fresh start, as if life would be better now, but money was still tight and mum had to work three jobs to afford it. For me, that meant fending for myself over the next several years – often coming home to an empty flat, cooking for myself, cleaning to keep busy, and terrified of the huge curtain-less windows, because, as it got dark outside, people could see in but I couldn’t see out.

I felt responsible for my mum and how she felt, as all children do, unless they’re told otherwise, and I had learned not to trigger her – to try to keep her happy, so that she wouldn’t blow up at me (which was inevitable because of her own upbringing, and the stress she was under). I supported her through break-ups, with her stress, with her financial worries, and people joked that I was more like the mother and she was the daughter (like Eddie and Saffy from Absolutely Fabulous).

Looking back, it’s obvious that I became a people-pleaser, very young, with no boundaries between us, and I was trying to make sure she was okay, putting her before myself. I didn’t feel able to share my own thoughts, feelings, or needs.

I escaped into books and by 8 years old, a teacher took notice when I told him I was reading the hobbit. Coming from a family who had never finished school, it was a surprise when I came top of the year in my SATs and later passed the 11+ and got into grammar school (something we wouldn’t have considered, if this teacher hadn’t put me forward for it). It was like the trajectory of my life changed direction from that point, and I got myself well and truly educated – from GCSEs, to A Levels, to a Bachelors and then Masters degree.

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I knew exactly what I wanted to avoid, and what I would do differently – I wanted my child to feel safe, stable, loved, and connected. As you can imagine, I always planned to give my children a very different start in life, I didn’t want them to ever feel how I did. I never wanted them to feel like they had to fend for themselves, or responsible for my stress or emotions.

But when the time came I realised I didn’t actually know how to do that. I had made sure we had a home, financial security, his father and I got married, but I was still tense and stressed like my mum had been. I was snapping, shouting, and blowing up – doing all of the things I didn’t want to ever do around my child.

I thought my years of working experience supporting children, teens, and families would have educated me enough to know what to change, but supporting other people’s children is not the same as supporting your own. Your own child triggers you, because you’re deeply emotionally invested, and the logic I applied in my work didn’t apply when my son pushed my buttons.

Because my childhood was the only version of parenting I had ever known. Now that I was a parent, I was so mad at myself for being constantly triggered. I was riddled with guilt as I saw myself repeating the same patterns I had seen growing up, patterns I had promised myself I would end. It felt like I couldn’t stop myself from putting my son through the same experience.

It was like a mirror was held up, showing me the generational baggage I was still carrying. I felt the pressure to get it right for my son. I knew something had to change and fast, before his childhood years flew by. So…