I LIVED A CHILDHOOD OF LIES

Helen Naylor, 38, found diaries of her mother’s revealing years of deceit

- JENNY ACKLAND

As I carefully placed my newborn son Bailey into my mum’s arms in July 2011, I desperately wanted her to feel the rush of love I’d experienced when I first held him. I waited, hoping to hear her tell me how wonderful and beautiful her grandchild was.

‘He’s fat,’ my mum Elinor said, squeezing his chubby little thighs.

‘He’s perfect,’ I corrected, pulling him away.

My mother’s vicious tongue was something I’d grown accustomed to over the years, but I wasn’t about to let her poisonous words hurt my child the way they’d hurt me.

From a young age, I had felt unwanted and would often be the target of Mum’s barrage of insults – ‘fat’, ‘ugly’, ‘stupid’, to name but a few.

‘Why can’t you have beautiful, long fingers like mine?’ she said when I was just six, as she held my hand in hers.

When she wasn’t making me feel worthless, she was always complaining about different ailments, and was constantly back and forth to the GP demanding tests and referrals for mystery illnesses.

She was finally diagnosed with ME, a condition that leaves sufferers exhausted. From then on, she shuffled around the house with a black walking stick, demanded a mobility scooter to get to and from the local shops, and my dad Alan ran to fulfil her every whim.

Soon, the kitchen cupboards were crammed full of pill jars. Some were prescribed by the doctor, but most were mysterious mail-order powders.

SELF-HARM AS AN ESCAPE