In Hello Flower, you share with readers your experience as a victim of narcissistic abuse and give them the tools necessary for breaking free from abusive relationships. Why was this an important book for you to write?

I never imagined this could happen to me. Not in a million years. The shocking realisation that I wasn’t alone, that this was a textbook pattern of abusive behaviour carried out by so many made me want to help identify the signs, write in stark personal detail something which people might recognise and realise that their feeling of ‘ something off’ isn’t imagined but all too real. It was also important to dispel the myth that this is yet another ‘label’ and to demonstrate the horrific reality of living with a monster disguised as the person you trust the most.

I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?

I think my initial instinctive answer to this question was remembering and writing about my Dad, his hope, belief, and optimism for me and my happiness, then I realised that writing about him was relatively easy. The hardest thing was writing about the original ‘love stories’ going back over and reliving how love-struck and naive I was each time, it made me really angry to see how I had been conned but it was necessary so I could help the reader understand why I fell for him and how that manipulative brainwashing starts. Writing that was sickening but key to unlocking the entire narrative.

What is one misconception you believe many people have about leaving an abusive relationship?

Please let me have two! The first is thinking it is easy to leave, to walk away from something which hurts you seems so straightforward to the uninitiated, I’ve often been asked ‘How come you put up with it for so long?’ a painful but understandable question. The trouble is when you are wrapped up in this sort of relationship you don’t believe you should walk away, you want to try harder, do more which simply results in a deeper entrapment. The other misconception is that once you are out you are fine, it’s over, time to just carry on and ‘let it all go’, if only. It takes a long long time to unravel all that damage, you improve, you do move on, but you are never quite the same.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from your experience?

If any of it relates if even a tiny part of my book is familiar I hope, going forward, they raise their boundaries because in doing so it is the first step in saying what is and isn’t acceptable. It’s quite the game changer when you had none in place before.

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Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2024/07/27/manipulative-brainwashing/