When You Lose It

‘You know the old psychiatrist’s joke, you’re either in here for one reason or a mother.’

A sharp-witted thirteen-year-old girl with a tendency towards self-destruction, Roxy Longworth’s life implodes before her teenage years have even really begun. Her sisters, her father, and above all her mother, Gay, end up buried in the shrapnel, desperately trying to claw their way out. The fault lies with the vulturous older boys who have been circling Roxy for months, pecking away at her spirit. Or perhaps it lies with the blank-faced head teacher who let them get away with it. Or it lies with the counsellor, the professional who should have known better than to push her further into delusion and paranoia.

Or does it lie with her mother, who was so hurt that she didn’t notice all the signs in time? The woman who never fully understood. Or with Roxy, after all she was the one who pressed send on those photos…

A gripping memoir of battling rival truths, a crushing psychotic breakdown and a mother-daughter relationship stretched to its absolute limits.