Amelia Rose

When I was 18, a friend of the same age became pregnant. My mum described her as a “silly girl” because “she had her whole life ahead of her and she has ruined it.”

35 years on, after years of therapy and a neurodiverse diagnosis that has led me to look at myself like never before, I have only just realised that those words spoken by my mum all those years ago have played a large part in my fear of men, sex and intimacy. I lived in fear of disappointing my parents and always had to strive to be the daughter they were proud of. I couldn’t be a “silly girl” and announce I was pregnant.

That friend and I are no longer in touch because our lives took very different paths, Her’s took the path of motherhood to 3 children and mine took the path of being a career woman without the children I had dreamed off for as long as I can remember.

That friend now has a very close family and her children and grandchildren around her to support her. I am left without my parents, single, childless, in a career that I am burnt out from and facing the future alone.

I wish my mind had worked differently and the years of my masking behaviour to be the perfect daughter had been seen so that I could’ve realised that my parents were proud of me whatever I did. I was their daughter, and I have always been their source of pride. To give them grandchildren would’ve added to their delight.