I Just Wanted to Be Normal
She did not want an extraordinary childhood. She only wanted one that looked like everyone else’s.
A deeply personal memoir about growing up in a dysfunctional family, carrying adult responsibilities too young, and discovering how childhood survival patterns follow us long after childhood ends.
Some childhoods teach you how to play. Others teach you how to survive.
I Just Wanted to Be Normal is the story of a girl growing up inside a family marked by instability, addiction, fear, shame and silence — while trying to look normal to the outside world. It is not only about what happened. It is about what a child learns to become in order to live through it.
“As a child, I wanted to be normal because people looked at me differently for a life I had never chosen.”
You learned to be strong before you had a choice.
You do not need to have lived the same story to recognise the emotions inside it.
- You grew up feeling different from the people around you.
- You learned to keep family problems secret.
- You became responsible for other people too early.
- You tried to earn safety or love by being “good”.
- You still wonder how childhood experiences shape your adult relationships and choices.
- You know that humour can appear even in the middle of painful things.
Pain, yes. But also warmth, humour and recognition.
This is not a catalogue of trauma. It is a memoir built from the ordinary details memory refuses to release — a breakfast, an empty chair, a hand held at the right moment, a sentence spoken at exactly the wrong time.
Recognition
The complicated mix of love, loyalty, fear and shame that can exist inside a dysfunctional family.
Understanding
Why children adapt the way they do when home does not feel safe — and why those adaptations can survive into adulthood.
Hope
Your beginning shapes you. It does not have to decide the rest of your life.
“This has to see the light of day. There is so much wisdom and so many valuable lessons in this book that every page feels like a new discovery. Even humour finds its way through the tragedy.”
Three moments I never forgot.
Read three short scenes from I Just Wanted to Be Normal — Breakfast, My Hand in His, and The Empty Seat in the Audience. Enter your email and the sampler opens immediately.
Choose how you want to read it.
Start immediately with the Kindle edition or choose the paperback if you prefer a physical book.
Kindle
Buy the eBook or read through Kindle Unlimited. No Kindle device is required — the free Kindle app works on phones, tablets and computers.
Paperback
Choose the printed edition if you want a copy to keep, underline, lend to someone you love, or place on your shelf.
What happens to a child who spends her childhood trying to be normal?
She learns to survive. The harder question is what happens afterward.