£40 and Broken Glass

Chapter 1-

I grew up in Skelmersdale, in a full house — five children, Mum and Dad, all under one roof. It was noisy and busy, sometimes chaotic, but there was love. We were a typical working-class family. There were arguments, sure, but there was also laughter and warmth. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ours, and for the most part, it was a happy childhood.

In the year 2000, everything changed.

That’s when we moved to Wigan. Not long after settling in, my dad died. The coroner’s report suggested accidental death. But there were unanswered questions. My dad had long struggled with manic depression, so the possibility of suicide hung silently in the air. No one could say for sure what happened. We were just left with the aftermath — confusion, heartbreak, silence.

Losing him shattered our family.

It wasn’t long before my mum met someone new — a man named Steve. Their relationship moved quickly. Too quickly. And then, just like that, she uprooted us again — this time to St Helens, because that’s where Steve was from. I didn’t even have time to catch my breath after losing my dad before I was being dragged away from everything familiar again.

Steve didn’t like me. That became clear fast. He never said it directly, but it was there — in the way he looked at me, in the way he spoke, in the way he treated me like I was in the way. Eventually, he gave my mum an ultimatum: It’s her or me.

And my mum chose him.

So I left.

I went to live with my older brother in Preston. He didn’t hesitate for a second — he opened his door and gave me a home. I was fourteen years old at this point. Grieving. Confused. Discarded. But he made me feel safe again. He was more than a brother — he became my guardian, my protector, my peace.

He never asked for anything in return. He never made me feel like a burden. For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt like I mattered again.

But that feeling wouldn’t last.

In 2017, I lost him too.

He took his own life.

I still can’t describe the pain of that. It was devastating. The one person who had truly been there for me, through everything, was gone. No goodbye. No explanation. Just a crushing, silent absence.

No one offered counselling. No one talked to me about grief or trauma. I just kept moving, burying what I couldn’t understand, trying to live around a pain that never went away.

Gambling became my escape — something to distract me when the emotions got too loud. It wasn’t about winning or money. It was about switching off, silencing everything inside. I didn’t realise at the time how deeply I was hurting, how badly I needed help.

I drank too, though never daily — mostly on weekends, especially when things felt too heavy. It helped blur the edges. It gave me a false sense of ease, even if only for a few hours.

But under it all — beneath the gambling, the drinking, the silence — I was just a girl still trying to find her place after losing everything.