Hehehe. I am amused that some of you are shocked to learn that I had a misspent youth. You know me as a rather prudish & proper middle-aged lady who goes on about the importance of standards around tea & tuts a lot. Oh, the stories I could tell.

OK, I am going to tell some. Just this once. See if it changes your view of me!

I grew up in a wealthy middle class home with a mother who had bipolar disorder & a father who had Aspergers. I was loved but not really in an attentive, emotionally engaged way. I had a private education & holidays & much privilege.

I lost my virginity at 14 to a boy called Chris who was 18. It wasn't much fun & I wasn't sure why I did that really. I hated school & did badly at GSCE. At 16, I went to sixth form college in principle but didn't actually attend either it or any of my exams.

I fell in love with a boy called Paul and we bought a flat when we were both 18 because there was a property slump & it cost £24,000. He was a Bingo caller (XD) and I was a care assistant.

That didn't work out because we were too young. He sold out his share in the flat to me. I lived alone in it for 8 years. I started seeing a man called Robbo who was 36 & had three kids, a record of attempted murder & GBH & a drug problem.

He never went to prison for his two convictions even though they were serious because there were extenuating circumstances both times. The attempted murder was when he came home & found his wife in bed with his best friend & the GBH when someone attacked his 9 year old. Still...

He was actually a brilliant, brilliant man but he never had a chance. Totally fucked up from the start. His dad had broken almost every bone in his body by the time he ran away at 14. I loved him intensely but the relationship was abusive because he couldn't connect properly.

He spent his time helping teenage runaways unofficially, as well as writing song lyrics that he sold. I often think about what he could have been if he hadn't been so damaged. He was though & I was young & had little judgement.

Anyway, I allowed him to separate me from all my family & friends at this time & also followed him into some very dubious behaviours. The next few years were a blur of amphetamines & alcohol. I became a skeleton & much of my hair fell out.

It got to be too much & one day when I went to visit my parents, I told them & then I just didn't go back. I stayed at my parents & slept for about three months & my hair & weight came back. I was 22 by then.

I went back to my flat & also started nurse training with my parents' help, but I suffered from OCD which featured obsessive checking & the responsibility for drug calculations caused me to have a breakdown & I ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

At this time I also suffered a neurological accident due to the cyst on my brain & suffered repeated seizures. The amphetamine abuse probably precipitated this but it was also an abnormality I'd always had. Medication knocked me out & made me unable to work.

In between bouts of this, I worked as a care assistant & spent a lot of time doing the whole rock scene & biker clubs. I dated a lot but would not commit to anyone until Jan (pronounced Yan - he was Dutch). I fell in love with him.

He was a sweetheart and treated me very well, but I treated him badly & he left me. I had some casual relationships with both men & women although I only ever dated one woman for any length of time.

I got arrested a few times during this but never charged with anything. This was to do with being with people who had drugs on them, got into fights or were in stolen cars. Yes, not very good at all.

I also had repeated problems with drugs & alcohol & was admitted to psychiatric hospitals 7 times for OCD & self-harm. My parents enabled me to keep my flat. I was very lucky, but not at all well.

At 26 I suddenly decided I needed to stop all this self-destructive behaviour. My first step was to stop taking all medication for my epilepsy & mental health. This is generally very foolish & unadvisable but it was good for me because my energy returned & my brain sharpened up

I began to do a lot of exercise & eat healthily. I was still going out & having casual relationships. I would go to clubs & say to a guy I fancied "Do you want to have sex and then never see each other again?" Usually they would say yes.

One night I did this with a guy called David Pluckrose. He said yes but he also asked if he could see me again and for some reason I said yes although I did not usually do that. But I found him both attractive & kind. I could be myself with him.

I was still not very mentally well but he was understanding of that. I kept him at arm's length for a year, then began to see him more often. Then he moved in with me. It worked! He gave me the space I needed while loving me & being a solid presence. I loved him too.

I married him when I was 28. My father who, because of his Aspergers, had never actually seemed to notice that I was struggling, gave a speech at our wedding about how difficult his daughter had found life, how hard she had tried & how much his son-in-law had helped her make it.

I was still having some problems with alcohol & self-harm but was also very fit, slim & strong & my mental health was much better. We talked about having a baby & whether I could cope with that. We decided to try. It took nearly a year but then I was pregnant.

This pregnancy saved me. I still had overwhelming emotions but I could not drink or risk self-harming when my daughter was inside me & this taught me I could survive strong emotions without having to do anything self-destructive to relieve them.

I was afraid that I would not bond with her when she was born. My mother had told me she could not bond with me & did not know what to do & it was terrifying. We arranged for Dave to take an extended paternal leave so I was not alone with this.

But when she was born, I immediately bonded with her. I instinctively knew what she wanted & was confident I could give it to her. I'd had a c-section & the midwives wanted me to sleep, but no. My daughter needed me, not them, & I wanted her, not sleep.

We had six beautiful weeks, but unknown to me, the pregnancy had done something to the cyst in my brain & at 6 weeks, it started pressing on nerves to my head. So much pain. Then weakness down one side & my eye turned in.

At this time, we didn't know about the cyst. We knew I was epileptic but not why. When the mass on my brainstem was spotted, it was not at first clear what it was. My doctors feared the worst. Their kindness was terrifying.

I spent nearly 6 weeks as the mother of a baby & thinking I might soon die. I started planning letters I would write for Lucy for every year of her childhood. But it wasn't brain cancer. Just a cyst & it was growing any more & the damage it had done would gradually repair.

I was 30 by this point & I felt so much changed by all my experiences, I began to properly evaluate my life. I really hadn't been very rational or ethical for much of it & I wanted to remedy that. I became a much more thoughtful person & I read a lot.

Since this time, 16 years ago, I have been on a much more focused journey. I wanted to study & think & prioritise reason & ethics & kindness. I went to university & did undergrad & postgrad study & I have engaged a lot more with politics, culture & ethics.

So, I am a very different person than I was in what I call my misspent youth but she also informed me. The prim & proper lady who tuts & talks about the sanctity of tea is real but so was the girl who did a lot of drugs & made a lot of bad decisions & had mental health problems.

I am touched that so many of you have appreciated this thread. I won't speak about this again, not because I am ashamed - I will always be open about past mental illness & misspent youth - but because I am looking forward & find too much autobiography self-indulgent.

Some of you have requested photos of the misspent youth. There aren’t a lot because at this time, this required actually owning a camera, using it properly & remembering to take films to be developed. There are a few. They look mostly like this: