I found out my rapist died – then my life unravelled

I lost all desire to live (Picture: Christopher Egan)

My early childhood was blissful. I enjoyed glittering Christmases, laughter, and the safety of our secluded house in rural Lancashire. 

My parents treated my siblings and I to adventures – at the age of four, I slept under the stars in Greece, every May half-term was spent in a cottage in Wales and at eleven, I crossed California and Nevada on a Greyhound bus before meeting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.<...