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Healing is Possible
Mother’s Ruin is a brutally honest and heartbreaking memoir that shares with readers your tumultuous childhood and early adulthood life as you coped with the effects of your mother’s alcoholism and emotional instability. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Definitely for my own healing and for that of those facing similar circumstances. My mother’s addiction and untimely passing have long since overshadowed me, and I needed to share my story to achieve full emotional freedom from this.
Despite what the stigma may have you believe, addiction is a trauma-response and never a choice. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to pick up a bottle of alcohol or similar, and this was something that I was desperate to convey through my writing.
How did you decide what to include and leave out in your memoir?
This was something that I struggled with: the fine line between oversharing and undersharing. I wanted my writing to be rich and emotive, but to also not read like a personal diary, and I hope that I have achieved this.
I do believe that having already outlined my second memoir at the time also helped in choosing what to include (alongside endless rounds of editing, of course!).
What was the most challenging part of writing your memoir, and what was the most rewarding?
The flashbacks and the fear of being perceived were equally challenging. Long-suppressed memories were suddenly boiling to the surface, and not only did I have to address and write about these, but I also had to learn to do so in a safe, controlled and healthy manner, without reverting to previous toxic coping mechanisms.
Though my mum may not have been my protector, I have spent my life believing that I should be hers. With this in mind, I was worried that people would believe that I was villainising her in some way, when this could not be further from the truth.
That said, Mum may well have been poorly, but this is no justification for her actions, and I am tired of living a life enshrouded in secrets and lies to protect a collective.
The most rewarding aspect has definitely been the feedback that I have received. Though it pains me to know how many people can relate to my story, I am also proud of and thankful for those who have reached out to me whilst on their own healing journeys.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?
That healing from trauma may be painful, messy, and never linear, but it is always possible.
Raised fatherless on a ’90s poverty-stricken council estate, in the East Midlands, Belle details the struggles faced as she shared the role of young carer with her older brother, and the difficult transitional period as their relationship changed from brother and sister to child and caregiver, following court-approved legal guardianship.
MOTHER’S RUIN is an honest account of the devastating long-term impact of a mother’s addiction, dangerous actions and untimely death, just before her daughter’s eleventh birthday.
Mother’s Ruin: A Mother’s Addiction and her Daughter’s Survival
Belle Mills’ Mother’s Ruin is a brutally honest and heartbreaking memoir that follows the author’s tumultuous childhood and early adulthood as she copes with the effects of her mother’s alcoholism and emotional instability. Written in raw and intimate prose, the book is both a confession and a cry for connection. It tracks Belle’s experiences growing up in a working-class British town, surrounded by love yet starved of the nurturing and stability she craved. Her account weaves together personal memories, therapy sessions, and vivid reflections on trauma, mental illness, and the weight of abandonment, all told through the lens of someone fighting to make sense of her own pain.
Reading this book shook me. It left me feeling like I’d sat beside Belle through each moment, watching her as a child search for her mother’s approval, as a teenager drowning under the pressure of school and self-worth, and later as a young woman walking the tightrope between survival and collapse. The writing is emotionally dense but easy to follow. Belle doesn’t use fancy words to impress; she tells it like it is. And that’s where the strength lies. Her vulnerability is disarming. I found myself rooting for her, crying with her, and getting angry on her behalf. The structure bounces between timelines at times, but it only makes her struggle feel more lived-in. You feel how trauma isn’t linear. It loops and claws and resurfaces when you least expect it.
What struck me most was how well Belle captures the duality of love and pain, especially the love for a parent who keeps letting you down. The parts about her mother are some of the hardest to read because they’re not one-note. Belle doesn’t just paint her as a villain. She mourns the person her mother used to be and the one she might have been. It’s complicated and messy, and that makes it feel so real. I also appreciated how much Belle lets us into her head. The way she describes dissociation, panic attacks, and suicidal ideation is visceral and chilling. She doesn’t shy away from the darkness. But there’s also beauty in her resilience. Her relationship with her brother, her dogs, and even with strangers who show her small kindnesses, all of it reminds you that survival isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s just continuing.
Mother’s Ruin is for anyone who’s grown up with a parent who couldn’t parent. For anyone who’s carried too much, too young. For survivors of trauma who don’t have tidy endings but still keep going. I wouldn’t recommend this book to someone looking for light reading or an uplifting memoir. But if you want to read something brave, human, and painfully relatable, then this one is worth every page.
Pages: 201 | ASIN : B0DVLYD3C7
LITERARY TITAN 