I am an angry person by nature. A child who suffers neglect becomes increasingly angry as they age and when it mixes with alcohol, as it did with me, a walking explosion lives among you.

My brother died many years ago and he neglected me in a second-hand way. In our family You either did things the way mother did or you were treated badly by her. My brother proved his faithfulness to her by throwing a lump hammer that weighed seven pounds at my head when I said my dad’s redundancy money should go to the family not pay for a holiday for her. I got the blame for the hole in the shed door.

I have never worn makeup as I have temperamental skin and it’s pointless putting makeup on to cover fewer blemishes than it makes erupt. This did not stop gifts of makeup from my sister each Christmas so that I could “make the most of my looks”. Accusations of being ungrateful coming from all sides did nothing to make me feel as though I was part of a family.

My dad died 20 years ago and I can’t remember him ever standing up to mother when she was in the country. As soon as she left Britain he was a different person, not a nice one, just different.

I felt so apart from the family I was told was mine I asked to see my birth certificate and my request was refused. That when the joke that I was adopted and my real mother was Mrs O’Shaugnessy was born. I believed it, it could be the only explanation about why mother hated me so much. When I applied to join the RAF at 17 I saw my birth certificate and realised that I was part of a cruel family who had been taught to be cruel by a mother who hated not being the centre of attention.

Why did she hate me so much? Because I was everything she wasn’t and everything she wanted to be. She couldn’t have what she saw as my talents so she ground me down until all I was capable of was anger. Being angry was my negative superpower.

I drank, I smoked a lot of weed, tried a lot of other drugs and got married to a man I didn’t like just to get away from her. All my behaviour was an escape mechanism. The man I married was more demanding and cruel than she was and it was pure luck that I didn’t succeed in murdering him more than once.

All of my relationships with men have been destructive and wrong. The only relationship with a man that is worth having is a platonic friendship with someone who demands nothing of me.

I evolved over the years into that woman who shouts at cyclists on pavements, who needs a world that she could control and got angrier when it didn’t happen. You see, I’m not my mother and I’m not a bully I’m just scared of not having control over my environment.

An incident recently that put me at risk of physical harm made me realise that being powerless is my superpower. If I acknowledge that I can’t stop people cycling on pavements or make them behave in a way they want to whether I approve of it or not then my anger goes.

The person who was my mother has disappeared into the mists of Alzheimer’s and doesn’t recognise me. She doesn’t know what she’s done to me and I don’t think she ever did. I don’t hate her, that would suggest that at one time I felt a deep love for her and I’ve never felt love for her.

I have let go of her and my anger has let go of me.