Chap­ter 30 marks one of the most try­ing peri­ods in my life, as I strug­gled to main­tain my sense of self while being trapped in a sys­tem that con­trolled every aspect of my exis­tence. Dur­ing this time, while I was fight­ing to hold on to what­ev­er frag­ments of my iden­ti­ty and inde­pen­dence I could, my moth­er decid­ed to write a mem­oir. Instead of offer­ing sup­port or show­ing any real con­cern for my men­tal and emo­tion­al state, she chose to cap­i­tal­ize on my strug­gles. She wrote about watch­ing me shave my head, a sym­bol of my unrav­el­ing, and described how I had once been “the hap­pi­est lit­tle girl in the world.” How­ev­er, the real­i­ty was far more com­plex. The pain I was expe­ri­enc­ing was not some­thing she tried to under­stand or help me through—it was just mate­r­i­al for her book. She didn’t seem to grasp how deeply I was suf­fer­ing; instead, she used my break­down as a nar­ra­tive for her own ben­e­fit, sell­ing her book and pro­mot­ing her­self, all while I was drown­ing in con­fu­sion and despair.

As my life spi­raled fur­ther out of con­trol, my mother’s actions felt like a pub­lic betray­al. When her mem­oir was pub­lished, it quick­ly became a media sen­sa­tion, with my moth­er mak­ing mul­ti­ple appear­ances on morn­ing shows to pro­mote it. I had no con­trol over the nar­ra­tive she was shar­ing, and each appear­ance only deep­ened the iso­la­tion I was feel­ing. On every TV screen, my videos and images of me with a shaved head were being broad­cast­ed, while my moth­er explained how she had spent hours won­der­ing what went wrong with me. Mean­while, I was stuck in a place where my per­son­al strug­gles were being dis­sect­ed for pub­lic con­sump­tion, while I had no say in how they were por­trayed. Instead of offer­ing me the care and under­stand­ing I so des­per­ate­ly need­ed, she used my pain to sell books. The entire sit­u­a­tion felt cru­el and heart­less, and the public’s insa­tiable demand for sen­sa­tion­al­ized details only inten­si­fied my anguish. It was a con­stant reminder of how lit­tle con­trol I had over my own sto­ry, as it was being rewrit­ten by oth­ers for their own gain. My suf­fer­ing was not treat­ed with the respect it deserved; it was treat­ed as an enter­tain­ment spec­ta­cle.

The emo­tion­al toll of my mother’s behav­ior was com­pound­ed by her attempt to turn every­thing about our fam­i­ly into a pub­lic per­for­mance. She shared sto­ries about my sister’s teenage preg­nan­cy in a way that seemed to gar­ner approval and applause from audi­ences, as if it were some­thing to be cel­e­brat­ed. The audience’s reac­tion, clap­ping as she recount­ed my sister’s strug­gles, felt com­plete­ly inap­pro­pri­ate and mis­placed. It seemed as though my fam­i­ly had turned every­thing into a spec­ta­cle, with no regard for the real pain and com­plex­i­ties behind our lives. To fur­ther the pub­lic dra­ma, my moth­er would dis­cuss the per­son­al strug­gles I had faced, seem­ing­ly with­out any under­stand­ing of the emo­tion­al dam­age it caused me. Her mem­oir became a way for her to cap­i­tal­ize on our family’s pain, fur­ther­ing her pub­lic image at the expense of my pri­va­cy and well-being. Every appear­ance she made, every inter­view she gave, added anoth­er lay­er to the suf­fo­cat­ing feel­ing of being exposed to the world in a way that I had no con­trol over. The exploita­tion of my most vul­ner­a­ble moments felt like a betray­al of the high­est order, leav­ing me feel­ing even more iso­lat­ed and dis­con­nect­ed from those around me. What hurt the most was that my moth­er, whom I had hoped would pro­tect me, was now con­tribut­ing to the nar­ra­tive that was slow­ly destroy­ing me.

The pain of see­ing my life broad­cast­ed for oth­ers to con­sume only deep­ened as I real­ized how lit­tle con­trol I had over any­thing. I want­ed to scream, to tell every­one how much I was hurt­ing, but the sys­tem in place, with my father con­trol­ling every deci­sion, pre­vent­ed me from doing so. My mother’s por­tray­al of our fam­i­ly and my break­down only rein­forced the idea that my life was not my own; it belonged to the pub­lic. The sense of help­less­ness I felt dur­ing that time was suf­fo­cat­ing. The idea that my pri­vate pain was used as a com­mod­i­ty was some­thing that I could nev­er have imag­ined before it hap­pened. My per­son­al bat­tles were not mine to face in pri­vate; instead, they were put on dis­play for the world to see, with­out any regard for the real human being behind the sto­ry. The media, the pub­lic, and even my own fam­i­ly saw me as a char­ac­ter in their nar­ra­tive, one that could be exploit­ed for their ben­e­fit. It became almost impos­si­ble to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between the real me and the ver­sion of me that was being sold to the world. The emo­tion­al toll this took on me is some­thing I can nev­er ful­ly explain, as the entire expe­ri­ence felt like I was being forced to relive my most painful moments for the sake of oth­ers.