The Girl Nobody Wants by Lily O'Brien

21 May 2012

Can you tell our readers what to expect from your new book The Girl Nobody Wants?
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> The Girl Nobody Wants is about child abuse within Ireland's Catholic Church-run institutions back in the 1970s and 80s and it's also about the abuse I suffered at the hands of the very people who should have been protecting me, ‘my own family’. It’s about the emotional journey I have travelled from the age of 4 and the everlasting damage the abuse has caused me that is still with me today and always will be until the day I die. If you are prepared to open your mind and accept the truth, you will experience a rollercoaster of emotions that will have you hesitant to continue reading, while simultaneously shocking you into disbelief that will implore you to continue turning the pages. The book has been written in a no-thrills, bare bones way that most readers wont be accustomed to; yet in a way that only the truth can be told.
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> What made you want to write about something so controversial?
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> Too many children had suffered and people needed to know about what went on behind closed doors; something that was common knowledge to many, yet most were afraid to talk about the abuse for fear of repercussion and disownment from the Catholic Church. Also, over the years no one wanted to help so I decided to speak up and be a voice for those who never had a chance to live their lives because of the abuse they suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church.
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> How did it feel as you wrote about the abuse?
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> I felt very vulnerable and worried constantly about what was going to happen to me when people found out that I had told everything about the abuse. The church had kept me silent for many years by putting the fear of their power into me. but I knew right from wrong. In the end, I felt as if I had nothing to lose so I did the right thing and told everything just as it was. By keeping silent I was only protecting them.
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> What kind of response have you had from readers about your book?
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> I have had some very good response from some much respected world-class authors who understand the impact the book has on people’s emotions and the way that the book has been written. ‘Real life real people with no sugar coating to soften the punch’. Plus many survivors of all types of abuse support me and the book, with many people saying that it has helped them to understand why they act the way they do to others around them including the people they love, and that they are thankful to know they are not alone in this world with their problems. However, there are many other people who would like to see me shut up and go away; they are the people who say that it’s all made-up rubbish and that one child could not go through such abuse. There are also many others who think the church is pure and would never allow children to be abused in such a way. The one thing all the negative people do have in common is their desire to shut me up or at the very least make me look mentally ill and destroy my credibility by finding anyway they can to discredit me and the book.
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> How does it make you feel for your writing to be compared to the likes of Dave Pelzer's A Child Called It, Damaged by Cathy Glass and The Kid by Kevin Lewis?
> It makes me smile; before writing the book, I had never heard of Cathy Glass or Kevin Lewis! But I do now. All I ever wanted to do was to tell people about what went on and never once did I think about how good or bad my writing or the style was, but I do feel very honoured to have been compared to such best-selling authors.
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> How do you now feel about Ireland's Catholic Church-run institutions?
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> 'A power unto themselves’. I will never forgive them; they should never have been allowed to have so much power that people held them above the law. They used and abused children for decades while the Irish police and government turned a blind eye to their persecution of innocent children, teenagers and women. The nun’s priests and the people employed within the institutions all knew about what went on but they said and done nothing to help, so I cannot forgive them for their sins or believe they had any real faith or honesty. If they had, they would never have treated me and many others in the way they had.
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> What have you learned from the experience of writing this book?
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> It has shown me the good side of people and also the nasty side. The most shocking thing was realising how many people out there are looking for help but have no one to turn to because they think nobody will believe or listen to them when they tell them the truth. They also think nobody will want them if they speak up and say ‘I was abused’ so they live in silence, forever tormented by what people have done to them and by what people might think of them if they tell! The nasty people are out there too; people who want to put you down and abuse you all over again, just because they don’t like what I have written and because I have spoken out against the Catholic Church and abuse.
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> What did you find the hardest thing about writing this book?"
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> Having to relive every day of abuse after spending so many years trying to forget was very hard for me and opening old wounds gave me many months of sleepless nights while I relived my life over and over again, but once the book was published I felt a relief and I was glad it was all over. The one other thing I found difficult was realising that once the book was complete, no-one in the publishing industry wanted to help even though every person who read the manuscript or part of it said it was a very powerful story! My story, The Girl Nobody Wants, is available to buy from www.troubador.co.uk.
> Interview by Lucy Walton

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