Growing up with musicians for parents
Dealing with non-clinical depression
Dealing with a parent with an iatrogenic illness (chronic pain, panic attacks, addiction, drug withdrawal, depression and anxiety)
Bullying, losing one’s virginity to rape and its emotional effects
Teenage/Young adult binge-drinking
Self-destructive behaviour as a means of escape
Music / Performing live / Songwriting
Who might be interested in reading Dear Reflection?
People who have cared for sick parents as children and are forced into an adult role very early in life.
When is the book set?
Primarily in the 80s and 90s.
Where is the book set?
In three places:
Melbourne, Australia
Ithaca, Greece
Athens, Greece
Why did you write this memoir?
Though there are many reasons, one of them was to expose childhood wounds and show that healing is possible.
How did it feel to design your own book cover?
Amazing! And it was absolute fate to find that photograph of myself, at the last minute, too. I discovered it in one my old photo albums while I was gathering photos for my social media promo. I really didn’t plan it. (You can go on Facebook and search for #DearReflectionFlashback to see my promo efforts so far.)
Extract from Dear Reflection
I needed to pee. It was 1985, and I was four. It would be the first time I remember running from emotional struggle by doing something stupid.
My heart beat in my throat, and I trembled in the darkness of my peach-coloured bedroom at 80 Edwin Street, Heidelberg Heights, in Melbourne, Australia—the red brick house with the crooked mailbox and untamed pink and orange rose bushes I shared with my parents until I turned twenty.
I opened my bedroom door a teeny-tiny crack. The freezing air from the corridor slipped through and gave me goose bumps. I imagined the icy cold floor stinging my feet as I navigated the hall, the kitchen, the glasshouse, past the piano, to get to the toilet, and then slamming the glossy pink door to stop the Heidel Monsters from getting in.
I decided against it and pissed in the corner of my bedroom.
I watched the pee soak into the fibres of the mud-stained ash-grey carpet, then wiped my chishy with the corner of a pillow and placed it on top of the smelly puddle. I returned to bed and wrapped myself in my feather down doona, shivering until I warmed.
The next day, when my mother, Erika Bach, and stepfather, Demetri Vlass, were preoccupied with recording their song ideas onto their four-track mixer in the music room, they didn’t notice a thing. I realized how much I could get away with without anyone ever knowing how I truly felt.
It was a triumph.
A miracle.
My bedroom door wasn’t transparent, and my mother didn’t really ‘have eyes in the back of her head.’ There was no real reason to hide other than my own irrational fear of feeling something that could potentially be a challenge to deal with. But it felt powerful to hide. The thrill of obtaining such privacy would soon develop into a cold, selfish, heartless reflection I believed protected me.
She persuaded me to run.
Her voice grew more authoritative until she became ‘another me’—a decision maker who knew ‘best.’
She didn’t.
Order the book HERE
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