I was just three when I decided to leave home. I gathered my favourite dress, my potty and my doll. I remember taking a deep breath then strutting up to my mother and saying: "You're not a nice mummy and I don't want to live with you anymore."

The reason I left – it didn't last long – was that my late mother Florence was a difficult, often horrid woman. I never knew what mood she would be in or how she would react to anything I did or didn't do. She was always trying to put me down, demean me and was often nasty. For example, she regularly said she wished she'd called me 'Devil' rather than Angela because I had never given her 'a moment's pleasure'.

Keeping it to myself

I often cried into my pillow at night because I felt alone and vulnerable. For years I never told a soul. How would anyone believe that my beautiful, witty, intelligent mother could be so different at home? I didn't have siblings to turn to and when I sought help from my kind but passive father he would say, 'You know what she's like.'

Having a horrid parent is a taboo subject. It's still difficult to talk about some of her worst moments and until six months ago I rarely did.

This changed when Alyson Corner, a clinical psychologist and one of the few friends who knew I had a difficult mother, mentioned that she'd been looking back over her career and she realised that having a difficult parent was one of the most common situations in many of the family issues she dealt with.

This week we launched myhorridparent.com to offer advice and support to teenagers and adults who have a horrid parent.

Angela's mother said she wished she'd called her 'Devil' because "I had never given her 'a moment's pleasure" Angela Levin

Letting the pain out

Initially, I wondered whether all the pain I had previously kept inside me would explode like a volcano and I would fall apart. I didn't.

I put it down to my congenital obstinacy that made me believe she was wrong about me. I kept telling myself that I might not be perfect but I was certainly OK. Now, long-term married with three grown-up children and a fulfiIling journalistic career, I believe I was right. I have even become grateful to her for providing me with a template for how I didn't want to be.

My battle to believe in myself started on the day I tried to leave home at three.

It was not easy to reach the front door handle of the one-bedroom family flat in an East End block, let alone open it. (I slept first in my parents' bed, then was transferred to the living room sofa when they went to sleep.)

Being so tiny I had to drag a heavy kitchen chair – I was that determined – up to the door, climb on it then get down and up again several times before I moved it back far enough for the door to open but close enough so I didn't fall over.

I have no recollection what my mother said, just that she didn't try to stop me. I walked purposefully up the stairs to the next floor, knocked on the door and asked our neighbour Bella, who I liked, if I could live with her.

She took me into the kitchen, lifted me up onto the countertop and gave me some orange juice. I have no idea whether I stayed hours or days, but at some point I ended up back at home.

When I was seven we moved to a semi-detached house in Muswell Hill, north London, where I had a bedroom of my own but no privacy. My mother chose the décor, including a ghastly rose-covered carpet, and barged in whenever she wanted. Without any explanation when I was nine, she forbade me to read books, something she knew I loved to do.

Occasionally I would manage to sneak a book to read under the bedclothes with a torch but the scene when I was caught stopped it being worthwhile. The ban lasted until I started my English Literature GCE course.

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Puppy love

When I was ten she and my father gave me a puppy for my birthday. I was overjoyed and would take her for walks before and after school. I came home from school one day six weeks later and she was gone. My mother told me she had sent her to the country because I didn't look after her properly. I lay on the floor and cried my heart out.

Her behaviour was capricious and irrational: anything and nothing could trigger her temper. I have no idea what had happened in her life that made her as she was; there would have been ructions if I had asked. 'How dare you talk to me like that!' she would have replied. In fact, I can't remember ever having a close conversation with her.

It made me vow that I wouldn't allow anyone else to talk to me the way she had done. Of course, I have inherited some of my mother's characteristics; it's important to acknowledge that. It's what you do with them that counts. One of mine is over-reacting and I have become better at handling it. Largely, however, I treat these negative characteristics like muscles: if you don't use them they get weaker.

Meanwhile, my mother told me so many times I wouldn't cope at university – 'just look at your bedroom' – that I didn't apply. Instead of fretting, I told myself I would in those three years find a career I wanted and my salary would enable me to leave home.

Eventually I landed a researcher's job on a national newspaper, and knew instantly it was where I wanted to be. I began interviewing all sorts of people, from celebrities to traumatised ordinary people, and marvelled at some of the human qualities I discovered.

Would I be like her?

I married very early to a stable, easy-going man who encouraged me to find myself. I didn't initially want children for fear of becoming a mother like her, but then thought it might be something I'd regret.

When I told her I was pregnant, she said: 'I hope the baby is like you, then you'll appreciate what I had to put up with.'

But by then I was used to her and didn't take too much notice. I now had my own life. Although the early marriage didn't work out, my ex and I are still friends. I have a long-lasting second marriage to a man who is an ideal partner, and as a bonus, had a wonderful mother I got on brilliantly with.

How was I with my own sons? I fell in love instantly and it has always seemed ridiculous to want to control their lives or try to belittle them. Instead, our relationship is easy and strong.

It's good to know that even if you have a horrid parent, you don't have to turn into one yourself.

www.myhorridparent.com

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